jamesrcole

I wanted to write down my thoughts without being influenced by what others have said about it, so I apologise for any things that others have already said that I'm repeating. I'll read the other comments after posting this. I liked the book. Felt it had a substantial story, and some interesting observations. The writing was mostly pretty good -- it was clear and pleasant to read, and some nice little bits of imagery. My thoughts: On a personal note, I, like the children in the book, am half Chinese half Caucasian, and this was the first book that I've read with characters with that racial background. It was interesting for me to see about the racism that James, his parents, and the children came up against. I live in Australia, and was born the year after the novel is set -- there was a fair amount of racism towards asian people in Australia when I was growing up (but much less these days), but in my case, I don't look that Chinese, so many people don't even realise I have asian heritage. Which meant that I didn't get much racism directed towards me personally, but I was pretty aware of the racism that did go on, and was in the weird situation where people would make racist statements about asian people in my presence, where presumably they didn't know I had that background. Anyway, I'm glad I read the book. I hadn't heard of it before this podcast. I've never done a book club thing before, either. Looking forwards to seeing the other discussion.

I started yesterday. Currently part way through chapter two.