Welcome to Litsy!

A motherless daughter recalls her upbringing after her mother left their family in British Columbia to return to her homeland in Brunei. Now that Liew is a mother herself, she‘s unable to stop thinking about her own who she last saw when she was 11 years old. This is a memoir of searching for answers: how could her mother abandon their family? Where is she? Is she still alive? What is the meaning of “home”?

Im not one to read about estranged mothers so personally this was not a read I enjoyed. I‘d say this is my second choice for #CanadaReads winner for the year. It was pretty straightforward but I think it‘ll resonate with a lot of Canadians. Many of us deeply understand the feeling of not being fully one culture or another.

Last Canada Reads book. I found this one hard to get through. I don‘t know if it was the fact that I didn‘t like any of the characters or the writing. I knew what she was trying to make me feel, but I was too annoyed to feel it. It‘s potentially a good story, I just don‘t think it‘s very well told. Overall, this year‘s selection was not my favorite. They all had some pretty major issues. Or maybe I just had some major issues with all of them.

#CanadaReads - four down, one to go, and this was by far my favourite of a decidedly underwhelming selection this year.

As a preteen, Lily's mother walked out on her family and was never seen again. Later, following the birth of her own daughter, Lily once again embarks on a search for answers. The first half, Lily's childhood in a mining town in BC, was good but a bit uneven. Cont'd in comments...

What kind of mother will Lily be to her daughter? Her own mother, Swee Hua, abandoned her daughters and the foreign land she found so cold and unwelcoming. This was a truly beautiful and melancholy story of family, home, and attempts at belonging. The complicated characters were well rendered.

A decent read about an immigrant family in Canada. In order to learn the truth about her mother the main character travels to Brunei and Malaysia. #FoodAndLit (still) #ReadingAsia

I feel like two separate drafts of DANDELION got mixed together. The part set in the 80s is tight, allusive, and a pleasure to read. The part set in Lily‘s present still has a lot to say about stateless personhood, intergenerational trauma, and internalized racism, but it‘s full of, “As you know, Bob…” dialogue, odd speech attributions, and tell-not-show narration. It‘s worth reading, but prepare yourself for that shift in prose quality.

Seconds after this photo was taken, Casey decided my book made a good pillow. I tugged it out from under him and kept on reading over breakfast. It‘s excellent so far; an emotional, smoothly controlled narrative of immigrant family life in a small mining town in the late 1980s. In about twenty pages, I‘ll hit the end of Part I and move into the narrator‘s present, which I expect to be just as good.

4.5☆ I love reading books on motherhood. This one caught by eye because it's about a Chinese Canadian family living in a small town here in British Columbia. It's a beautifully written debut on motherhood, migration, family, culture, identity and love. I absolutely loved this book! Liew's storytelling was impressive. DANDELION is an important and moving piece on motherhood and migration I cannot reccomend it enough! #bookreview #canlit

This was such an emotional ride!

All of us in my feminist book club were pleasantly surprised at the strength of the prose in this debut novel by a law professor. It‘s a poignant & well-crafted story of stateless Chinese immigrants to Canada, a mother who abandons her children, & her grown daughter‘s search for her in Brunei. Believable characters, vivid setting & issues of identity & belonging expressed with nuanced understanding. #CanadianAuthor #ShadowGiller2022

The event wasn‘t going to be authentic. How could it be? This was going to be my kind of red egg & ginger party. Plus, Leo was already 8 months old, well past the age when children had their red egg ceremonies, where their name was revealed. In my childhood memories, even baby Billy‘s party wasn‘t authentic. But how could it be? Every village or city in Asia must have its own rituals. I settled on infusing tradition into a modern celebration.

I didn‘t know whether Father was being too sensitive, but the salt had been spilled, and his offended feelings were like millions of tiny grains spread on the ground. It was impossible to pick them all up again.

“To some, this is a weed. But it‘s really a flower. Like a dandelion, the Hakka can land anywhere, take root in the poorest soil, flourish and flower.”
“But does that mean the Hakka are homeless?” Bea asked.
“Sometimes, Beatrice, sometimes,” Father replied. “But home is where family is. So no matter where we are, if we‘re together, we‘re home.”