Helpful Score: 5
I chose SONGS OF WILLOW FROST for January's "Frost" theme in my online book club, The Reading Cove.
I had read and enjoyed Jamie Ford's first novel, HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, but I'm sorry to say WILLOW FROST was disappointing.
I didn't find William and Willow's story to be very compelling, and I suspect that may have to do with the way the story began. I was never eager to pick the book up, and when I did, I realized it was because I was being loyal to the author of HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, not because I was interested enough to see how this story would unfold.
So all in all, I have to give this one a C. I found it rather flat and depressing. Much like I imagine the weather to be in Seattle...
I had read and enjoyed Jamie Ford's first novel, HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, but I'm sorry to say WILLOW FROST was disappointing.
I didn't find William and Willow's story to be very compelling, and I suspect that may have to do with the way the story began. I was never eager to pick the book up, and when I did, I realized it was because I was being loyal to the author of HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, not because I was interested enough to see how this story would unfold.
So all in all, I have to give this one a C. I found it rather flat and depressing. Much like I imagine the weather to be in Seattle...
Helpful Score: 4
Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2013/10/songs-of-willow-frost.html
Willow Frost is a Chinese American actress. William Eng is a twelve year old Chinese American boy living in an orphanage. He has lived there for five years since his mother's body was carried away from their apartment in Seattle. He remembers a life before; he remembers his mother's love.
One day, as a special treat, the orphanage children are taken to the movies. He sees Willow Frost on the screen and believes that she is his mother, Liu Song, even though he has believed that she died. He and his friend Charlotte, a young blind resident of the orphanage, run away to find Willow Frost.
The story continues with William's, Charlotte's, but most of all Willow Frost's story. The reader learns a story of abuse, loss, love, betrayal, and the difficult choice of a parent. Set in the twenties and the Depression, it becomes also a story of the times and the struggles of people who could not provide for their children. The historical references to the early days of the film industry and events like the massacre at Seattle Wah Mee Club provide the backdrop to this story.
The book is predictable - the story of William's birth, Charlotte's story, even the ending. The other incongruous note in the book is that William and Charlotte are so young. Yet, the insight the characters show is well beyond their years. You might say that this makes the book somewhat unrealistic or you might choose to say that the traumatic experiences of their children makes them older than their chronological age. I choose to go with the latter interpretation.
The bottom line is that Jamie Ford weaves such an emotionally gripping tale that the other things don't matter. The emotions hit you even as you anticipate them. The age of the characters ceases to matter as you feel their sense of pain and abandonment and even joy.
Loved Jamie Ford's first book. Loved this one. Can't wait to see what comes next.
Willow Frost is a Chinese American actress. William Eng is a twelve year old Chinese American boy living in an orphanage. He has lived there for five years since his mother's body was carried away from their apartment in Seattle. He remembers a life before; he remembers his mother's love.
One day, as a special treat, the orphanage children are taken to the movies. He sees Willow Frost on the screen and believes that she is his mother, Liu Song, even though he has believed that she died. He and his friend Charlotte, a young blind resident of the orphanage, run away to find Willow Frost.
The story continues with William's, Charlotte's, but most of all Willow Frost's story. The reader learns a story of abuse, loss, love, betrayal, and the difficult choice of a parent. Set in the twenties and the Depression, it becomes also a story of the times and the struggles of people who could not provide for their children. The historical references to the early days of the film industry and events like the massacre at Seattle Wah Mee Club provide the backdrop to this story.
The book is predictable - the story of William's birth, Charlotte's story, even the ending. The other incongruous note in the book is that William and Charlotte are so young. Yet, the insight the characters show is well beyond their years. You might say that this makes the book somewhat unrealistic or you might choose to say that the traumatic experiences of their children makes them older than their chronological age. I choose to go with the latter interpretation.
The bottom line is that Jamie Ford weaves such an emotionally gripping tale that the other things don't matter. The emotions hit you even as you anticipate them. The age of the characters ceases to matter as you feel their sense of pain and abandonment and even joy.
Loved Jamie Ford's first book. Loved this one. Can't wait to see what comes next.
Helpful Score: 4
Maybe it was his imagination. Or perhaps he was daydreaming once again. But William knew he had to meet [Willow Frost] in person, because he had once known her by another namehe was sure of it. With his next-door neighbors in Chinatown, she went by Liu Song, but he'd simply called her Ah-ma. He had to say those words again. He had to know if she'd hear his voiceif she'd recognize him from five long years away.
On an outing to Seattle's Moore Theatre, 12-year-old William Engthe only Chinese-American orphan at Sacred Heartis stunned to catch onscreen, the familiar face of well-admired actress and "Oriental beauty," Willow Frost, whom he, five years ago, knew by another name: mother.
