Where Is Your Bookmark? Book Beginnings and Friday 56 of The Storm We Made

A weekly meme where readers share the first sentence of the book they are reading and say what they think. Hosted by the amazing Gillion Dumas of Rose City Reader.

Teenage boys had begun to disappear.  [opening of The Storm We Made]

A weekly meme in which readers share a random sentence or two from page 56 or 56% of the book they are reading. Our wonderful host Freda of Freda's Voice is on a break, but Anne of My Head is Full of Books has stepped in to host!

Toddy was easier. It helped him reach inside himself for the simplicity of inaction; it curbed the urge inside of him that always wanted to strive for better. Because the only thing to reach for in the miserable life he'd been given was survival. So he stumbled back to the nearest tree he could find and poured the bottle down his throat. Toddy helped him survive. [excerpt from 56% of The Storm We Made]

I just started reading The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan, which I have been excited to start. From the opening line, I can tell this book will be a heartbreaking. I have not yet reached the 56% mark, but pulled an excerpt to share with you. I can read--almost feel--the hopelessness the character must be feeling. 

A spellbinding, sweeping novel about a Malayan mother who becomes an unlikely spy for the invading Japanese forces during WWII—and the shocking consequences that rain upon her community and family.

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.

Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.

A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fuijwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an “Asia for Asians.” Instead, Cecily helped usher in an even more brutal occupation by the Japanese. Ten years later as the war reaches its apex, her actions have caught up with her. Now her family is on the brink of destruction—and she will do anything to save them.

Spanning years of pain and triumph, told from the perspectives of four unforgettable characters, The Storm We Made is a dazzling saga about the horrors of war; the fraught relationships between the colonized and their oppressors, and the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake. [Goodreads Summary]

Does this book interest you? Have you read it? What book do you have your bookmark in now?

 I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Be sure and tell me what you are reading!

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