Bitter Leaves by Tabatha Stirling

2.5 Stars

This is quite a troublesome book to review, in the back of your mind you know that there is doubtless a way you should view and approach the topics dealt with within the pages but then there is the enjoyment of the written word to be taken in to consideration too.  This leads to quite an interesting personal dichotomy.  However, as this is a work of fiction it does, in my opinion, have a duty to entertain so I am going to review based purely on that aspect and not the somewhat murkier waters that this book is intended to take you two.

Bitter Leaves is a tale of 4 women from one location in the Singaporean suburbs.  Two maids (Lucilla and Shammi) and two madams (Eunice and Lesley).  This is where my problems with the book began the maids - their voices fade in and out of almost pidgeon English to a sophisticated Western English which jars, initially, with the opening of each of their tales.  Why not just give them a more sophisticated voice to express their individual lots in life instead of at first muddying the two together and then moving to the more sophisticated narrative?  This, fortunately settles down after a couple of chapters from each maid's perspective and makes for an easier read as you are not jumping from style to style within one narrative.  My second issue was that the Madams were treated with little sympathy in the book - particularly in Eunice's case she is described as an unremitting monster until relatively late in the book. 

I also found the book quite disturbing, not because of the social commentary or of the massive divide between the have and have nots in a burgeoning society that clings to a hierarchy that is no longer really relevant in a world that is becoming increasingly homogenised.  It was the emotional manipulation within the book that disturbed me.  I am not unaware of the slave trade that flourishes throughout the world under a different name, I am not unaware that terrible atrocities are committed to people caught up in the system who have so few options open to them through extreme poverty that this is the only escape they can garner.  Unfortunately the book seemed to be busily telling me about how horrible it all is and how desperately bad I should feel for these people who are being manipulated in this way; so busy tugging on the emotional responses for one group of people that a larger picture was ignored.  In their own unique way every person in this book is irretrievably damaged by the world that they inhabit.  Whether caused by Cultural bias ingrained in them from childhood, by misuse of them by others or simply by the choices they have made that have caused them to be transplanted to this strange cultural hot house.

All four tales are rather unremittingly bleak if I am being honest and you do not walk away feeling enlightened or enriched - you walk away feeling that you have contributed to the downfall of these women.  Even Shammi's redemption feels fleeting and too little too late from her Ebony Ma'am.

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE