The Gilmore Guide to Books

Connecting Books and Readers One Review at a Time

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Reviews
    • Reviews by Author
    • Reviews by Title
    • Reviews by Genre
  • More Books
  • Policies
    • Review Policy
    • Privacy Policy

Diamond Head

May 15, 2015

Diamond Head by Cecily Wong
Published by Harper
Publication date: April 14th 2015
Genres: Cultural, Fiction, Historical
two-half-stars

diamond head

 

Diamond Head is an ambitious debut from the school of Amy Tan multi-generational Chinese family drama. The Leongs are the premier family living on Oahu where they settle after leaving China prior to World War I. First time novelist Cecily Wong does an admirable job portraying the inter-generational relationships amongst the Leong women. She captures those that reflect the racial heritage and also strikes deep to the not-so-simple mother-daughter dynamic. The key voices in the novel are Lin, the matriarch, her daughter-in-law Amy and her daughter, Theresa. For Lin, there is such gratitude to her husband for rescuing her from a life of abuse for being a lowly daughter that she never questions any of his other actions. Amy has grown up in poverty with a mother who married rashly only to discover that her husband had no intention of ever providing for their growing family. This leaves her to make her marital choice with security as the paramount concern despite having being in love with another man. For eighteen-year-old Theresa, despite being the granddaughter of one of the island’s wealthiest men, life is confusing.

…even at twelve years old, I began to understand that there was something very strange about my family. That there were things meant to be held up for the attention of the world, things to be admired from the outside, and things that were better left in the darkness…

The relationships and historical aspects of Diamond Head make for fascinating reading so it is curious that Wong chooses to introduce a murder 2/3 of the way through the book. From this point on, the drama increases exponentially as secret after secret is revealed. This plethora of plot points feels unnecessary element and throws the pacing off. And while Wong allows each narrator (Lin, Amy, Theresa) to speak in the 1st person she shifts to the 3rd person for the present day; going from the intimacy of one to the more subjective of the other is jarring, especially further into the story. These seismic shifts in an otherwise engrossing generational character study work against the novel’s natural flow and while they don’t cause Diamond Head to completely crumble they serve to weaken its inherent strength. When the dust settles, it’s a like not a love.

two-half-stars

Related Posts

  • Related Posts
  • Same Genre
  • 2.5 Star Books
debut
Best Debut Novels of 2017
son
Everybody’s Son: A Novel
rhythm
The Rhythm of Memory
December Mini-Reviews
Sunday Sentence: This is the Story of a Happy Marriage
woke up lonely
Woke Up Lonely: A Novel
black chalk
Black Chalk
moment of everything
The Moment of Everything
eligible
Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice
road
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Wedding Night
Wedding Night
midnight
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
november
November Reading Wrap-Up
it's
It’s Not You, It’s Me: Mini-Reviews
stalled
Stalled: Mini-Reviews

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: China, cultural, debut, Harper, Hawaii, historical fiction

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Save time and subscribe via email

No time to keep checking for new reviews? Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email. No spam!

Currently Reading

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
by Emily Nagoski
The Dutch House
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
by Adrienne Brodeur

goodreads.com

Affiliate Disclosure

I’m an affiliate for Indiebound and Amazon. If you click on a link that takes you to any of these sites and make a purchase I’ll earn a small fee, which goes towards the costs of maintaining this site. Your support is appreciated. Thank you!

Archives

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2021

Copyright © 2021 · Beyond Madison Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in