By Venkatesan Ranjana (23A01D)
Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.
Rating: 3/5
In his breakaway novel about an aspiring journalist discovering the secrets of an invisible human race, Fredrik Haren explores humanity’s unwillingness (or perhaps inability) to acknowledge a world beyond our presumed realm of possibility.
Continue reading “Raffles Reads: The Unvisible”
Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.
By Jolene Yee Xin Yi (23S03A)
Rating: 4.5/5
“When we go through impossible things, someone, or something, will help us, if we let them.”
A Terrible Kindness is a simultaneously heart-wrenching and heart-warming tale of a volunteer embalmer’s road to redemption and reconciliation. As a literary fiction novel, this book appeals to those interested in unique storylines, gripping narratives and fresh story settings.
By Faith Wan (23S02B)
Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.
Rating: 4/5
“Don’t let them get away with it.”
Set in 1930s British Malaya, award-winning children’s novelist Eva Wong Nava’s The House of Little Sisters is an immersive work of historical fiction. It centres on our protagonist, Ah Mei, a 16 year-old girl who has been sold to the wealthy Lee family as a mui tsai, or unpaid domestic servant, and is tasked with taking care of Precious Jade, the family’s youngest daughter.
From the first chapter, Wong Nava establishes palpable unease and tension. The Lee family seems to be hiding a secret so grievous even Ah Wan Jie, the head mui tsai of the family, skirts cagily around any mention of it. In addition, Ah Mei starts to see visions of a certain spirit, who pleads with her to “take action”—though against what exactly is a revelation only uncovered later in the book.
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By Tang Lanyun (23S05A)
Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.
Rating: 4/5
Rick Riordan’s rip-roaring sci-fi debut pays homage to one of the genre’s founding fathers, Jules Verne. Inspired by “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, Daughter of the Deep imagines a world in which the fantastical events Verne envisioned in his novel were indeed historical fact. The book itself spins a riveting tale of teenage ingenuity against impossible odds, whose high school characters break the mold of typical middle-grade (and Y/A) protagonists. With a clear love for the source material, Riordan deftly reinvigorates Verne’s classics for a modern audience, while also appreciating the diversity present in our society.
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By Claire Jow (23A01B)
Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.
Rating: 3/5
Moving to a new school is always hard, but it seems to be particularly tough on fifteen-year-old Lia Setiawan, who managed to enter the prestigious Draycott Academy based solely on her skill in track and field.
The shiny surface of her new school, however, hides a dark interior. There are drug deals, illegal activities, and ominous messages scrawled on the walls; soon enough, she’s become the next target of the school’s anonymous gossip app, Draycott Dirt. As she struggles to find her footing as a fish out of water in a school full of filthy-rich students, she becomes entangled in a cheating ring that leads to one of the greatest mistakes of her entire life.
Continue reading “Raffles Reads: The New Girl”