By Clara Shen (20A01A) and Kelly Leong (20S07C)

Wondering what to get for your loved ones for Christmas? To us, books certainly make great gifts. And you’re in the right place—Raffles Reads is a new column which aims to promote reading culture among Singaporean students. The books, reviewed by Raffles Press writers, have been provided courtesy of Times Reads.

No one wants to remember the Japanese Occupation, most certainly not Wang Di. In fact, even at the deathbed of her ailing husband, Soon Wei, she still tries to completely avoid the topic of her war experiences. 

This inability of Wang Di to confront her past sets up the novel. From where her husband goes every year on the 12th of February, to what happened to the child she was not to speak of, How We Disappeared is full of secrets that need uncovering. Through the eyes of two very different characters, one is taken on a journey to understand the scars that the Japanese Occupation has left on many in Singapore. 

By Emily Ni (20S03C)

Wondering what to get for your loved ones for Christmas? To us, books certainly make great gifts. And you’re in the right place—Raffles Reads is a new column which aims to promote reading culture among Singaporean students. The books, reviewed by Raffles Press writers, have been provided courtesy of Times Reads.

At first glance, Wilder Girls has all the trappings of an apocalyptic novel. A mysterious illness? Check. Quarantined on an island? Check. A rash protagonist? Check.

At the edge of Maine, USA sits the fictional Raxter Island, home to the Raxter Boarding School for Girls. Quarantined against a mysterious illness, the girls only have the wrought iron school gates for defence against the encroaching forest that has twisted in unnatural ways. Adapting to their dire situation, the girls have traded normal academics for firearm training and 24/7 guard shifts. As they use their wits and ingenuity to survive, the girls hold out hope that help is coming—as the line emblazoned on the book cover says, “They told us to wait and stay alive.”

And they have, for one and a half years.

Continue reading “Raffles Reads: Wilder Girls” →

By Mah Xiao Yu (20A01B) and Megan Soh (20A01B)

Wondering what to get for your loved ones for Christmas? To us, books certainly make great gifts. And you’re in the right place—Raffles Reads is a new column which aims to promote reading culture among Singaporean students. The books, reviewed by Raffles Press writers, have been provided courtesy of Times Reads.

What if Mulan didn’t wield a sword, but a pair of scissors? 

Packaged as a cross between Mulan and Project Runway, Spin the Dawn sets itself up as an exciting mix between Chinese and Western culture. Needless to say, the book’s unique premise—a tailoring competition—and overwhelmingly positive reviews on Goodreads and other review sites piqued our interest.

By Huang Beihua (20A03A) and Sarah Lok (20A03A) 

Wondering what to get for your loved ones for Christmas? To us, books certainly make great gifts. And you’re in the right place—Raffles Reads is a new column which aims to promote reading culture among Singaporean students. The books, reviewed by Raffles Press writers, have been provided courtesy of Times Reads.

From Ireland to Argentina, the Handmaid has gained rapid popularity in women’s rights protests of recent years. A future dystopian state where women are institutionally enslaved as “two-legged wombs”, the totalitarian misogyny of Gilead evoked by these red-clad figures offers a chilling warning to our world today. Yet, the question remains that, if Margaret Atwood’s prophecy is to be averted, then how would it be? In other words, how would Gilead fall? 

That is the question Atwood sets out to answer in her latest book, The Testaments. And it is certainly an answer in urgent demand—a copy was sold every four seconds in the UK in its opening week, while American buyers ordered more than 125,000 barely a day after its launch. 

By Claire Tan (20S07A) and Valerie Tan (20A01E)

Wondering what to get for your loved ones for Christmas? To us, books certainly make great gifts. And you’re in the right place—Raffles Reads is a new column which aims to promote reading culture among Singaporean students. The books, reviewed by Raffles Press writers, have been provided courtesy of Times Reads.

Your life, or your beloved’s?

This is the dilemma that the characters of Wicked Fox grapple with—similar to hundreds of other Young Adult books, perhaps, but with a Korean mythological twist.

Written in alternating points of view from its two main characters, together with stories of the first gumiho (a nine-tailed fox from Korean mythology) interspersed between its chapters, Wicked Fox is the first in the Gumiho series by Kat Cho. Against the backdrop of modern-day Seoul, it follows Miyoung, a half-gumiho, half-human who has to devour the energy of people—and thus kill them—to stay alive. One night, she stumbles upon Jihoon, a boy her age, being attacked by a goblin. She risks revealing her true identity just to save him, but ends up losing her fox bead—her gumiho soul—in the process. This sends Miyoung and Jihoon spiralling into an adventure they can’t control, and soon they find themselves surrounded by enemies and a looming ultimatum: Miyoung’s immortality, or Jihoon’s life.