Ok so after finishing the book “What we all long for”, I’ve decided to share my feelings of it in this blog post.

As told within this week’s seminar, many have disliked the characters presented within the book and have openly stated how Brand has appeared to have made them as unlikable as possible. My major gripe with these characters is that they seem immature in a certain way, which is not a very good characterization for someone who is at an age where they would want to go to university. I felt that some of these characters are upset at issues in which they could resolve rather easier yet tend to worsen it because of their outbursts and reactions. Sometimes I felt that their reactions are justified because of their background and problems that they have to deal with at home, but the way they handle these issues just doesn’t resonate well with me. Carla for example had every right to feel anger toward her father for refusing to bail Jamal out of prison and for playing an indirect role in the suicide of her mother. However instead of giving him time to apologize or maybe even scolding him, she proceeds to physically attack him and scour the edge of his car. This man is her father and she needed to treat him with respect. His role in the suicide was more indirect, it was not as if he intended to have her push herself off the building. By attacking him she worsened the situation, causing him to get angry himself. Not to mention, if Nadine was not there she could have seriously injured him. The parents themselves are also worse than the children they had raised. While we as readers could have a group of families that are being unfairly treated by society or deserve some sort of help either because they are poor or in huge poverty, instead we get ones who tend to go out of their way to do outrageous things, sometimes in front of their own children. Jackie’s parents often tend to get into brawls within the Paramount and Carla’s parents argued with each other to the point where they started hurling insults and throwing objects at each other. Perhaps Carla inherited her father’s habit after seeing the two married couples fighting together.

But of course with any book worthy of being published, Brand must have some reason for having these characters act this way. From what I can tell, by creating characters that are often angry at each other Brand is able to show readers the consequences migration can have upon a family. The best example is with Tuyen’ family with the lost of Quy, how their culture is often not appreciated well enough and how her parents have to try to force them to connect with white culture in order to feel human out in the open world. However while this is a good technique to utilize it can sometimes have its own flaws. The most important one is that the characters become unsympathetic towards the readers. Usually the point of a story on migration and the struggles to cope in a world of an entirely different culture is to have readers sympathize with the characters and want them to get out of the situation they are in. However Brand has still managed to create a good story by having these characters have struggles in which you can pretty much forgive them for acting aggressive.