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Would they meet ...would Hilary move on ? is something you can know only after going through the Life each little girl had. Rich and gorgeously written, Kaleidoscope isa novel of America and of globalization, of sisterly intimacy and of the need for independence. It is pure pleasure to encounter the world through Cecily Wong’s sharp eye and sharper tongue. Here is that rare thing: a story of grief that also manages to be laugh-out-loud funny. I never wanted to put it down.” This coming of age story feels so very important, delving deep into family as much as personal growth. Because who are we without those who raised us, who were raised alongside us? Not that Riley is trapped or even defined by the Brightons, but to ignore them would make her less, would make the story less. Wong’s character is amazingly herself. I’ve found that loneliness has a way of feeling significant, no matter how frivolously the hours are spent.” A dazzling and heartfelt novel about two sisters caught in their parents' ambition, the accident that brings it all crashing down, and the journey that follows.
Another dysfunctional family saga. Kaleidoscope, the shopping empire built by the family with Morgan as the design genius. The tight bond between the sisters. The different relationships with their parents. When tragedy strikes, Riley is left reeling. Her parents offer no comfort, and Riley is drowning in guilt. As her relationship with her parents' sours, Riley decides on a ‘healing’ journey. Ambitious and unabashedly romantic, Kaleidoscope is as heartbreaking and hilarious as life itself…. True to the book’s title, Wong tells her young protagonists’ story in fragments that shift through time and place, cohering into a beautiful, sparkling whole. Although it’s fast-paced enough to be read in a single sitting, Kaleidoscope is a novel you’ll want to linger with, full of fascinating characters and moments of arresting beauty.”people bathing, bright saris blooming like jellyfish in the water" [noting the Holi festival in India] They are later reunited by an estranged, family friend: the lawyer who placed them in the homes where they spent their childhoods. Two people meet and miss one another again and again in these short chapters that move through time. The stories are interconnected and yet also separate images and spaces. They are bound together by the characters themselves and also the themes that cross from one to another. There are butterflies, gardens, and gates among many other images that carry across the entire book. The characters must face their fears, reach across darkness, and grapple with grief and loss. Each chapter is a gem of a story, a short story that threads through to the others in ways that astonish, creating a true kaleidoscope of fractures and wholeness.
Megan grows up to be a strong girl who fights for what she believes in. The character was not adequately developed by Steele and she does remain a bit distant to the reader. A mysterious narrator takes a boy to a library where the books tell the story of everything that ever happened, and everything that ever will happen. The boy wants to know where his story is. But the narrator, despite having written every book himself, by hand, doesn’t know, doesn’ t even remember what he has written. The boy is furious: “ What’ s the point of knowing everything if you forget it and can’ t even figure out where the answers are?” Later we find the boy trying desperately to organize the books. “ It was an impossible task,” the omniscient amnesiac narrator muses, “but the gesture touched me somehow.” Sometimes you simply fall hard into a story and that’s exactly what happened to me with 𝐊𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐈𝐃𝐎𝐒𝐂𝐎𝐏𝐄 by Cecily Wong. Hers is a book I flew through in a single day, and then was left wishing I hadn’t yet finished. It's one of the best books I’ve read this year and one of my two July book hangovers. I did not sympathize/empathize/like any of the characters. I plodded along as I was never engaged. It only became interesting [to me] more than halfway through--Part Four, when the story moved out of New York City and to the travels of Riley and James. [The interesting parts were the different cultures, countries, and people they encountered.] A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.When a catastrophic event dismantles the Brightons’ world, Riley must stand in the spotlight for the first time in her life, with questions about her family that challenge her memory, identity, and loyalty. Restless and heartbroken, she sets off across the globe with the person she least expects, to seek truths about those she thought she knew best—herself included. He followed A Family at War with the semi-autobiographical Sam, for which he wrote all 39 one-hour episodes. The story of a boy, like Finch, growing up in the Yorkshire coalfields, Sam was his masterpiece, watched by 20 million viewers every week. He continued to receive letters from viewers thanking him for putting a truthful picture of Northern working-class life on the screen for the rest of his 97 years. The setting: "... two sisters {Morgan, older, and Riley] caught in their parents’ ambition, the accident that brings it all crashing down, and the journey that follows." The two sisters at the center of this intimate novel are biracial Chinese Americans, heirs to their family’s Oregon grocery store turned New York luxury empire, and as different as they are close. When disaster strikes, the younger sister, Riley, must re-evaluate her family and world.”
