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FREELOVE
"In Oceania's literary history when the cultural, artistic renaissance, with its genesis in independence movements of 1960s and 70's, was coming to gradual stillness, in midst of political turmoil and authoritarian rule, an audacious new talent blazed into the writing Sia Figiel who gave us the prize-winning novel, Where We Once Belonged (1997). She was not only an ingenious prose writer, but also a seductive poet and an astounding performer, exactly the sort of free spirit required to rekindle much needed hype around Pacific writing. There is similar buzz once again; her new novel Freelove (2015) is building an epiphanic connection across borders with island writers and friends of Pacific writing, setting up the conditions of its production and immediate reception. This extra-narrative is a satellite event around the novel in which we are on wings of imagination voyaging with the seventeen and half year old Star Trek fanatic from Nuuolemanusa, Western Samoa, exploring new empires of life, love, and language, where no one has been before. The locus of the novel is 'the colonising moment', poetic conflation of time and space, history and memory, in which the protagonist, Sia, raised both extra-terrestrially and with the subaltern kuaback folks, is in a red pick-up truck with her teacher of science, and brother who is her lover. But she cannot be kept captive in relationship, and thus drifts in many directions beyond taboos, constraints of 'the moody language', history and gender, riding stream of thought and consciousness. The quest is mostly inner directed towards many riddles of love. Love is the great integer that makes the ocean flow, the visionary energy that reconciles day and night, meetings and separations, and yearning for each other. That love is for the bravest and wisest and resides in the innermost resources of the self and in the moral order of the galaxy. It reveals to the sagacious voyager 'we triumph conquering ourselves, not others'. The instrument of conquest is language that, in the novel, welds together metaphors of scientific spirit and poetic beauty, fa'asamoa and newness, fusing height and depth, serious and hoaxing game, exhaling deluge of love, and ultimately engendering an incorrigible optimism."--Professor Subramani, Fiji National University
"Sia Figel pushes the boundaries of conventional Pacific storytelling in an explicit tale of love and lust. FREELOVE is a love story between Sia, a Samoan teenager at the cusp of adolescence and womanhood, and Ioage, a teacher and son of the village Faifeau (Pastor). This seemingly controversial tale of a forbidden love between teacher and student, symbolic 'brother' and 'sister,' pulls back the layers of social and cultural conceptions of respectability, exposing at its core the basic human experience of first encounters of intimacy. Regardless of predisposition, it is in the confrontation of sexual encounters that the reader is given insight into aspects of cultural interpretations and practices that are artfully woven into the storyline. The storying of Sia's experience is authentic, raw and haunting. FREELOVE is a critical and insightful narrative that whets the appetite. The residue that remains speaks of sadness and dislocation, leaving the reader with questions about how the story really ends."--Dr. Cresantia Koya Vaka'uta, Poet, Pacific Activist and Intellectual at the University of the South Pacific
"Sia Figel pushes the boundaries of conventional Pacific storytelling in an explicit tale of love and lust. FREELOVE is a love story between Sia, a Samoan teenager at the cusp of adolescence and womanhood, and Ioage, a teacher and son of the village Faifeau (Pastor). This seemingly controversial tale of a forbidden love between teacher and student, symbolic 'brother' and 'sister,' pulls back the layers of social and cultural conceptions of respectability, exposing at its core the basic human experience of first encounters of intimacy. Regardless of predisposition, it is in the confrontation of sexual encounters that the reader is given insight into aspects of cultural interpretations and practices that are artfully woven into the storyline. The storying of Sia's experience is authentic, raw and haunting. FREELOVE is a critical and insightful narrative that whets the appetite. The residue that remains speaks of sadness and dislocation, leaving the reader with questions about how the story really ends."--Dr. Cresantia Koya Vaka'uta, Poet, Pacific Activist and Intellectual at the University of the South Pacific
- GenresFiction21st Century
183 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 9, 2015
27 people are currently reading
213 people want to read
About the author
Sia Figiel
11 books55 followersSia Figiel was born in 1967. Author of novels, plays, and poetry, she has traveled extensively in Europe and the Pacific Islands, and has had residencies at the University of Technology in Sydney, the East-West Center in Hawaii, the Pacific Writing Forum at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, and Logoipulotu College in Savaii. She is also known as a performance poet and has appeared at several international literary festivals. Her first novel, where we once belonged, won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best First Book for the Southeast Asia/South Pacic region. She lives in Samoa.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 30, 2021
It is 1985 in Western Samoa and Madonna’s Like a Virgin rules the airwave. Seventeen and a half-year-old Star Trek fanatic Inosia Alofafua Afatasi is sent to the capital, Apia, to buy three giant white threads. As she waits at the bus stop, Mr Ioane Viliamu, her science and maths teacher and the son of the pastor, and in turn, her spiritual brother, stops to offer her a ride in his red pickup truck. Inosia is faced with choice, does she take the ride or wait for the bus?
