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If I Could Tell You
When nothing is really yours, not even the flat you grew up in, just where do you call home?
The residents of Block 204 have a few months before their building is torn down, before they are scattered throughout the island into smaller, assigned flats. All of them know they will still be struggling to fit their lives into the new flats years later but no one protests. No one talks about it even as they are slowly being pushed out of their homes.
Not Cardboard Lady, an eighty-year-old woman who sells scraps for a living. Not young Alex, who is left homeless after a falling out with Cindy. Not Ah Tee, who has worked at the coffee-shop on the ground floor of Block 204 for much of his adult life, and whose reaction to the move affects his neighbours in different ways.
For some, the tragedy that occurs during their last days in Block 204 is a reminder of old violence, aged wounds. For others, new opportunities transpire. If I Could Tell You is about silence, the keeping and breaking of it, and what comes after.
The residents of Block 204 have a few months before their building is torn down, before they are scattered throughout the island into smaller, assigned flats. All of them know they will still be struggling to fit their lives into the new flats years later but no one protests. No one talks about it even as they are slowly being pushed out of their homes.
Not Cardboard Lady, an eighty-year-old woman who sells scraps for a living. Not young Alex, who is left homeless after a falling out with Cindy. Not Ah Tee, who has worked at the coffee-shop on the ground floor of Block 204 for much of his adult life, and whose reaction to the move affects his neighbours in different ways.
For some, the tragedy that occurs during their last days in Block 204 is a reminder of old violence, aged wounds. For others, new opportunities transpire. If I Could Tell You is about silence, the keeping and breaking of it, and what comes after.
196 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 21, 2013
14 people are currently reading
850 people want to read
About the author
Jing-Jing Lee
9 books308 followersJing-Jing Lee is the author of HOW WE DISAPPEARED (Oneworld and Hanover Square Press, May 2019). Born and raised in Singapore, she graduated from Oxford’s Creative Writing Master’s in 2011 and has since seen her poetry and short stories published in various journals and anthologies. Lee's novella, If I Could Tell You, was published by Marshall Cavendish in 2013 and her debut poetry collection, And Other Rivers, was published by Math Paper Press in 2015.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
October 17, 2022
Singapore Arts Council sponsored, this is a wonderful novella looking at a public housing block been knocked down and the impact it has on a wide selection of it's inhabitants. Short, sweet and poignant. 8 out of 12
2013 read
2013 read
February 27, 2013
From neglected children and lost young adults, to the developmentally disabled and the forgotten elderly, If I Could Tell You is narrated by a wide range of multigenerational and multicultural voices. The setting for Lee Jing-Jing’s graceful debut novel is both exotic and excruciating: A condemned public-housing apartment building in Singapore. Most of its residents have been relocated. The skeleton crew of remaining occupants comprise “the old, the poor, people who have had trouble finding a new home.” The novel’s opening pages include a jumper from the upper floors lying dead on the pavement below.
The jumper’s death haunts the neighborhood if not the television news. “I guess it was much too ordinary,” muses a middle-aged unemployed electronics engineer, dismayed by the absence of media coverage. His thoughts return again and again to the tragedy. Soon his dreams are enveloped in apocalyptic imagery:
Lee Jing-Jing, currently living in Germany, has spoken in a newspaper interview about her public-housing upbringing in Singapore (the book’s cover photo, taken by the author, depicts a now-demolished block of apartments where her aunt once lived). While If I Could Tell You immerses us in poverty and broken lives, nothing here is sensationalized or made mawkish. The unwavering matter-of-factness of the storytelling yields enormous narrative and dramatic power as the novel unfolds.
Language barriers add to the isolation of some characters, such as an eighty-year-old Cantonese-speaking Chinese woman known in the neighborhood as “Cardboard Auntie” because she collects cardboard box scraps and sells them from a cart on the streets. Cardboard Auntie’s impoverished external life masks a roiling internal world of brutal memories (“Tch, I’ve seen worse. When the Japanese were here. Much worse”) and borderline delusional conversations with her deceased husband, whom she addresses as the Old One (“Old One, what do you want for lunch? Fan wat ze jook? Rice or porridge?”).
