Title: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Author: Jesse Sutanto
Series: N/A
Dates Read: 20 – 22/08/2024
Published Date: 14 March 2023
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 338
Content Warnings (May contain spoilers)
Death, Fatphobia, Grief, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Racism, Stalking, Toxic relationship.
Who is this for? Teenagers, Young Adult, Adult
This book covers:
- Coming to terms with who you are and what you deserve from life
- Emotional abuse and the effects it has on you and those around you
- The true meaning of family, whether biological or found along the way
Format/Disclosure: Library, paperback.
Rating: 3.0⭐
Review:
Vera lives a quiet and predictable life, running her teashop, until one morning she comes downstairs and finds a dead body in the middle of her shop. After the police investigate and rule it an accident, Vera decides to take matters into her own hands and investigate what she believes is murder. We read from the POV of 4 different people from the victims life to try and figure out how Marshall died, since it seems like all of them have something to hide…
I found the characters to be honestly quite enjoyable – Vera was a firecracker of a human, always seeming to be on the move, and demanding the respect she deserved. While the befuddled acquaintances/family of Marshall all seemed to share the same personality of just plain confused. Though, they did all seem to be fleshed out, with their own struggles and desires in life, which were explored throughout the novel. From trying to save money to improve the life of a younger brother, to the struggles of being the “lesser” twin, we see how Marshall has impacted each of their lives.
My main criticism of the characters was Emma – a character who was supposed to be 2, but spoke as though she was much older. I’ve seen some say this was the authors way to portray that Emma was neurodivergent, but that feels like quite a reach to me. It just came across as quite jarring, and I wish that Emma had just made to be older to fit the story better.
There’s been other reviews I’ve read where they criticise the novel/author for how the others baby Vera, but I found it to be quite accurate. Although I’m not familiar with various Asian cultures, it’s laid out quite often about how elders deserve respect and Vera is not shy to remind the younger characters of this. I never found them to coddle her or treat her as anything less than an elder who you show respect to.
The story is mainly centred on Vera’s life and her teashop, and the author puts a lot of effort into the world-building of her teashop. We see from Vera’s point of view how much the teashop means to her and how beautiful she finds it, while the other characters comment on how rundown/dilapidated it is. It’s a good way to show how everyone views the world differently, and just how much bias can play into it.
The writing came across as quite casual – this isn’t the type of thriller that’s full of suspense and drama, and is instead more of a “cosy” style. There’s a lot of internal thoughts and reactions, which suits the book and characters really well. I enjoyed the writing, even if it isn’t what I’m used to.
But where the book really fell flat for me? The ending. We’re introduced to a limited number of characters, so we have to assume it’s one of the four main perps of whom Vera is interrogating. However there are a few other brief characters also brought in, though not highlighted as much. I spent a lot of the book assuming it was Winnifred (The owner of a “French” patisserie next door to Vera’s teashop), but the actual reveal was extremely disappointing. It felt very shoehorned in, and the reasoning was really lackluster. The character seemed to do a complete 180 from everything we’d seen/learned about them, and I honestly would’ve preferred if we’d had some random person introduced 2/3 of the way through the book who we knew straight away was the villain. After a very slow burn of a book, the last 20% just felt rushed and forced and almost like an afterthought, which really brought my enjoyment of the book down a lot.
Overall, I did enjoy the book. It’s not my usual style of thrillers, but I enjoyed the more relaxed style/pacing. I don’t see myself rushing to read anything more, because I can see this format getting stale quite quickly (for me), but I would still recommend it.