Play Book Tag discussion

Asymmetry

5 stars

The title "Asymmetry" refers to different levels of asymmetries - among others, young/old, male/female, East/West. There is also asymmetry in the book structure and even the style in which the parts were written (there is a good reason for it as it becomes clearer later in the book). I found it a brilliant debut novel with a creative format, deceptively simple style of writing that gently imprints many themes and questions on the reader's mind, some of which come back (and forth) long after the book is closed. This is one of those books that stayed with me well past reading it.

If anyone is interested to read it, I would only caution about an unfortunate publisher's blurb that gives some "revelatory" significance to the coda (third part of the novel). I am not surprised that many people didn't see it and some who did felt underwhelmed. Too much hype over it, in my view. There is an arch between the first two parts in the concluding coda but it's not as essential as advertised. The novel is much more complex than reducing it to a single clue.

I liked your review as it has made me more interested in reading the book than others, I've read.