If I Could Tell You is not without a kind of mordant Hitchcockian humor: the jumper’s falling body is witnessed by multiple characters, often out of the corner of the eye, allowing the author to replay the gruesome event from a variety of subliminal perspectives (“something fell through the air, close enough that they felt and heard the whoosh as it went past them”). It’s a rare debut novel that’s written with such assured mastery of style and tone. The final pages give voice to a character whose despair is so complete that it would be unendurable for most of us. By focusing on the rich inner lives of its societal outcasts, If I Could Tell You tells us plenty: Lee Jing-Jing has written as fine a work of literary fiction as you’re likely to read this year.
The jumper’s death haunts the neighborhood if not the television news. “I guess it was much too ordinary,” muses a middle-aged unemployed electronics engineer, dismayed by the absence of media coverage. His thoughts return again and again to the tragedy. Soon his dreams are enveloped in apocalyptic imagery:
Then I was on the ground, below the block of flats, looking up while the building leaned to the right, tossing my wife and daughter out of the naked window. The building crashed to the ground like a felled tree, but slowly, silently, as if the weight of it was nothing more than a browned leaf, a scrap of paper. All the while, I just stood and watched and did nothing, my hands hanging by my sides, my feet heavy as rocks. The dream stayed with me the rest of the day. I could hardly look at my wife and daughter during breakfast.
Lee Jing-Jing, currently living in Germany, has spoken in a newspaper interview about her public-housing upbringing in Singapore (the book’s cover photo, taken by the author, depicts a now-demolished block of apartments where her aunt once lived). While If I Could Tell You immerses us in poverty and broken lives, nothing here is sensationalized or made mawkish. The unwavering matter-of-factness of the storytelling yields enormous narrative and dramatic power as the novel unfolds.
Language barriers add to the isolation of some characters, such as an eighty-year-old Cantonese-speaking Chinese woman known in the neighborhood as “Cardboard Auntie” because she collects cardboard box scraps and sells them from a cart on the streets. Cardboard Auntie’s impoverished external life masks a roiling internal world of brutal memories (“Tch, I’ve seen worse. When the Japanese were here. Much worse”) and borderline delusional conversations with her deceased husband, whom she addresses as the Old One (“Old One, what do you want for lunch? Fan wat ze jook? Rice or porridge?”).
If I Could Tell You is not without a kind of mordant Hitchcockian humor: the jumper’s falling body is witnessed by multiple characters, often out of the corner of the eye, allowing the author to replay the gruesome event from a variety of subliminal perspectives (“something fell through the air, close enough that they felt and heard the whoosh as it went past them”). It’s a rare debut novel that’s written with such assured mastery of style and tone. The final pages give voice to a character whose despair is so complete that it would be unendurable for most of us. By focusing on the rich inner lives of its societal outcasts, If I Could Tell You tells us plenty: Lee Jing-Jing has written as fine a work of literary fiction as you’re likely to read this year.
March 5, 2013
I read this book slowly, that's because I didn't want to miss anything, everything written was so vivid. I can picture myself into it, scene by scene (page by page).
It's very well written with different perspectives of multiple characters.
But I expected longer time frame of the stories.
It's very well written with different perspectives of multiple characters.
But I expected longer time frame of the stories.
November 17, 2014
Beginning in the 1950s Glasgow's clearance programme relocated some 300,000 of the city’s residents, many to so-called new towns like East Kilbride and Cumbernauld, others to the outskirts of the city in areas like Castlemilk, Drumchapel and Easterhouse. What could these people possibly have in common with residents in a tower block in Singapore? One word: community. If you’ve ever listened to someone who lived in one the affected areas—places like the Gorbals—you’ll understand. These were tight-knit communities where everyone knew everyone else and then overnight seemingly they were torn apart. And that’s what we have here.
Although this novel feels like a collection of short stories most don’t stand too well on their own but supported by their neighbours—see where I’m going with this?—they form a rounded out picture of what life has been like in Block 204 for the handful of residents whose lives we get to peek inside briefly. The book begins with Ah Tee:
It’s a sad beginning to what is essentially a sad book but it’s how Lee finds her way into the lives of the few hangers-on that are left because no one can ignore a dead body. But as one resident notes: “I knew the guy and never really saw him until he was dead.” Everyone has a story but so few of us get to tell ours. They’re not big stories. No one in Block 204 has lived an epic life. Most have simply managed to survive theirs.
