Bad Fruit: An astonishing, gripping new crime thriller debut novel from a hot literary fiction voice of 2023
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Bad Fruit: An astonishing, gripping new crime thriller debut novel from a hot literary fiction voice of 2023
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Overall, this is an incredibly well written novel that has you full of questions from the start and you do get answers. The pace is pitched extremely well and I genuinely couldn’t put it down as this is a psychological thriller that has you in its grip throughout. Highly recommended.
true that the mother-daughter relationship was nuanced, as were the main character's other relationships, and the author excels at writing the duality and complexity of their dynamics. yet, it still did not pull me into the story. i was not invested at all, which was probably why i was able to fall asleep three times. really, i don't have anything particularly bad to say about the book because i was simply bored. it just didn't do it for me. This book totally destroyed me on multiple levels, and I know it will haunt me for a while to come! Without revealing too much, we view the story from the point of view of Lily, a girl about to go off to Oxford. She struggles with the idea of leaving her close relationship with her mother behind, particularly as we gradually see the twisted dependence between mother and daughter. Would Lily's 'mama' function without her daughter, her 'doll'? The 'Bad Fruit' of the title is not just the referring to the mother's taste for soured juice, but giving us a metaphorical insight into the impact parenting can have on the trajectory of children's lives from generation to generation. We are left wondering what really lies at the heart of this strange family and how any of them can escape the destructive cycle of dependence and anger we bear witness to.Our main character Lily is on the brink of attending her dream college in the fall. She only has two remaining months to survive her mother’s moods and catering to her demands. She wants and needs to get away! The novel is told from the perspective of Lily, an 18-year-old first generation British-Chinese woman and is largely about her relationship with her Chinese Peranakan mother. With two other siblings who have both moved out of home, Lily is having a crisis of identity, both her racial identity as multi-racial "ang moh gui, white devil", and coming of age and deciding where she ends and her mother begins, which is complicated by trauma. Looking different from her mother is problematic for them both: "It doesn't escape me: her whitening her skin while I'm yellowing mine." Their love language is food and culture. Peranakan food "the taste of okak otak, fish cake grilled in banana leaves, the deep spice of bak kut teh, pork rib tea" are the ways they connect, and sour juice (for which the book is named), is the way they rip apart.
This book was more than just a thriller to me, it was about the characters, especially Lily and learning along with her. Ella King has done a wonderful job of building the story in a way that makes you feel like you are going at the same pace as Lily. Ella takes time to let you as a reader learn what the family dynamic is like and form your own questions on what has made the characters the way they are. The subjects of abuse, generational trauma and their effects are covered very well in my opinion and I felt like I truly learned something from reading this book. May, in particular, is a mother out of nightmares, tyrannical and manipulative one moment, child-like and vulnerable the next. What was the most interesting for me was how Lily knew that he mama was in the wrong, was unhinged, did bad things, and yet we see her come to her defense more towards some points of the book and Jules trying to break her sister out from under their mama, but then for Lily to finally be ready to break away, get away and leave all her family behind since she has finally been able to strand up against her mama AND THEN JULES IS LIKE WELL YOU COULD JUST LET IT ALL GO AND USE THIS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! I was really hoping Lily would be able to escape with her sister and they’d break away from the control, toxic manipulation of their mother together, The story is absolutely messed up and often very messy, which the author captures perfectly in writing, managing to still portray each and every one of the characters in a relatable way, even at their craziest, which is no mean feat and makes this a masterpiece of storytelling. As a storm of memories builds over one stifling summer, Lily must recast everything. What if her house isn’t a home – but a prison? What if her mother isn’t a protector – but a monster . . .In her interview, Ella talks to us about her writing journey, the influences and life experiences that shaped it, and shares the inspiration behind her anticipated debut novel, published in August 2022 by HarperFiction. Lily is such a moving protagonist, even when she is trapped under her mother’s thumb. We spend the novel following her attempts to change the status quo and undo the cycle of violence, as she tries and fails. The synopsis explains: “Dark, reading group fiction at its best, Bad Fruit is an explosive portrayal of generational trauma. It tells the story of 17-year-old Lily Clarke who knows exactly how to calm Mama when she’s in a rage; she arranges her teddy bears, lays out her best lingerie and pours her a glass of perfect, spoilt orange juice. But when memories of her mother’s childhood in Singapore start to surface, Lily unravels the harrowing history casting shadows on her family, and the shattering secret threatening to unleash a darkness in Lily herself.”
All her life, Lily has had a special ability to “handle” her mother, to baby her or manipulate her just enough to lighten the emotional load for her siblings and father. The family walks on eggshells, they live with a woman they can’t stand, but they love her so fiercely, and they need the support she so often withholds, so they cannot leave.
This is a novel about a complicated mother-daughter relationship and everything that goes with it. The trauma, the abuse, the doubts and the guilt. But also the difficulty to see things realistically when you’re part of it. It is sometimes so subtle and sometimes so loud, the author really nailed the complexity of it. We meet Lily in the summer just before she’s due to start university, she’s secured a place at Oxford – her future looks bright. She lives with her parents in Greenwich, South-East London and has two older siblings: a sister, Julia and a brother, Jacob. Books like this typically hit me right in the heart. How can they not? The idea of a child being abused by anyone much less their own parents that should love them unconditionally is heartbreaking. I don’t think I have read any fiction carrying a dysfunctional family theme with this bunch of mental health issues before. This would be the first, and it amazes me on how I actually enjoyed it a lot— although I would say, it was stressful, harrowing and quite blistering too. Spread the Word’s Emily Ajgan interviews debut novelist Ella King about her novel Bad Fruit, a literary thriller about a dark, unravelling relationship between mother and daughter.
- Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
- EAN: 764486781913
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