WHERE REASONS END BY YIYUN LI

 “Wishing you were somehow here again, wishing you were somehow near”

Not much thought when my eyes caught the sight of the book lying quietly on the shelves, my hand quickly grabbed it. I was astonished with the cover, so simple yet so elegant enough to make me buy it without even read the synopsis at the back. First impression does matter. Should note this down in my notebook.

Publisher: Penguin Books

Cover: hard paperback

Price: RM 52.50

Bookstore: Kinokuniya

Synopsis:

A woman’s teenage son takes his life. Unable to comprehend this act, she begins to fill pages with an imagined conversation with the child she has lost. Her son is funny, sharp and serious- the same boy in death as he was in life. Yet as their talks circle his terrible choice, she realises that while he can never offer her the solace she seeks, something of him remains….

This book gave me an exquisite feeling, something that I can’t really explained in words. The poetic words, each and every word in the story, played their roles really well to express the sentimental feeling of the mother, the sadness, the regret which she tried to keep it locked inside her fragile heart. The exchange monologue conversation between the mother and her deceased son about different aspect of life, the contented feeling of being alive, the one sided endless suffering, the wishful prayer that will never come true, the love of a mother to the son that is irreplaceable, the re-enactment of the past memories that will or will not faded away with time, all these gave new experience in my reading. No one can ever understand the feeling of losing the loved ones. Especially when it happened in an unexpected time and day without any sign. The anguish and despair will continue to wrap the living person upon the death of their loved ones. The regret of not be able to say the final words, to stop the event from happening, and the most painful one, to not be able to exchange words again like what you did in the morning and the days before.  Does the son feel the same thing? What if he decided to change his mind on the very last hour? Will he regret his choice at first? These questions will never be answered.

There are some of the arguments that I don’t understand and was unable to follow. Both mother and son love to read poem and even write few pieces. So their argument includes the usage of noun and adjective in their writing. I’m not really proficient in grammar and grammatical rules, so I don’t really get it how those two elements contradict with each other.

From the dialogues, the mother and son were very close. They argue, they debate, they exchange opinion, share their thoughts, the bonding that they possessed was beautiful. There is sorrow lies within the mother, but she couldn’t express it. Nope she just too late to express it. One thing to note that, this book was written a month after the writer lost her child due to suicide.

“I don’t mind that life is not perfect, I do mind that I cannot perfect myself in an imperfect life.”

This book is not my ordinary genre. I can’t say that I enjoyed the book totally, however, I was carried away with the words and sentences that are beautifully constructed which makes the reading is enjoyable in melancholy way. Recommended to those who wants to have a short and simple reading.

 

My rate: 3.5/5

Goodreads Rate: 3.74/5