Freelove is a story of forbidden romance and a young woman who is smart and capable but still has a lot to learn. Inosia is very academically smart and loves science and space, in part thanks to her obsession with Star Trek. I think having a character who is repeatedly told to be beautiful, also be smart and has a nerdy obsession is quite different.
It took a little while to get used to how Freelove is written. There’s no speech marks when characters talk, instead there’s a new paragraph when someone is speaking and there’s no real signifier when it’s back to being Inosia’s thoughts. You definitely have to pay attention and when there are conversations they flow very quickly. I liked how the book features Samoan though. Sometimes when characters talked it would first be in Samoan and then have the English translation next to it.
There is sexual content in Freelove and I appreciated that any sex was consensual, and the characters were constantly talking about how they were feeling, if anything hurt or they wanted to stop, and they listened to one another. The romance between Inosia and Ioane was interesting because both of them knew what they were doing was “wrong” or wouldn’t be accepted in their village. This was because of the age difference, the fact they are spiritually related to one another and the fact that they weren’t traditionally married. They go into things with their eyes open but as you read you can’t help but wonder when or how everything is going to go wrong for them. It gives you a sense of foreboding that’s never really satisfied.
Freelove is a quick and relatively easy read. The descriptions of Idosia’s life and her family are vivid and while the romance felt a bit rushed to begin with, it’s clear that these two care about one another deeply.
Freelove is a story of forbidden romance and a young woman who is smart and capable but still has a lot to learn. Inosia is very academically smart and loves science and space, in part thanks to her obsession with Star Trek. I think having a character who is repeatedly told to be beautiful, also be smart and has a nerdy obsession is quite different.
It took a little while to get used to how Freelove is written. There’s no speech marks when characters talk, instead there’s a new paragraph when someone is speaking and there’s no real signifier when it’s back to being Inosia’s thoughts. You definitely have to pay attention and when there are conversations they flow very quickly. I liked how the book features Samoan though. Sometimes when characters talked it would first be in Samoan and then have the English translation next to it.
There is sexual content in Freelove and I appreciated that any sex was consensual, and the characters were constantly talking about how they were feeling, if anything hurt or they wanted to stop, and they listened to one another. The romance between Inosia and Ioane was interesting because both of them knew what they were doing was “wrong” or wouldn’t be accepted in their village. This was because of the age difference, the fact they are spiritually related to one another and the fact that they weren’t traditionally married. They go into things with their eyes open but as you read you can’t help but wonder when or how everything is going to go wrong for them. It gives you a sense of foreboding that’s never really satisfied.
Freelove is a quick and relatively easy read. The descriptions of Idosia’s life and her family are vivid and while the romance felt a bit rushed to begin with, it’s clear that these two care about one another deeply.
August 7, 2018
It's always worth stretching your horizons and trying something stemming from a new place or culture. Storytelling is universal but the form and the shape a story takes can be refreshingly surprising, especially when so many male Europeans or Americans tell stories in such a similar way. Freelove is a very refreshing book, wielding a sense of the titular freedom with almost deliberately naive abandon. The narrator is a 17 and a half year old Samoan girl who lives in a small village and whose intelligence and imagination take her much further. The story is deceptively simple - she is seduced by/seduces her favourite school teacher and they embark on an explosive sexual and amorous journey and encapsulates many aspects of love and relationship in a single, surreal, youthful experience.
