Book Reviews

Book Reviews, Commentary, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: Around the World in 68 Days
Reading Time: 4 minutes

By Mei Feifei (22A13A)

Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.

Rating: 3.5/5

Koh Buck Song’s Around the World in 68 Days is a travelogue featuring 13 countries he visited in the span of 68 days in 2018, the golden days pre-Covid-19. Around the World promises “insights into 13 countries’ ancient and modern cultures, national identities and brands, and their place in the world today”.

The 13 stations of Koh’s voyage.

 Around the World is easily intriguing for anyone who stumbles across it in a bookstore: what better way to cure wanderlust than to read about another person’s travels, especially with an itinerary as extensive and unconventional as Koh’s? As an experienced national brand advisor, Koh’s book also offers more than a mere collection of #travelholic moments. 

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Book Reviews, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: Mistbound: How to Glue Back Grandpa
Reading Time: 4 minutes

By Lim Yong Le (22S03M) and Mirella Ang (22A01C)

Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.

Rating: 3.5/5

When you think of fairytale adventures, what do you imagine? Pixies, gnomes, dragons, unicorns—basically any creature from Western mythology—usually come to mind, thanks to the popularity of works from the likes of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. 

Casting these aside, Mist-Bound: How to Glue Back Grandpa daringly taps into a repository of lesser-known, yet equally interesting mythical creatures hailing from legends originating in South-East Asia.

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Book Reviews, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: A Consequence of Sequence
Reading Time: 2 minutes

By Chung Thong En (22S06N)

Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Unfortunate real-life circumstances made Idayu Maarof, Malaysian author and general practitioner, write a second book after her first award-winning work. 

Maarof is a Malaysian General Practitioner (GP) who had previously published another work, The Doctor Is Sick, which won an Anugerah Buku Negara (National Book Award, Malaysia) in 2017. In A Consequence of Sequence, she is put through the wringer again when she starts having seizures again after the surgery that was supposed to solve them—and this time, no one can figure out the cause. Faced with a quickly worsening and possibly fatal illness, all she can do is try for surgery again and pray that things will get better.

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Book Reviews, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: Land of Sand and Song

Reading Time: 3 minutesBy Mandy Wong (22S03C)

Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.

Rating: 3/5

At first glance, Joyce Chua’s Land of Sand and Song seems like a typical YA novel filled with historical fiction and fantasy tropes. There’s a strong-willed princess for its heroine, a rogue prince for its hero and plenty of political drama that I recognise from dipping my toes into Chinese historical dramas. Little did I expect to open it and only stop when I reached the last page.

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Book Reviews, Commentary, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: The Secrets of the Sakura Girls
Reading Time: 5 minutes

By Azzahra Osman (22S03P) and Ting Kaily (22S03P) 

Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.

Rating: 1.5/5 stars 

Prostitution is taboo in Singapore; many of us do not know much about this topic and tend to shy away from it, due to the social stigma associated with it. But did you know that it has existed here for nearly two centuries?

In The Secrets of the Sakura Girls, Aoki is a karayuki-san (Japanese prostitute) working along Malay Street in Singapore in 1870. 

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