The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
UK Publication: January 2024
Reviewed by: Book Worm  
Rating: [★★★★]

This ARC was provided by Hodder & Stoughton (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Be careful what you wish for…

Synopsis from Goodreads: A spellbinding, sweeping novel about a Malayan mother who becomes an unlikely spy for the invading Japanese forces during WWII—and the shocking consequences that rain upon her community and family.

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.

Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.

A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fuijwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an “Asia for Asians.” Instead, Cecily helped usher in an even more brutal occupation by the Japanese. Ten years later as the war reaches its apex, her actions have caught up with her. Now her family is on the brink of destruction—and she will do anything to save them.

Spanning years of pain and triumph, told from the perspectives of four unforgettable characters, The Storm We Made is a dazzling saga about the horrors of war; the fraught relationships between the colonized and their oppressors, and the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake.

My Thoughts: This is a fantastic work of historical fiction looking at a place and time I had little knowledge off. Through the story of Cecily and her children we see how life in Malaysia changes from the relative peace and stability of British occupation to the horrors of Japanese occupation.

Cecily is a complicated character and like most women she is not solely one thing. She is a wife and a mother; a spy and a lover; an intelligent woman and a freedom fighter. She is also blind to the consequences of her actions until it is too late.

This is a story about family, about ideals, about protecting what you love, about friendship and about the tragedy of conflict and how the innocent are always impacted the most.

Who would like this? I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, anyone who loves complicated characters and anyone with an interest in learning more about Japanese occupied Malaysia.

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