Probably the most interesting of the characters—so much so that Lee is currently writing a sequel featuring her—is the woman everyone knows as Cardboard Auntie who refuses to subsist on hand-outs and so collects cardboard and drinks tins—things that were still useful—trading them in for a bit of money. She’s lived in Block 204 for forty years and wanders through most of the stories, in the background, but it’s not until late on in the book we learn her story and what exactly she meant when she said, “I could have been a mother but I let him die.” The same with Ah Tee. Like Cardboard Auntie he’s there—or at least the memory of him is there—throughout the book but he’s more than a corpse.
There are others— a nameless Bangladeshi worker who came to Singapore in hopes of finding a better future for himself and his family back home (I’m sure many Eastern Europeans in the UK will be able to relate to him), a young lesbian whose religious parents want nothing to do with her, a woman who had to sacrifice an education to care for her family, a taxi driver who believes in the local superstition that betting using numbers connected to a dead person will bring him luck, the boy and his dog who are on the ground when the jumper lands and see him die—and mostly their stories are told in two or three discontiguous segments, the first revealing a truth and then later we’re privy to a deeper truth. A good example is where we’re presented with events firstly from a wife’s perspective and then from the husband’ s when we learn why he’s surly. She’ll never know. Life will go on. In the new place.
This is the first book in years that I’ve read in one sitting. I was a kid the last time I managed that. It took me the best part of three hours but I just kept turning those pages. I’d never describe this book as a page-turner—gives the wrong impression—but the fact is it is. That any author could hold my attention like that is something. Okay it wasn’t the longest of books and that helped but still, kudos to her.
As always it puzzles the hell out of me how people could give a book like this one or two stars. But that’s the problem with stars and why I never use them on my blog. I’m giving the book five stars but if you were to ask me to list my top twenty favourite books she wouldn’t be on it and yet many authors who’ve got four stars would. (Not sure anything less than a four would.) I think the difference is staying power. If I even remember reading this book in two or three years’ times then who’s to say? But today I find myself quite taken with it and want to give away copies to all my friends.
There’s an interesting interview with her on her website here.
Although this novel feels like a collection of short stories most don’t stand too well on their own but supported by their neighbours—see where I’m going with this?—they form a rounded out picture of what life has been like in Block 204 for the handful of residents whose lives we get to peek inside briefly. The book begins with Ah Tee:
This place. He grew up here. He has lived in Block 204 all his life.How long that life has been we never find out. But he’s old. That we do know. And he’s just lost his job at the coffee shop:
He passed two other shops on his way. A hairdresser’s and a grocery store. Both closed; their owners had found some place else to set up their businesses and relocated long ago, unlike Boss, who decided to sell up, work for a larger chain of coffee shops—the money was better, he said, and it was less work. He looked abashed when he told this to Ah Tee, said he would try to get him another job, he would. That was months ago. Nothing had come of it.The neighbourhood is winding down. Those left—“the old, the poor, people who have had trouble finding a new home. Or those who put it off because it didn’t seem real”—have received their eviction notices: they have until the end of the month. Ah Tee is preparing to move—he’s got some boxes from Cardboard Auntie—but where to start? The next thing there’s a stir amongst the neighbours. A body is lying at the base of the block of flats: Ah Tee.
It’s a sad beginning to what is essentially a sad book but it’s how Lee finds her way into the lives of the few hangers-on that are left because no one can ignore a dead body. But as one resident notes: “I knew the guy and never really saw him until he was dead.” Everyone has a story but so few of us get to tell ours. They’re not big stories. No one in Block 204 has lived an epic life. Most have simply managed to survive theirs.
Probably the most interesting of the characters—so much so that Lee is currently writing a sequel featuring her—is the woman everyone knows as Cardboard Auntie who refuses to subsist on hand-outs and so collects cardboard and drinks tins—things that were still useful—trading them in for a bit of money. She’s lived in Block 204 for forty years and wanders through most of the stories, in the background, but it’s not until late on in the book we learn her story and what exactly she meant when she said, “I could have been a mother but I let him die.” The same with Ah Tee. Like Cardboard Auntie he’s there—or at least the memory of him is there—throughout the book but he’s more than a corpse.
There are others— a nameless Bangladeshi worker who came to Singapore in hopes of finding a better future for himself and his family back home (I’m sure many Eastern Europeans in the UK will be able to relate to him), a young lesbian whose religious parents want nothing to do with her, a woman who had to sacrifice an education to care for her family, a taxi driver who believes in the local superstition that betting using numbers connected to a dead person will bring him luck, the boy and his dog who are on the ground when the jumper lands and see him die—and mostly their stories are told in two or three discontiguous segments, the first revealing a truth and then later we’re privy to a deeper truth. A good example is where we’re presented with events firstly from a wife’s perspective and then from the husband’ s when we learn why he’s surly. She’ll never know. Life will go on. In the new place.