The naivety seems intentional - Sia's is a witty, sarcastic narrator but with a measure of childishness that befits her years and can make the narrative seem trite at times. Similarly, the dialogue is often overdone and too staged, although as the plot develops the affair loses its sense of realism anyway and gains a more symbolic status. Perhaps the toughest parts of the novel to get right are the many, explicit sex scenes. Figiel doesn't hold back and isn't afraid to exagerate - this is a superlative sexual experience, just as their love is something unreal and untouchable. There are cringe-worthy moments but that's part of the sexual awakening, and the awkwardness of the taboos presented - older man, the hint of incest, teacher/student. It's a difficult, precarious plot to write. On the whole Figiel does it very well.
Above all Freelove is a lot of fun to read. The humour is very important, but there is a serious underlining tension to the affair, one of education, leaving home, discovering newness, breaking away from culture and embracing it. Ioane at times is truly the teacher, telling his own stories of experience, but Sia offers her intelligence as a balm and an antidote. There is an interesting contrast between the older man returning home after an experience (often difficult) abroad and the younger girl on the brink of leaving, which allows Figiel to discuss Samoan identity in a wider context. As the novel becomes less real and the love affair less tangible, Ioane delves into questions of religion and colonialism, turning their romance into something spiritual and representative of a cultural identity, a way of loving different from the imposed "norm".
Figiel decorates her novel with generous amounts of the Samoan language, sometimes translating, sometimes not. There are clever repeated motifs and in-jokes (references to Star Trek and other TV shows for example) that give Freelove a satisfying structure and togetherness. The final section, written in letters, is quite tiresome and repetitive but is perhaps necessary and, reading between the lines, there is the unsaid sadness of their distancing. The very real plot of their child and its adoption stabs at the descriptions of moons and suns, at the superlative mystical nature of their love, something that transcends and yet cannot rise above earthly concerns. 6
The naivety seems intentional - Sia's is a witty, sarcastic narrator but with a measure of childishness that befits her years and can make the narrative seem trite at times. Similarly, the dialogue is often overdone and too staged, although as the plot develops the affair loses its sense of realism anyway and gains a more symbolic status. Perhaps the toughest parts of the novel to get right are the many, explicit sex scenes. Figiel doesn't hold back and isn't afraid to exagerate - this is a superlative sexual experience, just as their love is something unreal and untouchable. There are cringe-worthy moments but that's part of the sexual awakening, and the awkwardness of the taboos presented - older man, the hint of incest, teacher/student. It's a difficult, precarious plot to write. On the whole Figiel does it very well.
Above all Freelove is a lot of fun to read. The humour is very important, but there is a serious underlining tension to the affair, one of education, leaving home, discovering newness, breaking away from culture and embracing it. Ioane at times is truly the teacher, telling his own stories of experience, but Sia offers her intelligence as a balm and an antidote. There is an interesting contrast between the older man returning home after an experience (often difficult) abroad and the younger girl on the brink of leaving, which allows Figiel to discuss Samoan identity in a wider context. As the novel becomes less real and the love affair less tangible, Ioane delves into questions of religion and colonialism, turning their romance into something spiritual and representative of a cultural identity, a way of loving different from the imposed "norm".
Figiel decorates her novel with generous amounts of the Samoan language, sometimes translating, sometimes not. There are clever repeated motifs and in-jokes (references to Star Trek and other TV shows for example) that give Freelove a satisfying structure and togetherness. The final section, written in letters, is quite tiresome and repetitive but is perhaps necessary and, reading between the lines, there is the unsaid sadness of their distancing. The very real plot of their child and its adoption stabs at the descriptions of moons and suns, at the superlative mystical nature of their love, something that transcends and yet cannot rise above earthly concerns. 6
May 21, 2018
Could have been the Pacific Novel of our time. Written beautifully and offers a slice of decolonial Samoan history and sexuality. She weaves the cosmos with Pasifika sexuality and history with the mo'olelo (stories) of her culture and it's stunning and beautiful.
The reason I say could have is because the book includes inconsistencies in the story, bad grammar, and choices like not putting the dialog in quotes [which I appreciated the reason she made decisions like this but it didn't work here] all made this book confusing at times and frustrating at other times.
Overall I would still recommend this book.
The reason I say could have is because the book includes inconsistencies in the story, bad grammar, and choices like not putting the dialog in quotes [which I appreciated the reason she made decisions like this but it didn't work here] all made this book confusing at times and frustrating at other times.
Overall I would still recommend this book.
