This novel is very atmospheric and really puts you into the slow existence in rural Malaysia. Although I found it to be a bit slow and hard to follow in some parts with the narrator jumps, it is quite beautifully written. Not to pigeonhole it but it feels a bit like a Malaysian version of Call Me by Your Name. The coming of age storyline of Jay and Chuan is definitely the strongest and U found myself rooting for Jay, but it didn't grip me as much as I wanted it to. I am intrigued to see what the author does in the next installment of the 'series.'

THE SOUTH, unfortunately, was a DNF for me. Something about the rhythm of the writing was off for me, and as a listener I had to set it down. I would consider picking it back up when I can get a physical book in my hands.

"The South" is one of those books I really wanted to love—I gave it multiple tries. The writing is undeniably beautiful and lyrical, and it truly transports you to the setting. But the storyline itself feels a bit lackluster, often repeating the same ideas in slightly different ways. It also feels isolated in its own bubble, missing chances to explore more complex cultural or emotional layers. There were so many moments that seemed poised to go deeper, but they stayed too brief or surface-level. I’ve read similar stories that carried a stronger sense of direction and impact. I wish I had more to say, but it just didn’t stick with me.

Beautiful writing and story. It felt a little anti-climactic but overall, it was an enjoyable read with beautiful prose. The audiobook narrator also did a great job.

Jay's family travel to their property in the South, a farm that is failing, despite the diligent care of the farm manager. Jay quickly falls for the manager's son, and a deep romance begins between the two boys.
This novel is strongly character and setting driven. The plot is extraneous - in fact, I've already forgotten anything that happened. But the characters and setting are so strong. Malaysia is really the main character, we see the clash between the modern city people and those in the South. The political dynamics between the Chinese and the Malays, and the widening gap between the modern young generation and the traditions of their parents.
The audio narration was excellent. The narrator's voice was pleasant and soothing and suited the character perfectly. Still, I don't know if I would recommend the audio over print, occasionally it was difficult to tell when the time or perspective jumped, leaving me slightly confused. But maybe the vibes of the book wouldn't have been as strong without that voice.
Apparently, this is the first in a family saga series, and I am here for the next installment!

This never really held my attention. It is very slow and little happens - probably because this is the first of what will be a four volume Malaysian family saga; everything needs to be set up carefully.

I listened to the audio and the narrator is excellent but his Chinese accent is quite strong - when he said 'Later that evening' I understood 'There was no WiFi'... The names were also hard to follow.

I don't exclude giving it another go in hard copy - usually coming-of-age stories suit me well.

DNF @ 25%

I was excited to read Tash Aw's new book, and I hope I could have enjoyed the book a little bit more. However, the overall theme and the pace were just not my thing - everything seemed all over the place and a bit too slow.

THE SOUTH follows Jay as he, his parents, and his two sisters decamp from the city to spend a summer checking in on the family farm that Jay’s mother, Sui, has just inherited from her father-in-law. On the personal register, Jay becomes infatuated with Chuan, the 19-year-old mildly rebellious son of the farmhand, Fong, while Fong and Sui seem to have their own unfinished business. Overarching this is the uncertain fate of the farm, which is no longer profitable.

Perhaps because I’ve recently read other gay coming-of-age novels like OPEN, HEAVEN and ANYONE’S GHOST, THE SOUTH didn’t feel like it was particularly revelatory, though I did appreciate the Malaysian setting, Aw’s understated yet well-tuned writing, and the way class divides—entangled with webs of family secrecy—complicate the relationships. It reminded me a tiny bit of the colonizer-colonized relationship highlighted in TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE, and how power dynamics can color friendship and love. Windson Long does a solid job with the audiobook, which is easy to follow.

Update June 22 TikTok post - please excuse the delay.
A quiet, luminous, book. The audiobook is short, expertly produced, and has expressive narration.
Young Jay and his family move to a deteriorating farm they inherited when his grandfather died. He shares a room with the caretaker's son and becomes drawn to the older boy.

