M's blog.

#booksiboughtonsummervacationcuzijustcantresistthetemptationduh no.9

One rainy day, I was wandering on an empty street, at about 21:00 P.M. Found a bookstore / coffee shop and decided that I'd buy some books. This particular one caught my attention, because of its title (lưng chừng = halfway?, cô đơn = isolated). I thought that the book was about solitary. Needless to say, I was greatly dissapointed.

Dislike

- N.N.T on women:

Chứ thực chất từ sâu thẳm trong tâm hồn, đàn bà luôn muốn, luôn cần một người đàn ông bên cạnh.

Translation: Deep in their souls (???), women have always wanted, always needed a man by their sides.

Nếu một người đàn bà đến gặp bạn bằng gương mặt nhợt nhạt phấn son, chắc chắn trong lòng họ, bạn chẳng có gì quan trọng.

Translation: If a woman on her meeting with you goes with a no - makeup face, surely in her heart, you must be insignificant.

N.N.T on men:

Rõ ràng so riêng về việc chọn lựa, đàn bà phức tạp hơn đàn ông, vì đàn ông từ hai mươi đến sáu mươi, chỉ cần chọn đàn bà với hai tiêu chí: mười tám, ngực to.

Translation: Clearly, comparing only the intersexual selections [of the sexes], women are much more sophisticated than men, because men from twenty to sixty years of age, only choose women based on two primary qualities: eighteen year - old, big boobs.

Honestly, I expected that a person who roots for gay rights be more open - minded about gender stereotypes.

- Pg. 165: Mistaken between 2 genres: horror and mystery. For a writer, that is even more unacceptable.

- The whole book revolves aroung a concept called duyên phận, or 緣分, a word in Vietnamese / Chinese that means something like the red string of fate. Which was boring considered how N.N.T. was continually talking about the love that was decided by an all - knowing power. Like the whole book.

Like

- The last chapter of the book, which was about the author and his mother's memories of her first meeting with N.N.T's father, who would be her husband then dissapeared (without the cause actually mentioned in this book), when the author was born and how he grew up, under the caring hands of his mother. That was stunning, for the lack of a better word. It really showed the mature N.N.T that I was looking for in the whole book. However still not good enough to make me change the raing to 2 stars.

Conclusion: Although I did not enjoy this book, it doesn't mean that other people won't. No book is going to work for everyone. Therefore, I reccommend this book for people who's currently dealing with rejection, or hopeless romantics, perhaps :) ?