The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

 

My thoughts 

This book was one of my BOTM picks in December. I had heard good things and it did not disappoint. It is a first for me by this author. I both listened to it and read along. 

In just about any book you will learn something. It might be nothing more than a new word. Or it might be a whole section of a war that you did not know existed. A part that until you get lost in the pages of a book were lost to you. I had no idea just how much WW2 was brought to British-colonized Malaya, now Malaysia. How the Japanese were set to take over with the promise of making it more Asian. How horrible the Japanese turned out to be. The horrors the children saw and experienced. 

This is the story of a family, the Alcantara family. A mother, father and three children. One son and two daughters. What happens in this story is mind blowing. A part of history I never heard of. Never knew existed. How the soldiers would use the children as sex objects. Railway workers that are both mentally, physically, and sexually assaulted. Boys were taken off the streets and many never heard from again to work building railways. Girls, little, young, girls used by grown men. And women it seemed caused each other much pain too. Instead of working together to make things better they tended to back stab. Think some are much better because they were whiter. 

The main character in this story is Cecily Alcantara. She is unhappy with her life so starts sneaking around slipping papers she stole from her husband to another man. A man who said he was trying to make things better. Trying to help. Helping the Japanese. You get a good idea of what is going on between these too and how both have agendas for doing what they are doing. Though she really does believe she is doing the right thing in helping. 

Her son goes missing and you hear from him what he is going through. Their oldest daughter works in a tea house serving some pretty bad soldiers. Japanese soldiers. Their youngest daughter is kept hidden in fear of them coming for her. She's eight years old.

This story is told between 1935 and 1945. A ten year span of time. It's told from Cecily and her children's povs. You'll have a great picture of each of these people. This story is honestly not for someone that doesn't want to know the horrors of what happened back then. Even thought this is a fiction historical book based on stories this author managed to get from her grandmother. So it's based on truths.

I had to give this book FIVE big stars. It's well written. Pulls at your heart. Brings the tears on. Teaches you something. The author did a great job. 

Narrated by Samantha Tan. She did a great job with this story. 

About

A 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.