This is the first book in years that I’ve read in one sitting. I was a kid the last time I managed that. It took me the best part of three hours but I just kept turning those pages. I’d never describe this book as a page-turner—gives the wrong impression—but the fact is it is. That any author could hold my attention like that is something. Okay it wasn’t the longest of books and that helped but still, kudos to her.
As always it puzzles the hell out of me how people could give a book like this one or two stars. But that’s the problem with stars and why I never use them on my blog. I’m giving the book five stars but if you were to ask me to list my top twenty favourite books she wouldn’t be on it and yet many authors who’ve got four stars would. (Not sure anything less than a four would.) I think the difference is staying power. If I even remember reading this book in two or three years’ times then who’s to say? But today I find myself quite taken with it and want to give away copies to all my friends.
There’s an interesting interview with her on her website here.
December 23, 2022
Each high density public housing neighbourhood surely has many hidden stories. This was a tender account of many voices of a community of residents and workers at an old HDB block. They all face an impending move as their block is to be torn down, but the stories of their existing daily lives are only partly triggered by the move.
Their experiences are hauntingly related and it felt like each person had more to tell. Hope this makes us stop and “see” our neighbours in our neighbourhood with kind eyes!
Realised to read this novella after reading her other book, “How We Disappeared”. A reader somewhere had commented that she had expanded the story there, of one of the characters, the elderly lady here, who collects cardboard recycling and who has buried a tumultuous history. Am so glad for the ‘Old Man’ in her life.
Jing-Jing has a good voice.
Read the NLB ebook on Libby.
Their experiences are hauntingly related and it felt like each person had more to tell. Hope this makes us stop and “see” our neighbours in our neighbourhood with kind eyes!
Realised to read this novella after reading her other book, “How We Disappeared”. A reader somewhere had commented that she had expanded the story there, of one of the characters, the elderly lady here, who collects cardboard recycling and who has buried a tumultuous history. Am so glad for the ‘Old Man’ in her life.
Jing-Jing has a good voice.
Read the NLB ebook on Libby.
November 28, 2025
as someone whose childhood home recently suffered the same fate, this made for a vivid and bittersweet read. there is no sacred land in singapore. all land is state land. we live on borrowed time on borrowed land. (...i just want the government to give me a flat already can u tell)
June 27, 2022
Following the stories of different people living in the same building that are being forced out as the building is going to be demolished. Different souls, different stories, backgrounds, and experiences. The writing is exquisite. Lyrical and poetic, even when tragedy occurs. This is a book that was difficult to put down. Thankfully it wasn't lenghtly and I didn't have to.
June 3, 2020
While the book itself is very short, the way she crafted the characters and the story made you feel like you really get to know them very well. Highly enjoyable read.
May 16, 2013
“If I could Tell You” is a tender mosaic of the inhabitants of a tower block that faces destruction. The narration is omniscient and omnipresent, circling in and out of the buildings and the minds of its inhabitants. This forms an intriguing collage of voices, but Jing does not stop at intertwining the characters’ stories; they also reflect each other to give the reader insight in misconceptions and conflicting ideas.
Hovering in the corner of each person’s story is a man’s suicide. The death and its implications are present throughout the book, and there is an echo of a man’s quick fall in how the narrative progresses through the lives of the many characters. However, the suicide, or rather its immediately preceding moments, are pared back in a sensitive manner, and thereby form a frame as delicate as the lives of the other characters.
Much attention is given to details and objects, which reinforces the sense of day-to-day lives derailed and confused by the slow evacuation of the building. Stylistically, the dialogue almost blends with the narrative, and while this establishes a particular tone, I would not have minded if the dialogue had been kept more separate from the narrative as I sometimes felt that some characters’ voices were subdued by the many rich descriptions.
I recommend “If I could Tell You” to anyone interested in absorbing dramas. The strong characterisations, along with assured telling and discreet but palpably careful plotting, are what make this novel a thoroughly engaging read. In particular, some of the final chapters are both beautiful and haunting.
The story lingers with me, and I expect it will do so for some time.
