It's truly astonishing how long it has been since I've written a full-blown book review. I had been "on hiatus" several months before lock-down, so I didn't even have the perfectly good excuse of feeling kind of overwhelmed and depressed (and frankly if anything I am working more hours than before the pandemic) that would explain why I wasn't writing my reviews. But that's water under the bridge now. I will write this double review (technically reviews 6 and 7) and then wrap up three partially written reviews, which would get me to 10. That's probably all I can realistically get through by next Tuesday! (And this still leaves it a bit up in the air when I will finish a review of a Chinese urbanism textbook, but that is definitely on my to-do list for early July.) Anyway, before I get started, I should say that there will be SPOILERS ahead.
As a general rule, I am very hesitant to supply TRIGGER WARNINGS, but in this case I should, but the Trigger Warnings themselves will SPOIL some of the plot points, which is why I need to indicate to flag a SPOILER ALERT as well.
SPOILERS/TRIGGERS AHEAD
The Nap-Away Motel by Nadja Lubiw-Hazard includes extensive drug use (though not glorification of drug use), violence towards women, a child being run-over by a car and killed (off-page), hate speech directed at a gender fluid character, a death by shooting and the death of a kitten!
That Time I Loved You by Carrianne Leung revolves around a number of suicides (3 or 4) and then one suicide attempt is discussed midway through the book, bullying, racist slurs being directed at minors and a teacher losing control and hitting a Black student (discussed after the fact).
The Nap-Away Motel (with its deceptively attractive cover) is very much a young adult (YA) novel looking to explore contemporary issues facing children and particularly children who are outsiders due to their race, religion or sexual orientation. This may well be the only YA novel I've reviewed on this blog. It is a very, very heavy book and personally I was more emotionally drained rather than uplifted by the fact that the characters persevered through these challenging events. In fact, there was a strong suggestion that, Tiffany, the youngest of the three rotating narrators, would be harmed (or even killed) by her mother's drug-dealing boyfriend. If that had happened, I don't think I could have in good faith recommended this book to anyone.
I would say that while most of the stories in That Time I Loved You are focused on children and their experiences in suburban Scarborough, this is more of a retrospective look at childhood in Scarborough (pre-amalgamation). While broadly appropriate for a YA audience, I think it is really angled more at a Gen X readership, given that the various things that happen are filtered through a 1970s lens (and may be a bit incomprehensible to today's youth...). Of the two, I certainly felt more connected to That Time I Loved You, as this corresponded reasonably well to my childhood (in the suburb of a much smaller city than Toronto) and it had more light, amusing moments to offset the heavier ones.
I will apologize for not recalling all the details of The Nap-Away Motel, but I read it many, many months ago. Essentially all the action takes place at a rundown motel in Scarborough. It may actually be called The Nap-Away Motel (a not-too-subtle hint that this is a place for daylight assignations and thus is kind of a scuzzy place mostly used by hookers and their johns). However, as is often the case at these urban motels, there are some marginalized people hanging out in the room, mostly trying to avoid the prying eyes of the authorities. It could have been an interesting (if perhaps too jaded) story if it was told through the eyes of the motel owners, but they are a largely invisible presence in the novel. The chapters alternate between 3 narrators: Ori, Tiffany and Suleiman. Ori is a teenager who alternates between presenting as male or female, depending on the situation (generally mostly as male when out on the streets searching for Carter, his older brother, and generally as female when back at the motel and helping look after Tiffany). Reading between the lines, it is quite clear that Carter has had a major psychotic episode and is running around Toronto without any medical attention and probably without shelter as well. I'm definitely forgetting some details, but I think Ori and Carter were foster children, which certainly did not help matters.
Suleiman is actually an adult who has moved out of his house due to the stress that followed when his wife, Khadija, ran over and killed their daughter, Amina, in the driveway. Despite some counselling (and reading some books on how Muslims deal with grief) Suleiman cannot get his anger under control and the remnants of the family are breaking apart. I probably should pause right here and say that the spin that is put on this is frankly infuriating, particularly the times when the author essentially endorses Khadija's position that it is Suleiman who is in the wrong. There were several times I came close to abandoning the book over this finding fault with the "angry male" who has every right to be critical of his wife. I know that I would never be able to forgive someone, even my wife, if they had contributed to the death of one of my children. Of course, I wouldn't even attempt to make peace in my heart, and the story would have gone in a very different direction. I think I'll basically skip over the rest of the Suleiman chapters, as they clearly rubbed me the wrong way.
The third, and youngest, narrator is Tiffany. She lives in the motel with her mother, Shelley, who is frankly a hot mess. While she occasionally tries to straighten herself out, she is easily brought back into using drugs by her new boyfriend. Tiffany's older half sister, Nikki, lives with her father and occasionally drops by and tries to help Tiffany out. One of the ways these different residents interact is by helping raise a litter of kittens (the mother cat gave birth in the parking lot of the motel). Most of them seem to thrive, even in this unsuitable environment, though one doesn't make it. It's an interesting book and probably one for readers who thrive on drama, but it really was too heavy for me and the passing of time hasn't changed my feelings about it.
That Time I Loved You is also set in Scarborough but a family-oriented neighbourhood (in fact a fairly new subdivision). This feels pretty familiar to me. The block I grew up on was more established, but a whole subdivision was built across the street around the time I was in high school. There are other commonalities in that kids were basically left to their own devices (free-range parenting), which is a real rarity these days. What is different from my childhood is that most of the new couples and families moving into Scarborough were racial minorities, predominantly Chinese or from Hong Kong, and my hometown was mostly white. Leung points out there are some significant class differences between these different families. In many but not all cases, both parents were working (something that was becoming far more common as I grew up in the 70s -- and my brother and I were definitely latchkey kids) but sometimes they worked office jobs and sometimes one of the partners was a nurse or a mechanic. The book is described as a series of interlocking stories. The first story sets the tone that not everything as idyllic as it seems in the suburbs by starting right off into a discussion of the many parents who committed suicide in the neighbourhood (hunting rifle, drinking bleach, hanging and then a fourth parent who perhaps inadvertently drank himself to death). So there is definitely a bit of a pall that hangs over the streets, though the kids, being kids try to ignore it, though they have been taught a lesson early on that adults don't always have all the answers. It's not a deeply profound message but the stories are generally pretty interesting and definitely do tap into a nostalgic vein.
Five of the ten stories are about June (pretty clearly a stand-in for the author) and her friends Josie, Nav and Darren. Both Josie and June are interested in the same boy, Bruce, and it is unclear if this will drive them apart at some point. There is a sixth story about a slightly older girl, Rainey, who moves to the neighbourhood with her mom after her father dies of a heart attack (slightly breaking the pattern). Rainey is struggling to make connections and, more generally, to care about life. She does eventually connect with the boy whose mother killed herself by drinking bleach. The remaining four stories are told by the adult neighbours, though in one case it is narrated by June's grandmother and June and Nav feature prominently in this story as well. Only one of them really stuck out a bit awkwardly (Fences, perhaps the obligatory story about suburban infidelity), but the collection might have been a bit stronger (or at least easier to market) if the stories had all been about (and narrated by) children. I suppose I could unpack a few of the stories a bit more, but I think I'll stop here and not step all over them and give away too much of the plot.
No comments:
Post a Comment