Songs of Willow Frost is a sensationally crafted novel that follows William's search for his carefully buried roots, spurned by the kind of familial longing only known as a child's unconditional love, and the ghosts and demons of his mother's past that he discovers along the way. The narrative shifts between the Great Depression and the technological revolution of the early 1920s, offering both William's real, raw perspective of Chinese-American life, as well as Liu Song's shining voiceher invaluable song.
There are just so many things I loved about this book! It's distressing how I can't list them all off at the same time, but I'll begin with the characters. William's naïveté is tender, and will make your heart ache. At once hopeful and painfully mature, his narrative gives rich glimpses of what it must have been like to be an abandoned child during the Great Depressionwho were dubbed "orphans" like he was, and were not at all uncommon during this timeand is so emotionally well rendered. Liu Song is the character who has committed a mother's most atrocious crime by abandoning her child, but once her side of the story is toldand with it, William's mysterious past unraveledwe see nothing but the compromised woman with a crushing sadness, the brave, beautiful performer who sacrificed everything to salvage her son. While William's story is profound, Liu Song's is haunting, debilitating. She is so real and so human; I related to her in so many ways, which is the magic of her complex and alluring characterization in that she is exonerated because we as readers want to forgive herwe want to understand.
Ford effectively evokes the glamor of pre-Depression 1921, which enshrouded the magic of theatre and the rise of the radio star, and even transitioning to later years, conveys the grayness of the Great Depression in tandem with the emergence of Hollywood's Golden Erawhich is to say, film over theatre, or Willow Frost over Liu Song. I am amazed at how culturally rich and historically vibrant Ford's Seattle Chinatown is; I lived, breathed, and loved these characters and this setting.
The story is also extremely stylistically impressive; Ford writes with great sensitivity and deep beauty in the tenderest way that induces shivers and raises goosebumps. In Willow's distraught confession, plea for forgiveness, and imminent personal departure, her past's troubles, her largest of sacrifices, and ultimately, her desire to rise up from cowering behind the façades of both the stage and screen, are intimately, agonizingly revealed... all in order to give everything to the one person she will never cease to love: her son.
Pros: Breathtaking historical scenerycolorful and lush descriptions of 1920s- and 30s-era Seattle // William and Willow are gorgeously characterized; both are lovable AND complex // Intriguing story with unique backdrop // Insight into both early 20th-century Chinese culture and Chinese-American expectations // Lovely in style... I could read Jamie Ford's prose forever! // Poignant, heartbreaking // Evocative of a mother's love; well-developed (albeit convoluted) mother-son relationship portrayed
Cons: Occasionally, scenes dragged out and grew boring, but this was not that big of a problem for me, and it was mostly just in the beginning
Verdict: Lacerating, expressive, and beautifully melancholic, Jamie Ford's long-anticipated second novel unfalteringly trails young William Eng as he determinedly sets out to unearth a slew of family secrets and a home for his perpetually expectant heart. With stunning insight on a desolate, but regardless exquisite mother-child relationship, and magnificent attention to period detail, Songs of Willow Frost is a stirring, tumultuous, and ultimately triumphant story of one mother's struggle to stay afloat under immense societal scrutiny and Chinese-influenced expectation, and how although that survival may become her weakness and her desperation, it will never diminish her overwhelming love.
Rating: 9 out of 10 hearts (4 stars): Loved it! This book has a spot on my favorites shelf.
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher via tour publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Random House and TLC!)
On an outing to Seattle's Moore Theatre, 12-year-old William Engthe only Chinese-American orphan at Sacred Heartis stunned to catch onscreen, the familiar face of well-admired actress and "Oriental beauty," Willow Frost, whom he, five years ago, knew by another name: mother.
Songs of Willow Frost is a sensationally crafted novel that follows William's search for his carefully buried roots, spurned by the kind of familial longing only known as a child's unconditional love, and the ghosts and demons of his mother's past that he discovers along the way. The narrative shifts between the Great Depression and the technological revolution of the early 1920s, offering both William's real, raw perspective of Chinese-American life, as well as Liu Song's shining voiceher invaluable song.
There are just so many things I loved about this book! It's distressing how I can't list them all off at the same time, but I'll begin with the characters. William's naïveté is tender, and will make your heart ache. At once hopeful and painfully mature, his narrative gives rich glimpses of what it must have been like to be an abandoned child during the Great Depressionwho were dubbed "orphans" like he was, and were not at all uncommon during this timeand is so emotionally well rendered. Liu Song is the character who has committed a mother's most atrocious crime by abandoning her child, but once her side of the story is toldand with it, William's mysterious past unraveledwe see nothing but the compromised woman with a crushing sadness, the brave, beautiful performer who sacrificed everything to salvage her son. While William's story is profound, Liu Song's is haunting, debilitating. She is so real and so human; I related to her in so many ways, which is the magic of her complex and alluring characterization in that she is exonerated because we as readers want to forgive herwe want to understand.