September 26, 2023
This is very Lolita modern
Wow this was a very interesting read. I didn’t know what I was getting into reading this and it open my mind for sure. I think I’m still gathering my thoughts to try and put into words. Because I believe it is beautifully written, definitely but I frown upon a Lolita type of relationship. I love the part of having girls speak up during sex if it hurts thing…to give a voice and strength to be in control of the situation. I love the Samoan culture history because I didn’t know a lot so that was a teachable moment. I just didn’t like the first introduction of the pickup and I’m a mother and I wasn’t feeling it. I really was never in that headspace when I was growing up and still ain’t. So my views are different.
To be honest, I couldn’t read all those love letters at the end…I was turned off from the relationship anyway.
Wow this was a very interesting read. I didn’t know what I was getting into reading this and it open my mind for sure. I think I’m still gathering my thoughts to try and put into words. Because I believe it is beautifully written, definitely but I frown upon a Lolita type of relationship. I love the part of having girls speak up during sex if it hurts thing…to give a voice and strength to be in control of the situation. I love the Samoan culture history because I didn’t know a lot so that was a teachable moment. I just didn’t like the first introduction of the pickup and I’m a mother and I wasn’t feeling it. I really was never in that headspace when I was growing up and still ain’t. So my views are different.
To be honest, I couldn’t read all those love letters at the end…I was turned off from the relationship anyway.
April 11, 2023
2.5 In the beginning I enjoyed learning about Samoa and the friends of the protagonist, Sia. The part about her and her teacher was hard to follow and he came across as a predator to me. It also didn't seem real. How she could go from scholarly student creeped out when her teacher offered her a ride to his soulmate carrying his child in one afternoon. It seemed more of an early draft than a polished completed novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 28, 2022
In this Lolita-esque novel, the author attempts to use philosophy, mathematical theory and cultural identity to justify the sexual relationship between 17 1/2 year old Sia and her science teacher, Ioage Viliamu. Awful.
May 31, 2024
Poetic? Yes. But bro you cannot convince me that this is a love story when the male character is literally grooming a 17yr old? Like hop off it.
August 18, 2021
Sia Figiel’s most recent novel Freelove tackles the variety of subjects which include pre-palagi (pre-European) kastom, missionary society, Mead vs Freeman controversy, traditional aiga (family clan) values, education in science, respect to elders, finally, importance of courage:
Rather than dreaming up ways of escaping reality, your perpetual duty is to face reality and all the challenges it throws on your way. Don’t wish for the easy. Go through the hard and tough. Because it is only there an then that you truly discover just how remarkable you are. And you should never forget it … Astound yourself so that you may astound those around you (167).
According to Epeli Hau’ofa and his theory of “Sea of Islands” (1994), self-confidence and strong belief in Oceanic strength, solidarity, and culture will play a strategic role in revolutionizing post colonial reality and regaining regional independence in Oceania. Freelove definitely raises these aspects simultaneously touching the matters of gender equality and costly possibility of individual choice over cultural norms.
By drawing a silhouette of intelligent 17 years old Inosia, the author accentuates the strong position of females in upcoming era. She wishes women and men loved each other in respectful and affectionate way. Her novel is full of excitement and sexual tension. As Sia becomes more intimate with Ioage, their relationship is fulfilled on multiple levels including desire, friendship, trust, and intimacy showing the beauty of romantic feelings.
In the interview for Salon du livre de Tahiti, Sia Figiel admits that Freelove is her favourite novel that she has been aiming to write for last 30 years. She stresses how fulfilling and satisfying was the journey to compose the story in only six weeks’ time (2020). As her previous novels focused on the patriarchal system and limitations women ought to fight on daily basis, Freelove is a perfect counterbalance proving the existence of pure love.
Figiel, S. (2016). Freelove: A Novel. Lōʻihi Press.
Hau'ofa, E. (1994). Our Sea of Islands. The Contemporary Pacific, 6(1), 147-161.
Salon du livre de Tahiti (2020, November 23). Rencontre avec Sia Figiel [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTioe...
Rather than dreaming up ways of escaping reality, your perpetual duty is to face reality and all the challenges it throws on your way. Don’t wish for the easy. Go through the hard and tough. Because it is only there an then that you truly discover just how remarkable you are. And you should never forget it … Astound yourself so that you may astound those around you (167).