I was struck by the subtle relationships between the young man and the land, and the changing connections between the people living in close quarters on the neglected farm. The detailed descriptions, emotional subtlety, and moments of raw sensuality captivated me. The land, the food, the physical labor, the family tensions, the yearning and desires create a textured tale.

The South shines with the physicality, volatility, and uncertainties of a boy's coming of age in the countryside. It's a rich journey into a specific time and place, as the era of the farm winds toward its end and the boy matures. I enjoyed the spare, perceptive writing. This is a rich book that reveals surprising, personal moments. Taw creates with restraint and generosity, giving us vivid scenes that engage all the senses.

Set in the 1970s, and centered on a Malaysian family in China, this short novel illuminates the experience of being an outsider on multiple levels. The clash between the older generation and the younger one moved me. The meaning of the land in this narrative, and the lives wished for by the individual characters hit poignant notes. I felt for all of the central characters.

The South is an excellent choice for 🌈 Pride or any time. Highly recommended for listeners of LGBTQIA+ audiobooks, and for people who enjoy novels with a memoir feel, own voices books, diversity, and literary fiction.

The writing quality and the journey of this boy emerging into being gay hooked me. There are dark elements, such as the name-calling Jay and his sister experience, the nearly surreal dying farm, and the family tensions. The way Aw evokes the solitary self is beautiful and painful. This book requires more attention than genre fiction–and it's worth it.

My thanks to Dreamscape media for the ALC for consideration. These opinions are solely my own.

So this 2 stars is actually really generous because I didn't enjoy this audiobook at all. The only reason it isn't 1 star is because I think the audio just did not work for me in particular and I am interested in reading this in kindle or hard cover format in the future. And since I was given the audiobook to review from Netgalley, I want to focus on the negative experience I had because 99% of them had to do with the format and not necessarily the story.

So this is hard because I have only just recently gotten into audiobooks and read them mostly on my commute (which is 45-60 minutes one way). There are a lot of good books which don't really work for me in audio format because for one reason or another, it is really hard for me to focus on the story. And unfortunately, that was the case here. I felt that I was constantly rewinding because I had zoned out or missed things which seriously affected my enjoyment. I have mostly found that nonfiction works best for me in audio, but I have also had a lot of luck with fantasy or romantasy genres as well as with some dramatized adaptations of some books I've already read. This book is more coming of age and literary fiction which I just think is harder for me to get into on audio, and I kept feeling like I was missing something by not reading this in a traditional way because I think there is some strong luscious writing here, but in audio I just couldn't get into it.
So my complaint with it just not being something that I could get into in audio format (in fact, if it weren't an ARC I would have DNF'd it by 20% in) is valid, but I'd also be lying if I said it was just a "it's not you, it's me" factor. Because it also was the book in a lot of ways. And the biggest reason why I didn't love this audiobook was unfortunately the narrator. Windson Liong is a Singaporean voice actor and though I love his voice, his accent made his narration very difficult for me to understand, especially coupled with the fact that I had a hard time paying attention to the story in the first place. And at the risk of sounding like a culturally inept white American woman reviewing a book set in Malaysia and written by a Malaysian author, Mr. Liong's accent was very very difficult for me to listen to for long stretches of time. And after awhile I just kind of gave up and towards the end, just kind of listened to get it done. I know that I missed a lot of key points, and even though I understand and appreciate the cultural significance of having a Singaporean narrator, but I did feel like having to concentrate too hard on what he was saying made the narration feel clunky and disjointed and I felt isolated from the plot a lot of the time. Now I already stated that I am probably not the right audiobook reader at baseline, and I did read a lot of reviewers who loved the narration so the fault is probably mine.

I am very interested in reading a physical or digital copy of this book in the future, but this audiobook was pretty much a total fail for me.

2 (very generous) stars

[2 stars]
[DNF at 40%]

I think that I just need to stop attempting teenage coming of age stories. I don’t care about these teenagers, I’m 23.