Hovering in the corner of each person’s story is a man’s suicide. The death and its implications are present throughout the book, and there is an echo of a man’s quick fall in how the narrative progresses through the lives of the many characters. However, the suicide, or rather its immediately preceding moments, are pared back in a sensitive manner, and thereby form a frame as delicate as the lives of the other characters.
Much attention is given to details and objects, which reinforces the sense of day-to-day lives derailed and confused by the slow evacuation of the building. Stylistically, the dialogue almost blends with the narrative, and while this establishes a particular tone, I would not have minded if the dialogue had been kept more separate from the narrative as I sometimes felt that some characters’ voices were subdued by the many rich descriptions.
I recommend “If I could Tell You” to anyone interested in absorbing dramas. The strong characterisations, along with assured telling and discreet but palpably careful plotting, are what make this novel a thoroughly engaging read. In particular, some of the final chapters are both beautiful and haunting.
The story lingers with me, and I expect it will do so for some time.
June 23, 2014
A heartfelt and polyphonous examination of the lives of residents displaced by an en bloc HDB sale. The most tragic of these is Ah Tee, a coffee stall worker whose suicide at the start of the book is the connecting thread that ties all of the various narrative threads of this mosaic novel together. Characters come and go throughout the book, and by the end, we have a fairly comprehensive study of how they have been affected by the desperate voluntary death of a man to whom they paid so little attention while he was still alive. Many facets of Singaporean society are examined here, in careful and honest ways, and especial attention is paid to the marginalized and disenfranchised.
Because of the nature of this multifaceted examination, the novel does not have the feeling of progression, even at the end, when Ah Tee is finally given a voice in the days and weeks before his fatal leap from the top of the HDB block. The result is that the novel seems to exist in a bubble, as though by being evicted from their homes and forced to live elsewhere, the characters are flash-frozen in amber, unable to move forward. It's difficult to see a future for these people following the end of the book, even though a future must exist for them in that fictional realm. However, this may have been the author's intention, as uncomfortable as it may make the reader.
Because of the nature of this multifaceted examination, the novel does not have the feeling of progression, even at the end, when Ah Tee is finally given a voice in the days and weeks before his fatal leap from the top of the HDB block. The result is that the novel seems to exist in a bubble, as though by being evicted from their homes and forced to live elsewhere, the characters are flash-frozen in amber, unable to move forward. It's difficult to see a future for these people following the end of the book, even though a future must exist for them in that fictional realm. However, this may have been the author's intention, as uncomfortable as it may make the reader.
July 27, 2017
It was a very meaningful novel, looking into the lives of different people who had lived in the same HDB block for years and mingled with each other, and they had to move to new places because of the HDB redevelopment plans. I enjoyed the different glimpses into the lives of different people living in Block 204. It talked briefly about their past and their present, and compared between them. I too enjoyed how the author included details about how we (Singaporeans) led our lives in this era, comparing to the lives our parents' generation and grandparents' generation had led.
March 30, 2013
for me, this book is ok to be read but not as interesting as i want to...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 5, 2014
I enjoyed reading stories of people who live in a typical Singaporean housing development.
June 19, 2021
Singapore, in my mind, is a destination for high-end shopping and awesome food. You know, the one showcased in Crazy Rich Asians with its glass skyscrapers, rooftop dining and grand mansions. In this fairy tale version of Singapore, everyone is East Asian and crazy rich.
Jing-Jing Lee shows us a different Singapore in her novella, If I Could Tell You. The setting is a public housing unit known as Block 204. The authorities have slated the building for demolition. Most of the residents have already moved out.
To read the full review, please visit my website for Another Singapore.
Jing-Jing Lee shows us a different Singapore in her novella, If I Could Tell You. The setting is a public housing unit known as Block 204. The authorities have slated the building for demolition. Most of the residents have already moved out.
The only people left are the old, the poor, people who have had trouble finding a new home. Or those who put it off because it didn’t seem real until officials came with sheets of paper to paste on all the doors. Sheets of paper that used clipped, official words to say, this home it is not yours anymore you have until the end of the month.
To read the full review, please visit my website for Another Singapore.
November 1, 2017
This is a gorgeous book that relies entirely on the execution: on the stories of people who live in the block of flats. I love the writing - it's poetic, and relies a lot on imagery and shared experience. It goes into what lies unsaid in conversation.