According to Epeli Hau’ofa and his theory of “Sea of Islands” (1994), self-confidence and strong belief in Oceanic strength, solidarity, and culture will play a strategic role in revolutionizing post colonial reality and regaining regional independence in Oceania. Freelove definitely raises these aspects simultaneously touching the matters of gender equality and costly possibility of individual choice over cultural norms.
By drawing a silhouette of intelligent 17 years old Inosia, the author accentuates the strong position of females in upcoming era. She wishes women and men loved each other in respectful and affectionate way. Her novel is full of excitement and sexual tension. As Sia becomes more intimate with Ioage, their relationship is fulfilled on multiple levels including desire, friendship, trust, and intimacy showing the beauty of romantic feelings.
In the interview for Salon du livre de Tahiti, Sia Figiel admits that Freelove is her favourite novel that she has been aiming to write for last 30 years. She stresses how fulfilling and satisfying was the journey to compose the story in only six weeks’ time (2020). As her previous novels focused on the patriarchal system and limitations women ought to fight on daily basis, Freelove is a perfect counterbalance proving the existence of pure love.
Figiel, S. (2016). Freelove: A Novel. Lōʻihi Press.
Hau'ofa, E. (1994). Our Sea of Islands. The Contemporary Pacific, 6(1), 147-161.
Salon du livre de Tahiti (2020, November 23). Rencontre avec Sia Figiel [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTioe...
June 29, 2025
Original review: No.
Actual review: I have made a terrible mistake. Usually, I’d steer well clear of any novel with the ‘student and teacher become romantically involved’ premise. There’s a power imbalance there that just makes me inherently uneasy, not to mention the way that this trope tramples all over the inviolable duty of care that a teacher has to their students. There’s really just no context in which I would ever feel OK with it. I decided to overrule my discomfort and read this anyway, willing to leave my comfort zone, and hoo boy, I should not have done that.
Reading this book made me viscerally uneasy. The graphic sexual content between a teacher and his student, which is depicted as beautiful and romantic because he’s her sexual awakening, just made me feel all shades of nope. There’s even a scene where he has to explain to Inosia (confusingly named after Sia, the author) how sex works, right before they engage in penetrative sex, and there’s such a level of childishness, naivety and age-appropriate immaturity to Inosia that I cannot even fathom in what context this interaction would be anything other than predatory.
There are plenty of things I liked about this novel – the use of Samoan myth, the interesting information about Samoan culture and sexuality, the use of Samoan language interchangeably with English. Figiel’s writing style definitely isn’t to my own personal taste – she has a tendency to monologue in the voice of her characters, making them speak for page after page after page, and there’s some pretty awkward phrasing throughout – but the narrative voice made it an easy read. I just couldn’t stomach the content.
‘Teachers shouldn’t sleep with their 17 year old students’ is, frankly, a stance that I’m not really willing to chalk down to anything other than basic morality, and no amount of Inosia and Ioage gushing about how it was true, spiritual love could ever push me to ignore that. I’m happy for a novel to make me uncomfortable, but I think I would need for there to be something other than a tone of glorification here. Lolita – to which Inosia even gleefully compares their relationship – works because the text makes it clear that the relationship therein is twisted, toxic and ultimately irreparably damaging for Dolores (‘Lolita’) herself, who is victimised by a predator. Freelove posits that it’s fine for a teenage girl to be seduced by her teacher if her grades are good enough, and the fact that Figiel’s narrator uses Lolita as a favourable comparison suggests to me that she frankly has not done the work in understanding what that novel says about the dynamic she’s enthusiastically endorsing.
Almost as penance for subjecting my eyeballs to this book, I'd really love to seek out the work of Dr Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, for reasons that a quick (and disturbing) Google search will provide.
Actual review: I have made a terrible mistake. Usually, I’d steer well clear of any novel with the ‘student and teacher become romantically involved’ premise. There’s a power imbalance there that just makes me inherently uneasy, not to mention the way that this trope tramples all over the inviolable duty of care that a teacher has to their students. There’s really just no context in which I would ever feel OK with it. I decided to overrule my discomfort and read this anyway, willing to leave my comfort zone, and hoo boy, I should not have done that.