The South, the first in an upcoming 4 book series, introduces us to a nuclear family in Malaysia in the 90s. Our family, a father, mother, two older sisters, and the son - our main character Jay - as they visit a farm far in the countryside that was passed down from Jay’s grandfather. The farm has become dilapidated over the years and dying due to the recent droughts. It is cared for by a farm manager and his teenage son, Chuan, who Jay becomes infatuated with. We also spend some time (much less than the main plot, at least as of where I left this novel) with Jay’s mother and her past that comes to the forefront as she visits this farm (it was her father in law that left the farm specifically to her, rather than his own son).

As I mentioned, I just really can’t get into teenage coming of age stories anymore. I love a good teenage protagonist/POV, but these specific high school/summer break/first love/finding themself novels are just ones I need to avoid. I feel nothing towards Jay and Chuan. I don’t care for their cusp of adulthood trials. A thing specific to me and not the fault of the book.

Moving past this, however, I don’t feel that Jay was written interestingly at all. He's a somewhat timid kid, has a few friends but doesn’t belong to any cliques, keeps to himself, and all of that. He never drank or smoked before meeting Chuan, but doesn’t have second thoughts about it when given the chance. He says he’s so unathletic and never picked for sports, but handles the manual labor on the farm with no complaint. There is nothing intriguing about his relationship to his parents or older sisters - realistic, yes, but very dull and uninteresting. His internal monologue is nothing special either. It is the same static descriptions that the rest of this novel suffers from (more on that later). I never found anything to latch onto with him.

Chuan is fine for what he is. I assume we would get more of his character as we move into the second half of the novel, which I am not interested enough in to do. I liked the few scenes we had of him and his friend in the town. I also liked his personal goals of holding down an actual job (even if it is just part time at 7/11) and renting out an apartment in the town. I don’t think that he plays off well with Jay, our main POV, at all and the book suffers because of that.

The style of writing in this book is so static and dull. There is little attempt at descriptive prose, which I prefer over this dull listing of events that happens. Descriptions are unremarkable, character relationships aren’t well explored, and nothing is done with the setting. There’s nothing to hold you in or capture your interest. Nothing is made to be interesting or make you ask questions. There is no plot other than “the family is on the farm for a few weeks in the summer. This is what they’re doing”. Each character is off doing something or other and we never get to see it. A better author can do wonderful things with this style of story, such as the scene where Jay and Chuan run into Jay’s adult sister in the town, but this author hasn’t attempted anything up to this point. It’s hard to describe because it’s not the dullest prose I have ever read - and it’s infinitely better than bad purple prose - but it’s up there.

I think that a lot of people will love this novel, I see the reviews confirming this. But the combination of the lack of writing skills, lack of any plot or anything interesting happening, and my own taste against teenage coming of age stories makes this just not something for me. It’s not horrible and never frustrated me, but just a very dull and uninteresting work

While I don't think this book was necessarily for me, I found it to be beautifully written and could see it becoming a future classic. I would be interested in reading some of the author's other works, just based on the quality of the writing in this one. I think if I felt more drawn to the plot of another book by this author, it could easily become one of my favorite modern books. I would highly recommend this to fans of queer literature and fans of beautiful, descriptive language.

The writing was blank and the story so realistic that I often put it down because it was too "heavy"
With that being said, I don't want people thinking I'm heartless or bored when it comes to books touching real subject. On the contrary, I think that I picked it up at a time where I'm not in a good mental state
give it a chance yourself !

thank you netgalley for the copy

I was genuinely excited to pick up this book, primarily because I love reading books from authors of other cultures, and I haven’t read many by Taiwanese authors. So, I was very much looking forward to something fresh and different. And while I did find the family dynamics and the struggles depicted in the story moving and well-written, the book as a whole just didn’t work for me.

Unfortunately, the plot failed to hold my attention, and I struggled to connect with most of the characters. Their motivations often felt distant, making it hard to become invested in their journeys. By the time the ending arrived, it made sense in the context of the story, but since I wasn’t emotionally engaged, it didn’t leave much of an impact.