"We stood there for a few minutes, leaning over the railing, looking down. There were people walking out of the building and in. People my age just coming back from school, this girl nearly toppling backwards from the weight of her schoolbag. There were a few elderly people playing chess or watching other people playing chess at the stone tables. There was the really old lady with the cart, going out with it empty and hoping to get cardboard and things to fill it with. And birds quarrelling on a branch, like they were fighting for space. We stood there and just watched. Maybe this was what he was doing last Monday. The man. Just staring and staring until he felt like he had to be down there, with all the other people. And the only way he could do it, the quickest way, the best way, was to jump."
"We stood there for a few minutes, leaning over the railing, looking down. There were people walking out of the building and in. People my age just coming back from school, this girl nearly toppling backwards from the weight of her schoolbag. There were a few elderly people playing chess or watching other people playing chess at the stone tables. There was the really old lady with the cart, going out with it empty and hoping to get cardboard and things to fill it with. And birds quarrelling on a branch, like they were fighting for space. We stood there and just watched. Maybe this was what he was doing last Monday. The man. Just staring and staring until he felt like he had to be down there, with all the other people. And the only way he could do it, the quickest way, the best way, was to jump."
August 14, 2020
This is a local story about Singapore, how many of us live in such a place.
This was where I lived when I started to live in as a young adult, and are familiar with what the author described.
The author is sensitive to her surroundings. Take for example, the cleaner cleaning the table. Many tend to ignore the cleaner and no acknowledgement is necessary. It is common, and the praying to the death for lucky numbers are also common. Once I saw a video of a young adult who was perched on the roof, undecided if he should jump. After 30 seconds of walking here and there and with the police trying to get close to this frantic young man, he decided to jump.
The video stopped there. It showed he jumped. It's something I could never erase from my memory.
Thanks JingJing, for writing so well, for capturing Singapore's nostalgia moment in this book.
A good read and an interesting one for a foreigner who thinks he/she knows Singapore well.
This was where I lived when I started to live in as a young adult, and are familiar with what the author described.
The author is sensitive to her surroundings. Take for example, the cleaner cleaning the table. Many tend to ignore the cleaner and no acknowledgement is necessary. It is common, and the praying to the death for lucky numbers are also common. Once I saw a video of a young adult who was perched on the roof, undecided if he should jump. After 30 seconds of walking here and there and with the police trying to get close to this frantic young man, he decided to jump.
The video stopped there. It showed he jumped. It's something I could never erase from my memory.
Thanks JingJing, for writing so well, for capturing Singapore's nostalgia moment in this book.
A good read and an interesting one for a foreigner who thinks he/she knows Singapore well.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 8, 2022
I’m obsessed. I’m fearing myself. I can’t put my right mind into it. I love everything about it. Some parts were used for the How we disappeared novel, which was exceptional as well. Everything is so vivid, everything’s so real, incredibly poignant. Vulnerable & it burns, burns so much, so fast, I wanna stop. Slow down as much as I could, for when I’m done, I am afraid I couldn’t experience such a voyage again… Maybe it is the way she writes,the way it makes me feel.It been a while, someone’s writing caught my attention so fondly. I would recommend it to anyone, everyone. This is not a novel, this is a dream, it felt like I’m there,as a ghost, invisible to everyone including Ah Tee.i was there flying around blk 204 & observing the residents. In this dream, I observe not only with my eyes, my heart swells when it is supposed to, my ankle tightens when I become too engrossed, like a drug I’m attracted to. I’m glad I came across her works, I guess the world isn’t so bad after all.
March 29, 2020
Went into this with great dread. I must say, this is my first novel by Lee and I didn’t enjoy it at first. The writing felt all over the place because it jumped from one character to another in each chapter. In fact, I left it to sit for one year before picking it up again - this time, I enjoyed it immensely. It was much better than the first time - it almost felt like it aged like fine wine. What I’m trying to say is, Lee’s writing is kind of like acquired taste, at least in this novel. I don’t know how she writes for her other novels but her writing in here reminds me of a mix between Orwell and Murakami. Can’t say that’s the best, but I actually finished this book with a semblance of happiness and satisfaction. It was a very interesting way of presenting the subtle chaos and complexities of human life.
Give her writing a chance!
Give her writing a chance!
December 18, 2024
I think this is Singapore author Lee Jing-Jing’s debut book. If so, I consider her effort quite commendable and I am giving her four stars. She has moved on to write more books including a book of poetry.