Reading this book made me viscerally uneasy. The graphic sexual content between a teacher and his student, which is depicted as beautiful and romantic because he’s her sexual awakening, just made me feel all shades of nope. There’s even a scene where he has to explain to Inosia (confusingly named after Sia, the author) how sex works, right before they engage in penetrative sex, and there’s such a level of childishness, naivety and age-appropriate immaturity to Inosia that I cannot even fathom in what context this interaction would be anything other than predatory.
There are plenty of things I liked about this novel – the use of Samoan myth, the interesting information about Samoan culture and sexuality, the use of Samoan language interchangeably with English. Figiel’s writing style definitely isn’t to my own personal taste – she has a tendency to monologue in the voice of her characters, making them speak for page after page after page, and there’s some pretty awkward phrasing throughout – but the narrative voice made it an easy read. I just couldn’t stomach the content.
‘Teachers shouldn’t sleep with their 17 year old students’ is, frankly, a stance that I’m not really willing to chalk down to anything other than basic morality, and no amount of Inosia and Ioage gushing about how it was true, spiritual love could ever push me to ignore that. I’m happy for a novel to make me uncomfortable, but I think I would need for there to be something other than a tone of glorification here. Lolita – to which Inosia even gleefully compares their relationship – works because the text makes it clear that the relationship therein is twisted, toxic and ultimately irreparably damaging for Dolores (‘Lolita’) herself, who is victimised by a predator. Freelove posits that it’s fine for a teenage girl to be seduced by her teacher if her grades are good enough, and the fact that Figiel’s narrator uses Lolita as a favourable comparison suggests to me that she frankly has not done the work in understanding what that novel says about the dynamic she’s enthusiastically endorsing.
Almost as penance for subjecting my eyeballs to this book, I'd really love to seek out the work of Dr Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, for reasons that a quick (and disturbing) Google search will provide.
May 9, 2023
Read Round the Country 2023: Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (Samoa)
This one just wasn't for me. The basic plot is simple. A teenage girl accepts a ride from her teacher, who leches on her before she gets out of his truck. She's intrigued by this and decides to "seduce" him even though he was the one who started it. There's a lot of sex and these two seem to fall in love. That's it.
That was the problem. The author does her best to make it seem like these crazy kids just couldn't resist each other and that they absolutely love each other. But she's like 17 years old and he's around 30 and her teacher. Maybe I'm too American to approve.
The author does some interesting things in the book. She writes long stanzas of Samoan and then translates them and I'm sure there are not too many books that have this language featured in them that get published in the USA. Her heroine is a nerd who loves Star Trek, is great in school and especially in science, and although she knows what social norms are if she doesn't see a reason to go along with them she doesn't. The author also gives a picture of what it's like in a Samoan village- not everyone has a TV or a car; clothes are shared so that if you want to go to town, your family should have a decent outfit somewhere to put together; moms are very strict.
There are lots of steamy sex scenes and the author does a good job with evoking sensuality. I just didn't love the two partners together.
This one just wasn't for me. The basic plot is simple. A teenage girl accepts a ride from her teacher, who leches on her before she gets out of his truck. She's intrigued by this and decides to "seduce" him even though he was the one who started it. There's a lot of sex and these two seem to fall in love. That's it.
That was the problem. The author does her best to make it seem like these crazy kids just couldn't resist each other and that they absolutely love each other. But she's like 17 years old and he's around 30 and her teacher. Maybe I'm too American to approve.
The author does some interesting things in the book. She writes long stanzas of Samoan and then translates them and I'm sure there are not too many books that have this language featured in them that get published in the USA. Her heroine is a nerd who loves Star Trek, is great in school and especially in science, and although she knows what social norms are if she doesn't see a reason to go along with them she doesn't. The author also gives a picture of what it's like in a Samoan village- not everyone has a TV or a car; clothes are shared so that if you want to go to town, your family should have a decent outfit somewhere to put together; moms are very strict.
There are lots of steamy sex scenes and the author does a good job with evoking sensuality. I just didn't love the two partners together.
March 30, 2022
3.5*
Another book that left me conflicted for different reasons. This book is in part an examination of boundaries and transgression and what started off as a narrative that seemed to be about a teacher abusing his position of trust to try and seduce a student turned into something very different. While Ioage is the first to overstep this boundary, Sia ultimately is just as active and the experience is far less damaging than the tales she has heard of how her friends lost their virginities (experiencing pain, just wanting to get it over with etc). Theirs is first and foremost a meeting of minds, followed by a meeting of bodies.
