I purchased this book for my own personal collection.
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: March 28, 2023
Summary:
Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country
Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility–something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love.
By the time they are teens, Ah Boon and Siok Mei are caught in the tragic sweep of history: the Japanese army invades, the resistance rises, grief intrudes, and the future of the fishing village is in jeopardy. As the nation hurtles toward rebirth, the two friends, newly empowered, must decide who they want to be, and what they are willing to give up.
An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty of defining home when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath people’s feet.
My thoughts:
I picked this book up on a whim last year and it sat on my shelf just waiting to be read. I was so glad that I saw my bookfriend Jude was doing a buddy read for it this month – it was just the push I needed to read it. And now I’m kicking myself for waiting so long to get to it…I absolutely loved this book and our discussion only enriched my love for it.
This multi-generational saga pulled me in right from the start and I found myself totally immersed in the story. Set in a time and place I was not familiar with, I was fully invested in what was happening. This is why I love reading historical fiction because I find I learn so much and that definitely happened here. I think this might have been the first book I’ve read set in Singapore during WWII and it certainly was the first I had heard of the land reclamation projects that happened in Singapore, though upon further research I did find that this is what they did in parts of NYC, too.
I loved the relationships that were portrayed in this story and how we see the family dynamics change over time. We see the characters struggle with change, which makes them so easy to relate to on many levels. What is the cost of change and what happens to the heritage and culture of a small fishing village? Is it possible to have both?
If you love sweeping historical fiction and epic generational sagas, then I highly recommend this book. It was such a fascinating read and one I know I will not be forgetting anytime soon.
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