Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung

As promised, here is the review on the sweet memoir by Alice Pung.

Series: None

Author: Alice Pung

Genre: Memoir

Publisher: Black Inc.

Pages: 282 pages (Paperback)

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Swift Synopsis:

Alice Pung's debut memoir recounts her growing up in Australia, where she tries to balance the East and West, Asian and non-Asian way of living. An insightful peek into a chapter of Alice's life, Unpolished Gem is a tale about identity, growing up and love.

Review:

The memoir is an honest to heart recount that takes place in your average Melbourne suburb. It depicts a migrant family with seemingly petite dreams, but for the dreamer, it is anything but small.

The narrator is extremely observant of her surroundings and at times very serious topics are raised, but they’re often put through a light-hearted lens. One of the anecdotes she shares that’s really heart-warming and personal is her family making paper chains from Target catalogues, because they are so beautiful. And one of the best things in this book is how the little things in life are given so much attention to.

But Alice is also honest when she shows the fractures in family, such as adults using her (a child) to spy on each other and teaching her to hate; she is the “word-spreader”. It’s really cool how we know all the places Alice talks about: Footscray, Braybrook & Springvale - we’ve been to all these places.

The writing itself is sweet and in terms of chronology, it flows really well, but the ending is somewhat jarring. Alice talks about her first love, but there’s so much internal dialogue that it seems whiny. The ending of the book is quite abrupt - quite a few plot holes are left. Maybe it’s because they hadn’t been resolved yet, because this is life, but we get the sense Alice is holding some things back.

However, Alice should be congratulated for putting her writing - her life - out for the world to read, enjoy and criticise, because that takes real guts. We think she pulled it off magnificently. This memoir upturns stereotypes of Asians, and really captures the Australian-Asian life; the clash between cultures is something we’re sure many face, like us.

On an ending note, this book has sweet writing, and if you read it, read it because a whole new perspective of Australia is shown. The world doesn’t get enough of these types of stories.

Thanks to our friend who let us borrow this book. Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!