Ford effectively evokes the glamor of pre-Depression 1921, which enshrouded the magic of theatre and the rise of the radio star, and even transitioning to later years, conveys the grayness of the Great Depression in tandem with the emergence of Hollywood's Golden Erawhich is to say, film over theatre, or Willow Frost over Liu Song. I am amazed at how culturally rich and historically vibrant Ford's Seattle Chinatown is; I lived, breathed, and loved these characters and this setting.
The story is also extremely stylistically impressive; Ford writes with great sensitivity and deep beauty in the tenderest way that induces shivers and raises goosebumps. In Willow's distraught confession, plea for forgiveness, and imminent personal departure, her past's troubles, her largest of sacrifices, and ultimately, her desire to rise up from cowering behind the façades of both the stage and screen, are intimately, agonizingly revealed... all in order to give everything to the one person she will never cease to love: her son.
Pros: Breathtaking historical scenerycolorful and lush descriptions of 1920s- and 30s-era Seattle // William and Willow are gorgeously characterized; both are lovable AND complex // Intriguing story with unique backdrop // Insight into both early 20th-century Chinese culture and Chinese-American expectations // Lovely in style... I could read Jamie Ford's prose forever! // Poignant, heartbreaking // Evocative of a mother's love; well-developed (albeit convoluted) mother-son relationship portrayed
Cons: Occasionally, scenes dragged out and grew boring, but this was not that big of a problem for me, and it was mostly just in the beginning
Verdict: Lacerating, expressive, and beautifully melancholic, Jamie Ford's long-anticipated second novel unfalteringly trails young William Eng as he determinedly sets out to unearth a slew of family secrets and a home for his perpetually expectant heart. With stunning insight on a desolate, but regardless exquisite mother-child relationship, and magnificent attention to period detail, Songs of Willow Frost is a stirring, tumultuous, and ultimately triumphant story of one mother's struggle to stay afloat under immense societal scrutiny and Chinese-influenced expectation, and how although that survival may become her weakness and her desperation, it will never diminish her overwhelming love.
Rating: 9 out of 10 hearts (4 stars): Loved it! This book has a spot on my favorites shelf.
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher via tour publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Random House and TLC!)
Helpful Score: 1
This is a beautiful story that tugs the heart strings by an author who makes no claims that to imagining the lives of real people. It's fiction pure and simple. William and Willow are his own creations a melding of family members and others the author has known or learned of in his research.
Life was difficult for a Chinese American woman in the early 1900s. Jobs were scarce if not impossible to find, especially for a woman like Willow who were viewed as prey by the men around her. The reader understands that these wonderful characters could well have walked the streets of Seattle. Many like them probably did.
Willow was born to a family that lived by Chinese tradition. When her mother dies, leaving her alone with her stepfather, she must find the courage to make her own way in life. Raped by this cruel man, she becomes pregnant with William who is the light of her life. Blessed with a beautiful voice and body she finds the life that she can lead as a performer is not acceptable to child care authorities and William is put into an orphanage. The story weaves between the lives of the characters. It's poignant, emotional and heart rending. I loved it.
Life was difficult for a Chinese American woman in the early 1900s. Jobs were scarce if not impossible to find, especially for a woman like Willow who were viewed as prey by the men around her. The reader understands that these wonderful characters could well have walked the streets of Seattle. Many like them probably did.
Willow was born to a family that lived by Chinese tradition. When her mother dies, leaving her alone with her stepfather, she must find the courage to make her own way in life. Raped by this cruel man, she becomes pregnant with William who is the light of her life. Blessed with a beautiful voice and body she finds the life that she can lead as a performer is not acceptable to child care authorities and William is put into an orphanage. The story weaves between the lives of the characters. It's poignant, emotional and heart rending. I loved it.
Helpful Score: 1
William Eng is a 12 year old Chinese/American boy living in an orphanage in Seattle in the 1930's. The orphans go to the historical Moore Theatre where William watches an actress named Willow Frost and is convinced that she is his mother, Liu Song. William and his friend Charlotte escape the orphanage so he can look for his mother. The story then shifts to the 1920's and we get the backstory of William's mother. It is an emotional journey of seeking lost and found love. The writing is beautiful and I found the era of the 1930's black and white movie industry very interesting. I definitely will be reading soon the Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet which is Jamie Ford's debut novel. It has been on my TBR shelf for a long time.