Based on her experience of growing up in a HDB flat, she has succeeded in weaving an interestingly captivating and moving account of life in such a community. Centred around mentally-challenged coffee shop worker Ah Tee’s suicide on the day he was retrenched by jumping off from his high-rise unit, Jing-Jing used clear, elegant and at times beautiful and poetic language to develop the characters in the neighbourhood whose block would soon be demolished.
I am confident that with her latent writing talent seen here, this will be yet another Singapore author in the mould of Goh Poh Seng in the making.
Based on her experience of growing up in a HDB flat, she has succeeded in weaving an interestingly captivating and moving account of life in such a community. Centred around mentally-challenged coffee shop worker Ah Tee’s suicide on the day he was retrenched by jumping off from his high-rise unit, Jing-Jing used clear, elegant and at times beautiful and poetic language to develop the characters in the neighbourhood whose block would soon be demolished.
I am confident that with her latent writing talent seen here, this will be yet another Singapore author in the mould of Goh Poh Seng in the making.
May 10, 2020
A book that once picked up is hard to put down. You follow the stories of different people living in the same building but all with their various stories and experiences. As Singaporeans, we are sometimes blind to things that we see so often, so reading about it is a good reminder of what we take for granted. You can also steal glimpses of the poet in Lee Jing-Jing, her beautiful observations and reflections.
The book captures stories that we are privy to, that the very people in the same house might not know, things that they might never say aloud to another human. That element makes this book very intimate. And in that intimate sense, the stories also come together to form a bigger one and makes us think about the ripple effect of our actions or inactions.
The book captures stories that we are privy to, that the very people in the same house might not know, things that they might never say aloud to another human. That element makes this book very intimate. And in that intimate sense, the stories also come together to form a bigger one and makes us think about the ripple effect of our actions or inactions.
August 3, 2019
Library loan, loved it so much I've just bought a copy to have on my shelf after lending to a friend. The HDB postcard mix is a frequent structure in Singapore lit because it's what we all experience, but she handles it with the question of death and change so fluidly here - big questions asked without being asked explicitly or overtly. Technically, the decision to hold and balance some of the traumatic events proportionally to the awareness of different people - beautifully done story beats. And the way she writes younger children is just very good, craftwise.
But it's here and ours and feels real in a way that makes me homesick while being at home.
But it's here and ours and feels real in a way that makes me homesick while being at home.
June 8, 2020
If I could tell you, would you have listened?
If I could tell you, would you have taken in my story?
Would the words, the thoughts, the ideas, still retain their form, their shape?
Or would they flow and merge to fit into the shape you formed of me?
If we could all tell our stories, would they still have been our stories? Or would our stories only be ours, if they never left us?
If I could tell you, would you have taken in my story?
Would the words, the thoughts, the ideas, still retain their form, their shape?
Or would they flow and merge to fit into the shape you formed of me?
If we could all tell our stories, would they still have been our stories? Or would our stories only be ours, if they never left us?
February 23, 2023
I admire the author's ability to write from the perspective of each of these characters we see associated to a HDB block in heartlands of Singapore. How she imagined their lives and how they witnessed and/or felt about the incident.
I didn't expect to feel so much as I finished the book. Glad to have stumbled upon the book at the local library.
I didn't expect to feel so much as I finished the book. Glad to have stumbled upon the book at the local library.
October 23, 2021
A book you can easily read in one sitting. Quite sad though.
January 31, 2023
The short stories are poetic, lyrical, and firmly woven together by a thread of grief and melancholy
January 21, 2024
Gut geschriebene Geschichte und die Figuren scheinen beinahe wie echte Personen oder Bekannte die man hat. Und wenn man "How we disappeared" kennt kommen einem einige Charaktere vertraut vor.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 3, 2022
a terrible thing happens at the beginning of this book but the main core of this novel is how everyone moves on from it. trauma is a passing element here to show how closeness does not equal intimacy or empathy. this lack of connection extends (up to a certain point) to the reader's investment in the cast of detached, lost characters. divided into different points of view of those involved in that terrible thing from the beginning, Lee presents a group of individual voices, each undergoing its own form of conflict, who feel most of the time like introductions than proper characters. unfortunately, the combination of an ensemble and a short period for development rarely equals a successful fleshing out of entities that might feel real--or important.
