First of all, I would like to compliment whoever came up with the cover. The reference to manicurist salons and neon lighting with the title and author's name is not only clever, but aesthetically pleasing.
As for the book itself, it's pretty obvious that the book is a labor of love. Susan Lieu spends a lot of time analyzing how the loss of her mother impacted her and her family for decades, and the journey it took her to accept not only her own unresolved emotions, but how the grief of her family manifested differently from her own. It's not easy to publicly declare one's emotional baggage or "dirty laundry" as she puts it, and I commend the author and her loved ones for taking that tremendous task.
Any parts that I didn't enjoy I will admit is a result of my own personal biases and trauma. Throughout the book, Susan Lieu describes her spiritual journey to acceptance of her mother's death, and that includes speaking to mediums, spirit channelers, and psychics. She also tends to hold a lot of faith in the spiritual and supernatural.
As someone who also grew up in an Asian culture with an enormous emphasis on spiritualism, I understand how the author came to be involved in said beliefs and derived comfort from them. However, as someone who has also seen the ugly side of those practices, the crippling reliance on external validation and vague prophecies, and the judgment of being deemed "unworthy" or "unlucky" by those false prophets for asking questions, I could not help but feel uncomfortable during chapters where the author went into detail about her methods to contact her mother supernaturally. While it seemed to have brought the author and her family some measure of peace, it just brought up a lot of bad memories for myself.
Thank you to BookishFirst for allowing me to obtain a free advanced readers' copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
As for the book itself, it's pretty obvious that the book is a labor of love. Susan Lieu spends a lot of time analyzing how the loss of her mother impacted her and her family for decades, and the journey it took her to accept not only her own unresolved emotions, but how the grief of her family manifested differently from her own. It's not easy to publicly declare one's emotional baggage or "dirty laundry" as she puts it, and I commend the author and her loved ones for taking that tremendous task.
Any parts that I didn't enjoy I will admit is a result of my own personal biases and trauma. Throughout the book, Susan Lieu describes her spiritual journey to acceptance of her mother's death, and that includes speaking to mediums, spirit channelers, and psychics. She also tends to hold a lot of faith in the spiritual and supernatural.
As someone who also grew up in an Asian culture with an enormous emphasis on spiritualism, I understand how the author came to be involved in said beliefs and derived comfort from them. However, as someone who has also seen the ugly side of those practices, the crippling reliance on external validation and vague prophecies, and the judgment of being deemed "unworthy" or "unlucky" by those false prophets for asking questions, I could not help but feel uncomfortable during chapters where the author went into detail about her methods to contact her mother supernaturally. While it seemed to have brought the author and her family some measure of peace, it just brought up a lot of bad memories for myself.
Thank you to BookishFirst for allowing me to obtain a free advanced readers' copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.