As the book develops, we delve more into Samoan culture, both historically, as re-written by colonisers and in the 1980s setting where Christianity has erased and warped Samoan culture, particularly attitudes towards sex.
I was unaware of the anthropological debates around Samoan culture and sex (and how they excluded Samoan people from said debates) before reading this so the Q&A at the end of the book was very educational and helped make much more sense of where the idea for the novel was born from and how it was returning voices and agency lost with the advent of Christianity.
One thing I did find a little jarring is that the dialogue didn't feel all that natural - at many points Iaoge and Sia were taking it in turns to deliver speeches to each other. This worked much better in the epistolary section at the end (makes sense!).
Another book that left me conflicted for different reasons. This book is in part an examination of boundaries and transgression and what started off as a narrative that seemed to be about a teacher abusing his position of trust to try and seduce a student turned into something very different. While Ioage is the first to overstep this boundary, Sia ultimately is just as active and the experience is far less damaging than the tales she has heard of how her friends lost their virginities (experiencing pain, just wanting to get it over with etc). Theirs is first and foremost a meeting of minds, followed by a meeting of bodies.
As the book develops, we delve more into Samoan culture, both historically, as re-written by colonisers and in the 1980s setting where Christianity has erased and warped Samoan culture, particularly attitudes towards sex.
I was unaware of the anthropological debates around Samoan culture and sex (and how they excluded Samoan people from said debates) before reading this so the Q&A at the end of the book was very educational and helped make much more sense of where the idea for the novel was born from and how it was returning voices and agency lost with the advent of Christianity.
One thing I did find a little jarring is that the dialogue didn't feel all that natural - at many points Iaoge and Sia were taking it in turns to deliver speeches to each other. This worked much better in the epistolary section at the end (makes sense!).
April 15, 2020
It’s been years since I read one of Sia’s books and this one really shocked and invigorated my senses!! I initially expected a book about a girl being sexually molested and was ready to feel anger, but the more building on of both main characters made me realise this was most definitely a consensual and beautiful relationship built on trust and honesty... I was conflicted because the mother in me thought mr Viliamu really should have known better in some of the situations, but they really were equal in their intellect and like what a lot of others have also said it teaches our children how important communication is especially with consent... I really appreciated the funny side stories of other villagers, and Mr Viliamu and Sia’s dialogue about science and how it relates to culture and love.. I read Sia’s other novels when I was quite young and didn’t really understand some things so it has inspired me to reread them again as an adult.. I did appreciate the challenge of how this book is presented, it’s similar to her other novels with no speech marks to indicate when someone is speaking, and the love letters at the end were intense and very bittersweet.. I felt by the end that they were both very personal friends of mine and he didn’t ever want to hold her back, but to let her shine, and I really hope these two brilliant minds do find each other again
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 20, 2022
(Review in English below)
Η "συμμετοχή" της Σαμόα στην προσπάθειά μου να διαβάσω ένα βιβλίο από κάθε χώρα του κόσμου.
Μπορεί ο ερωτισμός να συνδυαστεί με ένα μάθημα ιστορίας, κουλτούρας και φυσικής ιστορίας; Η Fiegel αποδεικνύει πως ναι.
Το πρώτο ταξίδι της πρωταγωνίστριας στον κόσμο του έρωτα μετατρέπεται για τον αναγνώστη σε ένα ταξίδι στο παρελθόν και το παρόν της Σαμόα - ένα ταξιδι ιδιαίτερα περιεκτικό για το μέγεθος του βιβλίου και έναυσμα για εμβάθυνση στην ιστορία των νησιών του Ειρηνικού Ωκεανού.
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This was the book by a Samoan author I read in my attempt to read one book from every country in the world.
Can eroticism be combined with a lesson in history, culture and natural history? Fiegel proves that it can.
The protagonist's first journey into the world of love becomes a journey to the past and the present of Samoa for the reader - a journey that is pretty comprehensive given the short length of the book and a starting point to explore the history of the Pacific Islands.