But once I started it,I was totally engrossed into the way its story was enfolding, it being so gripping and heart wrenching at times that i could finally keep it down only once I had read the happy ending it so truly deserved. It's set in mid and post WWII, and centers itself around the oldest child of three sisters, Hilary, who, when her parents tragically and abruptly disappear out of her life, is then separated and forced to live with new people, in a new environment foreign and unfamiliar to her. Separated from each other at a young age, they grow up without each other. The eldest, Hilary, will have to learn and grow with each new task she is faced with growing up, waiting for the day where she may possibly reunite with them once again, and the day where she confronts the person who tore her family apart.
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Di masa tuanya, Arthur, yang divonis dokter tak bisa hidup lama lagi, meminta bantuan John Chapman. John, seorang pengacara yang mempunyai karir cemerlang, diminta melacak keberadaan kakak beradik tadi untuk selanjutnya dipertemukan kembali. When tragedy strikes the Brightons, combined with the economic collapse of the late 2000s, the family and the empire they’ve built threaten to collapse. Riley sets off on an international trip with a companion who raises eyebrows, and discovers herself—as well as some family secrets kept hidden. Morgan and Riley Brighton are joint heirs to Kaleidoscope: a glittering, ‘global bohemian’ shopping empire—created in sleepy Oregon and catapulted into haute New York—sourcing luxury goods from around the world. Morgan, statuesque beauty and Kaleidoscope’s talented designer, is adored by all, especially by the Brighton parents. Yet no one loves her more than Riley, whose shy and adventurous spirit is exalted by her sister.
The story features the events of each girl's life. Separated after the death of their parents, each one is raised quite differently. This was also a character-driven story where the portrayals of the four members of the Brighton family as well as the various people in their orbit were extremely important. While none of the characters were particularly likable (which sometimes can be a dealbreaker for me in terms of positive reading experience), all of them were so realistically drawn that I found myself able to resonate with each one in ways that I didn’t expect. In this regard, I felt the author did a good job relating the struggles and inner conflicts that each of the characters went through, especially as it pertained to their relationships and how they interact with each other. Wong has seamlessly captured the entire Brighton family—how they grieve and how they love one another, what they want and what they need from each other. The result is a startlingly beautiful novel. Kaleidoscope will break your heart and then win it over, time and time again.” The characters are a bunch of whiny, entitled children and not just the young adults either. The parents take the cake but not until the end at least.
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I’ve read quite a few short story collections, and I tend to have a hard time connecting with them. That was absolutely not the case with this brilliant collection. Each story was different but, in a strange way, they all felt connected somehow. I knew it wasn’t a fluid story, yet it oddly felt like it was. I loved the fact that we never discover the narrators name, a nod to Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” which I greatly love! Then there’s the recurrence of the name “James,” which I felt added such soul and heart to the book as a whole. Like Rebecca, James, though he’s different in every story and isn’t the main character, felt like the center of everything. In the opening chapter, we witness one of the Brighton sisters' most difficult experiences, and we are given a glimpse into their intense yet sometimes uneasy relationship. The following chapters switch to the younger sister’s pov, and sadly I am rarely a fan of books switching between 1st and 3rd povs. Anyway, a good chunk of the story is told directly by Riley Brighton, who is Chinese American, and has always felt in her sister’s shadow. Riley is a rather aimless loner who struggles to reconcile herself to life. Her beautiful older sister, Morgan, has always played a more active role in the family’s business, Kaleidoscope, a shopping empire started by her parents and a friend of theirs. The ‘discovery’ they make on their trip seemed convenient as it gives their romance more legitimacy (that morgan had hidden stuff from them).
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