"Short Girls"

by Bich Minh Nguyen, 2009, 292p, rating=1

The title caught my eye because, well, I'm short! I wanted to see what the author had to say. Well, I was disappointed! It was incredibly slow!! It felt like I was reading for hours and getting no where. There were too many details and going off tangents that didn't really help me appreciate the story line. I was close to giving up but I thought maybe the end would make up for the dragging read. It didn't really; even though I liked that it had a peaceful ending for the two "short" sisters, Van and Linny.

What an awful portrait of marriage! There were hints that the sisters' father (Dinh Luong) had an affair (the very least a troubled marriage since the father slept in the basement), Linny knowingly having an affair with a married man, and Van finding out that her husband was seeing another woman and the marriage ending in a divorce. True, this happens in real life but reading about it here didn't work for me! Plus, I didn't buy into the "Luong Arm" invention metaphor. I think it wasn't original and it was a stretch (pardon the pun) at making the title work. Just too many messages/morals that the author wanted to come across but failed to cohesively tell. It wasn't incredibly bad (towards the end was alright) enough to say that I want my several hours back because I have saved yours!