Overall, while there are some strong moments in the portrayal of family and hardship, this one ultimately fell flat for me. I wish I had enjoyed it more, but it just wasn’t the right fit.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ALC.

The premise of this sounded really interesting, so I was excited to get a chance to listen to The South by Tash Aw. However, I stopped listening at around 56%. It was so slow and I genuinely could not get into the story. I usually Love narrator accents, definitely if they make the story more immersive, but this accent somehow required so much attention to even understand what was being said that it took away any reading pleasure I could have had. The concentration needed just to distinguish the words was not worth it. I still had not been pulled into the story when I reached 50%, so decided to stop listening soon after. Really bummed out because I believe the story is one that should be told and read.

This is my first Tasha Aw novel. Reading this right on the heels on Ocean's Vuoung's latest, it's hard not to draw some comparisons, as separated as they are by entire continents. Both have a young, queer boy as a narrator, both are navigating the hopelessness of their family's legacy, and both of whose lives are defined by the specific racism of where they live. Yet this one feels far away from feeling emotionally accessible or familiar than Ocean's work. And not only because it's set in Malaysia while Vuoung's work is based on Connecticut, which believe me, even as an American sometimes feels alien to me. If anything, the tempo and travails of contemporary Southeast Asian life feels more familiar to me. It could be the writing, which jumps around pretty frantically through the POVs of almost every named character, while only letting one character speak in first person. So it's hard to pin down the actual makeup of everyone's internal life if it's from Jay's perspective only, and Jay himself is not the most reliable or sympathetic protagonist. For some reason I thought this would focus more on Jay and Chuan's developing relationship and its challenges and sweetness. But not only was it borderline toxic, its development was mostly shoved to the edges of the story of a family who is messy and bitter and collectively and individually at make or break points in their journeys. I wasn't really looking for a romance in this per se, so I wasn't too disappointed by the sidelining of Jay and Chuan. Other characters emerged as more interesting and having more interesting dynamics that I wished had more of a center narrative stage, such as Jay's sisters and mom. Sui and Fong's relationship also suffered the same fate as Jay and Chuan's, even more in that it wasn't necessarily romantic but tied to their relationship to the land that they loved and wanted to nurture, and as Others in the family. Lina was such a force of nature and I wish this was entirely from her POV. The other sister barely got any personality attributed to her except to make a point about Malay/Chinese relationships and prejudices. All of that said, the writing felt powerful and profound frequently but also as disjointed as the story of a particularly dysfunctional family, in the throes of a decaying legacy. Perhaps my unfamiliarity with contemporary Malaysian culture also contributed to the distance I felt from the characters, but perhaps it's just not a narrative structure that works for me. That said, I'd be curious to check out other works by a clearly globally celebrated author. I received both ebook and audiobook versions of this from Netgalley. The audiobook narrator was decent but had a distinct accent that didn't change from character to character and it didn't help with the frequent POV shifts.

This was such a good book. I loved the story and the writing so much. The characters were great and the story flowed smoothly. Will definitely read more books by this author in the future.

I always love finding a new Canadian author but this one just didn't grab me. Maybe it was the narrator and I would have gotten into it more as a physical read but for whatever reason I just didn't get into it. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

I listened to this book, and the narrator is perfect. He sounds exactly as I think Jay would. A good narrator is very important, but even more so since this book feels like a friend, explaining about the summer their family went to the south. And of course, when a story like that is being told there are diversions - it's not linier, since it also needs to explain what happened before. This book also has a really strong sense of place. It's a beautifully told story, about families and lives. In some ways nothing happens, and in other ways everything does and I don't want to try to over explain it because it's a story I was in while listening, and the more I think about it the more complex this initially simple seeming story becomes.

I was given the audiobook of this by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Despite the cultural aspect and intriguing locale, this first entry in a planned tetralogy did not really catch fire for me. There may have been some metafictional aspects which explains the hesitancy, and there really was some lovely prose. But on the whole, I was disappointed in the overall experience.