Dark, beautiful, horrifying. I am damaged and forever changed. ( )

I received an advance readers copy of What Lies Between Us from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review to be posted on my blog, GoodReads, and The Reading Room.

Deep, deeper, no, the deepest of subject matter is found living in cloudless sunlight as its gloriously bare reality is shown layer by layer to the reader, without protection of the narrator by the author or judgment on the narrator by the author. Nayomi Munaweera does not allow one to passively follow the story; you are thrust into the crux of the characters' humanity. I have never before felt such an immediate and profound connection to a book nor a character, my brain struggling through its internal conflict and vacillation between full-on empathy and revulsion and sympathy and anger.

I am thankful to have read this novel as it resulted in not only enjoying a finely written novel, but also, the opportunity to sift through and clarify my own perspective on childhood sexual abuse, insecure love, and motherhood.

What Lies Between will stay with me - a lasting impact formed. For this reason, I have placed it at pinnacle level in my bookshelf.
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Amma and Thatha are the parents of young Ganga, the narrator. Born in Sri Lanka, Ganga senses perhaps her parents are not as happily married as they would like Ganga and others to to believe. Amma spends much time sleeping during the day and Ganga hears muffled arguments coming from her parents bedroom. In Ganga's early teens, a tragedy compels Ganga and her mother to immigrate from Sri Lanka to the United States. Ganga anxiously navigates the challenges of being an immigrant, and even fulfills the American dream of graduating from college . Despite that seeming succeess, the secrets of Ganga and her family continue to follow and haunt her.

An intriguing , well told story that is more focused on damaging family relationships than living in and immigrating from Sri Lanka. Highly recommended.

4 stars ( )

The long reach of the past and the unreliability of memory are two prominent themes of this novel. Our unnamed narrator, though in Sri Lanka she was known as baby Madame, is the main character and we follow her life from a young child in Sri Lanka to adulthood in the USA. From the beginning we know she has done something terrible but we don't know why or how. This is one of those books that I believe the less said the better.

So I will just say the descriptions are lush, the prose is amazing and the inner thoughts of our character is well displayed. Whether the reader will understand her actions is up to the reader, the author gratefully keeps her opinions away from the written page. This is both a sad and beautiful book. In Sri Lanka out narrator finds both beauty and terror, in the USA she finds how difficult it is to fit in when you are different. Here she will also find love and heartache.

This is a first rate novel from an author who keeps getting better and better. Would make for a great book discussion because I am sure everyone will have a different opinion of our narrator and her actions. Would be interesting to see who falls where.

ARC from netgalley. ( )