The Life of a Banana by PP Wong

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 270

Publisher: Legend Press 

Released: 1st of September 2018 

Xing Li is what some Chinese people call a banana - yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Although born and raised in London, she never feels like she fits in. When her mother dies, she moves with her older brother to live with venomous Grandma, strange Uncle Ho and Hollywood actress Auntie Mei. Her only friend is Jay - a mixed raced Jamaican boy with a passion for classical music.

Then Xing Li's life takes an even harsher turn: the school bullying escalates and her uncle requests she assist him in an unthinkable favour. Her happy childhood becomes a distant memory as her new life is infiltrated with the harsh reality of being an ethnic minority.

Consumed by secrets, violence and confusing family relations, Xing Li tries to find hope wherever she can. In order to find her own identity, she must first discover what it means to be both Chinese and British.

What I Have to Say 

I didn't like this book much. For one thing, I think Xing Li was written a bit too young for me. Perhaps a younger reader would like the way the books written better, but a lot of things just annoyed me. I would have thought a twelve year old would know what tablets look like and not have to put them in her mouth to find out they're not sweets. Also she lives in London so I don't see why she wouldn't know how to spell Trafalgar. But even if she does't know how to spell Trafalgar or Wagner, or any of the other words the author deliberately misspelled in this book,  I don't think they need to be written out like that. The voice was fine without misspellings and I still can't work out who she was meaning by "Bart". 

I also didn't really like the way that Uncle Ho was written. I can understand why the family would treat him like that, not knowing what to do about him and not wanting to seek advice, but the author didn't use a lot of tact when writing about him. He was constantly referred to as strange and there was rarely any sympathy for him from the narrator. I feel that authors have a responsibility to show that people shouldn't be seen in that way, regardless of how the characters act towards him. 

In short, this just wasn't the book for me at all. I think younger readers could enjoy it, but the treatment of mental health (or whatever it was that Uncle Ho suffered from) was really awful. 

My thanks go to Legend Press and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review.