[book review] A Singapore Love Story

Low Kay Hwa, full-time novelist in Singapore had launched his 10th novel, A Singapore Love Story.

The Story Plot

This story is actually a typical love story setting in Singapore, and this is good because it gives local readers a chance to reminise about yesteryear about growing up and falling in love themselves in Singapore. In this story, the protaganist, Noodle met Michael and it actually begins in Primary school all the way to the transition to Adulthood... They were loggerheads when they first met during their school days and they started liking each other as years go by...

The story also deals with social issues such as the gap in different classes, as both of them have different family backgrounds as the girl is smart and comes from a wealthy family, who has been pampered her whole life, while the guy is just the opposite of her, who has experienced the hard knocks of life since young.
 

As standard of living in Singapore is pretty high, all of us are facing challenges in our daily lives which include love relationship... Everybody doubts about love, does true love really exist?

Two different people with two different family backgrounds can be together forever, will their love won over reality?

Beware of that twist ending of this story, read it to find out the truth...

 

The Chapters of the Novel

To enhance the aroma of local flavor to his writing, he named his chapters after Singapore's MRT( Mass Rapid Transport) train stations... The chapters flowed exactly as the order of the MRT's East-West line... He arranged his first station stop chapter as Joo Koon, all the way to the last chapter, Pasir Ris.

 

But why does the author choose the East-West line? My guess, is it probably brought back memories for him to write such a romantic story plot. Maybe, I am saying the same about myself, as I been staying in the eastern side of Singapore for more than 25 years... Naming the chapters after MRT stations was interesting and unique, in my humble opinion.
 

In order to write a love story, one needs to really understand different aspects of a typical Singapore couple and I think Low Kay Hwa does it pretty well...

 

Reality really makes me grow up over the years, and how often do we find novels about love in Singapore? My own preference is to read realistic stories, and I could really put myself in the protaganist's shoes. I, myself have been through and survived my teenage life and I faced (who didn't?) the same issue of love troubles which the new generation are facing right now... Therefore, I think this book suitable for all age levels if you don't mind the odd profanity of course...

I personally feel that it brings back my old memories, be it good or bad, those were the days where my heart rules my head when it comes to BGR (boy-girl relationship)...

Low Kay Hwa's style of writing is pretty good, do take note on some grammatical errors and start to use more action words to make the plot look more realistic. Overall, it reaches the genre as romance, but however, I believe he can do better than this, I am really looking forward to his 11th novel, hope that his new book can make me tear up when I read it...