June 13, 2020
If I could Tell You is a compilation of stories told by inhabitants living in HDB that is pending demolition. The different characters’ stories portrayed the diff mindsets of people and intertwined / revolved around a suicide that happened within that particular HDB block. HOWEVER, it is NOT a thriller book. Rather, from the stories, you get a sense of the day-to-day lives of each character and how they are affected / influenced by the demolition of the HDB/ the suicide.
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I’m going to be very honest and tell you that this book is disappointing. Like very disappointing.... Maybe I expected too much from it?? It was painfully slow and very dull. Very descriptive but still dull. I dont know, it just didnt work for me? Like it didnt come to life as much or was not as vibrant as I thought it would be.
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I hated that i didnt really get to know any of the characters much because of the writing style. I mean yes, the fact that there were multiple accounts was interesting but even then, there wasnt much room for character development. Maybe the author’s trying to keep it as realistic as possible but... idk. My mother said that if you have nothing good to say, then dont say it at all so.. i’m going to stop the review here 😭😭😭
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Overall rating: 2/5
Ease of reading: 2/5
Character development: 1/5
World building: 2/5
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Again... no quotes because I didnt not enjoy this book. I’m not even sure how I managed to push myself to finish it 💔
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I’m going to be very honest and tell you that this book is disappointing. Like very disappointing.... Maybe I expected too much from it?? It was painfully slow and very dull. Very descriptive but still dull. I dont know, it just didnt work for me? Like it didnt come to life as much or was not as vibrant as I thought it would be.
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I hated that i didnt really get to know any of the characters much because of the writing style. I mean yes, the fact that there were multiple accounts was interesting but even then, there wasnt much room for character development. Maybe the author’s trying to keep it as realistic as possible but... idk. My mother said that if you have nothing good to say, then dont say it at all so.. i’m going to stop the review here 😭😭😭
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Overall rating: 2/5
Ease of reading: 2/5
Character development: 1/5
World building: 2/5
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Again... no quotes because I didnt not enjoy this book. I’m not even sure how I managed to push myself to finish it 💔
February 1, 2017
Rating: 5.75/10
This book is a collection of intersecting shorts based around a HDB building being torn down in Singapore and all the residents being displaced to newer smaller homes. I bought it while in Singapore at Kinokuniya. For those close to me, you'll know my beautiful wife is Singaporean and I guess I wanted to get some literary insight into her homeland. Jing Jing is Singaporean.
The book starts slow and the voices are unconvincing, but then it picks up and life starts to develop in the characters narratives. By the end of it I was actually quite invested. Started in the fours and ended nearly as a six (out of ten). A short satisfying read.
1/10 - Perfect for starting a cozy fire at home.
2/10 - Drudgery. Not even worth borrowing from a friend.
3/10 - Forgettable.
4/10 - Maybe some pockets of goodness, but still forgettable.
5/10 - A mostly fulfilling read. While some things left me feeling ‘bleargh’, there was more to like than dislike.
6/10 - A satisfying and at most times a compelling read.
7/10 - Definitely worth the time, brilliant writing, recommended heartily.
8/10 - Will most likely recommend it to your cat it's that good.
9/10 – How is this writing even possible? A book you put down even three pages and think, “Are you for real?”. A true masterpiece.
10/10 - …
This book is a collection of intersecting shorts based around a HDB building being torn down in Singapore and all the residents being displaced to newer smaller homes. I bought it while in Singapore at Kinokuniya. For those close to me, you'll know my beautiful wife is Singaporean and I guess I wanted to get some literary insight into her homeland. Jing Jing is Singaporean.
The book starts slow and the voices are unconvincing, but then it picks up and life starts to develop in the characters narratives. By the end of it I was actually quite invested. Started in the fours and ended nearly as a six (out of ten). A short satisfying read.
1/10 - Perfect for starting a cozy fire at home.
2/10 - Drudgery. Not even worth borrowing from a friend.
3/10 - Forgettable.
4/10 - Maybe some pockets of goodness, but still forgettable.
5/10 - A mostly fulfilling read. While some things left me feeling ‘bleargh’, there was more to like than dislike.
6/10 - A satisfying and at most times a compelling read.
7/10 - Definitely worth the time, brilliant writing, recommended heartily.
8/10 - Will most likely recommend it to your cat it's that good.
9/10 – How is this writing even possible? A book you put down even three pages and think, “Are you for real?”. A true masterpiece.
10/10 - …
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