In One Word: Confusing.
A Beautiful Sentence: “To know perfection and then have it ripped away from you…”
The Plot: In an alternate 1947, Singapuran boy-soldier Naufal Jazair bonds with the merlion Bahana to defend his nation against an aggressive neighbor. Meanwhile, in a dystopian 2047, SAF officer Titus Ang enters Naufal’s universe to retrieve a merlion, aiming to save Singapore from the Concordance, a hive intelligence threatening humanity’s remnants.
This is a book I don’t know where to start. It is a very dense book where more simplicity would probably have helped to create a clearer story. Reading it right after The Gatekeeper by Nuraliah Norasid, didn’t help either. But as simple and sensitive as her book was, this one is far more complicated and brutal.
Let’s start with the first narrative that focuses on Naufal Jazair and his merlion, Bahana. The way the two build up their relationship is very well balanced between the despair of being in a situation none of them truly understands. The author knew how to zoom in on these feelings of loneliness, trust, and, eventually a sparkle of joy.
Seeing how that deep understanding between Naufal and Bahana develops is where I really got into the story. At the same time, I felt sometimes frustrated to see how details could take over the story. For example, there is a secondary character who has the same name as Naufal. I got very confused that sometimes we were talking one Naufal and, at other times, the other. A detail like this pulled me away from the relationship I wanted to stay with. For me, that relationship was what this book was about.
Which brings me to the second narrative with Titus Ang being thrown into Naufal’s universe. I could kind of follow the story initially. But then there was the moment of the actual transportation. It became very difficult for me to truly understand what I was reading. It went from one voice to another, one period to another, and one new new anecdote to another. I found myself scrambling to understand where we were on one page, finally get it, and then have to start all over again.
At the same time, the author throws in new storylines, like the fate of Commander Salelah’s baby, which didn’t really add to the overall story. But then the author also doesn’t deepen the story of characters that do matter, like the Concordance, the viallain. It is a hive. And that is all we get to know about it.
I think the most difficult aspect of writing a book is to know what not to write, probably even more than what to write. I read the book until the end because of that amazing story between Naufal and Bahana. But I can’t avoid wondering if this would have been an even better story if the author had just focused on that one story and dug deeply into it.
Takeaway:
A book to read for the unconventional story about the soldier Naufal and Bahana, but you will have to put up with endless new storylines, characters, and details that take your attention away from the real story.