★★★☆☆½
Before starting I have to warn you that I might have left some unintentional spoilers in this review, though not too serious, and at least if you decide to read it you’ll know what you’re getting into, because I went completely blind -it was a gift, I had no knowledge of this book before- when I started it and well, let’s say that it wasn’t what I expected, but to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting anything so I wasn’t deceived either.
"When I met someone I liked, I wanted all of them, and fast."
I’ll try to summarize the plot of the book, though it’s not as extensive, guess that’ll make it easier? I don’t think so, but here it goes. Ava is a 23 year-old Irish girl who all of a sudden decides to move to Hong Kong to basically get as far as her family and Dublin as possible -personally, I don’t think it’s necessary to move to almost the other side of the world to do that, but whatever. Ava is a bit special, she doesn’t have friends nor wants to have them, but at the same time she downloads an app -we don’t know if it’s a dating app or just a make-friends app-, where she meets a man, Julian, whom she keeps meeting with for months, until one day they decide to make out. And from there they decide not to give what they have a label, they simply live together, they do everything together, but they sleep in different beds.
Julian introduces Ava to all his friends, so she joins his inner circle, though Ava feels like she doesn’t belong there, surrounded by so many British and expensive suits. But Ava lets herself go because thanks to Julian she doesn’t have to live in a hovel in the city shared with two more girls.
And one day Ava meets Edith, a rich progressive girl with clear ideas, and that will conquer Ava, who will want to become her. In this case Edith and Ava do give a label to their relationship, they’re girlfriends, though a part of the Hong Kong society doesn't really accept them. But there will be a moment where Ava will be forced to choose between Julian or Edith, who will she choose? Keep reading the review if you want to find out.
"I wanted other people to care more about me than I did about them."
All in all, the book seemed a vague try to be a Sally Rooney novel, adding some hypocritical radical-marxist-feminism. Let me explain myself. At the beginning of the book Ava seemed to have some values: an independent girl in a new place, she leaves home and flies as far as she can so she can’t be told that she can’t take care of herself, plus she hates classism, she can’t handle how there are people who live in palace-like flats when most of the society piles up in niches -though I think that Hong Kong is not the best option if you don’t like these things, but again, whatever-, and she also questions her workmates, and the role everyone play in the society she lives in, like how women are still pretty subjugated to the male figures that surround them.
But as the story with Julian moves forward, Ava becomes more and more lamb-like, she keeps losing her values, she lets herself go, to the point that she becomes a trophy woman, and Julian doesn’t even ask her opinion about things, he basically tells her what to do, what to say and think and she does as she’s said to. And when she meets Edith, Ava has lost most of her personality and all her values, and now that she’s met someone she admires for having her own ideas, which coincide more or less with the ones she used to have, she wants to adopt every trait of her person and become an identical copy, she wants to be her.
Though in her heart, Ava is aware of what’s happening to her, but she doesn’t do anything to change, it looks like she’s okay with everything that’s coming at her, especially when she’s with Julian. And when she finally has to decide between leaving with Julian or staying with Edith, she doesn’t know what to do and the book ends. I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me.
"The trouble with my body was that I had to carry it around with me."
Even so I have to say that I enjoyed the book, because just like Sally Rooney’s books, this one gave me mixed feelings. Despite everything I’ve said, I like these type of books, I enjoy how they make me think, how they make me see how’s life for other people, because even though they’re fiction with these kind of books you realize that everyone has their own story, everyone has their own problems and their own way to solve them, or even the option to ignore them and let themselves go with the flow of life. Because that’s how we are, imperfect, and it’s good that a book, a TV show, a film or a close person remind us of so.
Much love,