Η "συμμετοχή" της Σαμόα στην προσπάθειά μου να διαβάσω ένα βιβλίο από κάθε χώρα του κόσμου.
Μπορεί ο ερωτισμός να συνδυαστεί με ένα μάθημα ιστορίας, κουλτούρας και φυσικής ιστορίας; Η Fiegel αποδεικνύει πως ναι.
Το πρώτο ταξίδι της πρωταγωνίστριας στον κόσμο του έρωτα μετατρέπεται για τον αναγνώστη σε ένα ταξίδι στο παρελθόν και το παρόν της Σαμόα - ένα ταξιδι ιδιαίτερα περιεκτικό για το μέγεθος του βιβλίου και έναυσμα για εμβάθυνση στην ιστορία των νησιών του Ειρηνικού Ωκεανού.
~~~~~~~~~
This was the book by a Samoan author I read in my attempt to read one book from every country in the world.
Can eroticism be combined with a lesson in history, culture and natural history? Fiegel proves that it can.
The protagonist's first journey into the world of love becomes a journey to the past and the present of Samoa for the reader - a journey that is pretty comprehensive given the short length of the book and a starting point to explore the history of the Pacific Islands.
March 19, 2023
YALO Lit Circle Book: "Freelove" is a fascinating story written about a 17.5 year old girl named Sia who lives in Samoa. One day, she is going into town to get three giant white threads for her mother to make clothing. At the bus stop, her teacher Ioage Viliamu offers to give her a ride. She reluctantly accepts, and this ride changes her life. Ioage makes a move on Sia, which she at first is a bit horrified by, but it unlocks emotions in her she did not know she has. Ioage is also her spiritual brother, so it is considered incest. They begin a torrid affair that could have devastating consequences for both of them. This story is really fascinating. The sex is extremely graphic, so it is not for the faint of heart. However, the way the book intertwines a complicated love story and Samoan culture is great. The relationship is obviously predatory and bad, and the author does a great job portraying that.
June 26, 2024
The writing style isn’t what I would typically enjoy reading, but it started to grow on me as the story unfolded. Wasn’t expecting the descriptive nature of intimate experiences of the main characters, especially since it is set in Samoa. I did however, enjoy the inclusion of culture and history linked to science and math.
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January 19, 2025Highly questionable from any standpoint, and I'm NOT usually one to condemn transgressive literature. But I challenge proponents of this book, explain why it is good to someone Samoan. I told my missus about what this book celebrates and she got mad, saying Sia Figiel is a dumb bitch.
March 22, 2020
Not the ending I was expecting
I loved the story itself very interesting. Again as headline states I wish it had a little more of a better end.
I loved the story itself very interesting. Again as headline states I wish it had a little more of a better end.
March 31, 2022
Her brother AND her teacher????
November 12, 2025
A delightful short read from rural Samoa describing a blossoming love between a teenage girl and an older man, who is both her teacher and who was raised by the same people in her village. Despite my initial unease at the nature of the relationship Fiegel weaves a narrative of a wonderful (if a little rushed) relationship built on mutual respect, consent and both intellectual and emotional understanding.
The story brims with the hopeful naivety and wonder of the young Samoan protagonist, but also detailed and rich descriptions of sex and sexuality. It is wonderful to see sexuality described with such joy and openness in the context of such a conservative society.
Fiegel also brings in beautiful, vivid imagery of nature and Samoan stories/legend. She also weaves Samoan and English beautifully and does a fantastic job of conveying humour, nuance and emotion so well, even in sections where I do not understand the Samoan.
I found the second part rather repetitive and one note, which meant the book trailed off a bit for me at the end. Nonetheless it was an enjoyable and very illuminating read!
The story brims with the hopeful naivety and wonder of the young Samoan protagonist, but also detailed and rich descriptions of sex and sexuality. It is wonderful to see sexuality described with such joy and openness in the context of such a conservative society.
Fiegel also brings in beautiful, vivid imagery of nature and Samoan stories/legend. She also weaves Samoan and English beautifully and does a fantastic job of conveying humour, nuance and emotion so well, even in sections where I do not understand the Samoan.
I found the second part rather repetitive and one note, which meant the book trailed off a bit for me at the end. Nonetheless it was an enjoyable and very illuminating read!
December 16, 2017
Well-written though I did not care much for the actual romance.
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