tw / cw: child abuse (past)
— This review contains spoiler (minimal) —
Phew, that was a one heavy story. Almost everyone, initially, were so morally grey in the story, but it is in a good way, and this is what drove the story as whole. Despite the colourful and vibrant colours of the book cover, the story is so far from that. It's a tale of life, on familial and self repent, forgiveness, with a pinch of deep friendship, and love, and religion. No, the story isn't some simple and clichés 'marriage in crisis' and getting back together with some typical misunderstanding and plot convenience on the side. It's more complex than that, and again, everyone, are sinners, and the story makes me think a lot, the progression, the honestly, and the raw feelings and emotions within the story. And every issues were handled responsibly. I was genuinely surprised that this was ER's debut novel over how great it still is, and coming from a first time reader of their work, I'm honestly impressed.
The character developments for each one of the characters (both MCs and the side characters) and their backstories are so well written and well expanded. I'm genuinely in awe and I couldn't stop thinking about how impactful the entire story is. The book started off slow for me, yet, now I think again, the author is putting a thorough storytelling on the tale, the first half really is just introducing us the top layer of the issue, seeming quite simple at first glance. Then shit started to get down literally midway of the story, that it feels like a huge whiplash directly onto my face, it's like the inside of an onion, full of layers that we never knew about. Everything had in depth reasoning why it happened, and we really shouldn't see only one side of each story.
I didn't cry as much, but I've never felt such a hard on emotional pain when reading a story, it was so gut wrenching and physically painful, that I literally had a hard time breathing throughout the story. The buildup of the storyline, from the MCs' main plot, to the side characters' sub plots were so well written and well intertwined with one another. The back and forth timeline were also well organised and it makes the story even more moving and sympathetic.
The multi-pov, giving showing raw and real emotions of the characters, and they're so effective and absolutely natural. It really does feel like it's a story of both of the MCs, and none of it ever felt one sided.
At first when reading, Syazwan sounds like an extreme arse, but thinking about it again, considering his situation, what he did (asking for abortion) was an absolute responsible person. Yes it was wrong berdasarkan agama, but considering the other factors, how he acts in addition to his PTSD / trauma, his thoughts and decision makes quite a lot of sense. And when moving forward, he really isn't what I think he was initially, and later half really answered why Maya still waited for him. It wasn't that simple 'cinta muda, cinta buta' without any explanation, no matter how bad it seems, what they went through early during their marriage was actually really beautiful.
Early on, the love triangle felt a bit cliche, but moving forward, I absolutely love how mature every were, and how they handled things, and how sane they are in such situation.
Oh, I bawled my eyes on the Nadia's part. The reminiscing pages about her broke me down entirely. Bless her through and through.
Also, the later final part of the story (falling action / resolution) were so healing and calming to read. It's just so fantastic when thinking back the entire thing that happened throughout the story. All I can think about is that, they really deserves it. It's just really nice.
I don't have much things that I dislike, but I guess the internal dialogues sometimes feel a bit comedical / childish? And honestly sometimes I wonder if the monologues are from the author itself, or from the characters themselves. Sometimes, some of these little monologues sounded way too similar to one another too, when in fact that it came from different people.
Also, cmiiw, I'm not sure if 'adik beradik tiri' is the correct term to refer to the Shazs relationship, aren't they supposed to be just adik beradik or half brothers instead? Because they are blood related right? Or there's something I'm missing here?
Final one, one thing that pissed me the most throughout the story is probably Shazwi's professionalism and his entirety of office misconduct. How can an employer act like that? Woowing his own employee, giving benefits blindly, discussing very personal matter during office hour, mixing personal issues into work, doxxing and bullying subordinate, power abuse, and simply rejecting notice of resignation, holy crap i would sue and call tenaga buruh for that. I know it's only part of the story, it's just due to my own personal background that contributes to why I dislike what he did haha.
Nevertheless, absolutely a great book. Probably one of my favourite/ top novella I've read. Fantastic writing, plots, characters, issues, and values. Highly recommended.