I understand that the author has written a gay coming-of-age novel, but for me apart from the obvious very little happens, and what does happen happens slowly.
The characters are good.
The setting is Southern Malaysia and the interaction of people is interesting, but slow.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Tash Aw impressed me in a way so few authors ever did with their first work.The South is a beautifully introspective novel that explores themes of identity, exhile, and belongings. The story is so thoughtfully crafted, Aw's prose is elegant and restrained, capturing the tension between longing for home and the desire of reinvention. I don't want to go into too many details because reading it without knowing anything about it makes almost every book better (in my experience at least), but I would say it's the perfect novel to pick up if you are a fan of reflective, character-driven fiction. Its quiet power will take over you guaranteed.

The South by Tash Aw is a quiet, beautifully written coming-of-age story that I can't stop thinking about after finishing the book. Set in Malaysia in the late ‘90s, it follows 16-year-old Jay and his family as they return to their neglected farm in the south. What unfolds is a story of self-discovery, family tensions, and the stark contrast between rural and city life.

At its core, the book is about Jay’s relationship with Chuan, a boy tied to the land but longing for something more. Their connection anchors the novel’s exploration of identity, love, and belonging. But this isn’t just Jay’s story. Aw moves between perspectives, giving us glimpses into the inner lives of Jay’s parents, siblings, and Chuan’s father, weaving a rich, layered narrative.

The writing is understated but powerful, capturing the heat of the countryside, the weight of unspoken expectations, and the quiet ache of growing up. There’s melancholy here, but also hope. It’s the kind of book that leaves you wanting to stay with the characters just a little longer.

The first in a quartet of novels, The South is a gay coming-of-age novel set in Malaysia during the late 90s. It is elegaic, melancholy and astute at pinning down the class and ethnic hierarchies in the country during that era, exploring the chasm between the rural countryside and the city. On the cusp of this temporal friction is the love story between Jay and Chuan, two boys who come from families more dysfunctional than they'd like to admit. The novel shifts through multiple narrative perspectives, inclusive of Jay's parents and Chuan's father; from them, we learn about the simmering dissatisfaction eating away at both families. The world that Aw paints is immersive and meticulous, but I can't help but feel a sense of detachment at the way these stories are told. Maybe it has to do with how love is secondary to many of the characters' material concerns, but the narrative resembles a clean ethnographic study devoid of all the messiness and vitality that normally accompanies a bildungsroman. But since The South is an introductory novel to a quartet, perhaps these stories will grow with time. I'm holding out hope; there are very few Singaporean queer stories, which makes Jay and Chuan's story feel very much like home. Despite being set in Malaysia, there is a closeness between both countries which makes a lot of the novel's cultural references feel instantly familiar and euphoric.

Aw’s "The South" marks a departure from the expected, and yet anticipation hums on every page. The scenery that bursts before us is lush yet bristling, keening with life one moment, collapsing into stillness the next. Heat scalds skin, stiffens limbs, and saturates the senses as it seeps between clammy flesh and the body it depletes in desire.

In the dense reaches of a forgotten country, the characters all undulate with ripples of disharmony. Like time itself, they splinter apart, with memory and longing nipping at their necks. The narrative feeds off this fugue state by slipping between now and then, overtaking the logic of time. Meanwhile, across the expanse of an intoxicating summer, language sheds its restraint, surrendering to the haze.

Perspectives shift from third to first person, at once bringing us within the feathery reach of Jay’s fingertips and pushing us to the limits of his teenage sanity. Complexities undulate, with poetic forms winding around breathless moments of dissociated hunger one moment, then stretching out plainly—accessible to all, far removed from the rage of ignited being.

Dialogue, too, flees the frame of quotation marks during moments of acute intimacy, as though each word were painfully self-aware, baring itself for the scrutiny of both the speaker and the one receiving it as a sacrificial offering. The result is breathtaking.

The deeper we sink into Aw’s creation, the more tangled we become in the web of bodily and existential desires that form the roots of the land. In this reality, shame and guilt don’t exist, much like there is no weed in nature, only a plant deemed less worthy.

It’s no wonder that numbness pervades "The South." It clings to the drudgery of life in the ravaged countryside, accentuating tensions and touches, searing all the more with their intentionality.

Revelations, too, appear sharper because of the suddenness with which they are flung into being. Unsettling and yet settled, they add to the strains that could be dismissed as youth, stupidity, misfortune, or inexperience. And yet every body harbours its own seed of experience, for better or worse.

In Jay’s case, that seed blooms in real time, stretching out his being. The body it reaches for, starved for survival, can crush, consume, or free him—though perhaps each is just another form of ruin.

Seekers of intensity will find themselves absorbed by "The South," not just by its fevered heat, but by its quiet defiance, its refusal to temper passion into something palatable. Here, queerness is not burdened by shame but left to unfurl in the body’s own language, unspoken yet undeniable. Longing is survival, and survival is a reckoning. One that does not seek permission to exist.

this was stunning. i loved how heritage and culture and history and family was interwoven throughout this book, along with it covering themes of coming of age and exploring sexuality. at first, the multiple points of view were hard to keep a track of, but soon i was swept away by this book - seeing jay slowly understanding his identity and place in the world, his moments with chuan, the complexity to each and every character. it's remarkable, how much aw has managed to string from this (relatively short) book.

rather melancholic and dream-like, but truly beautiful.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book to read


This is a sensitively written novel by Tash Aw. Being Malaysian, himself, the countryside comes to life with its descriptions which make the reader feel he is transported to the country.

Jay, who is the narrator of the story, and his family have come south for a holiday. The family consists of Sui and Jake, his parents, and Lin and Yi, his sisters. The family has come south to spend a month where Sui has a small patch of land which was acquired by her father in law and has been left to her. We are introduced to Fong who is the farm manager and his son Chuan who is a little older than Jay. The general atmosphere does not seem to be a very happy one. Fong is the illegitimate son of Jay’s grandfather and has spent his entire life trying to make the orchard/farm survive. Jay’s mother Sui, a once intelligent and capable woman has lost this in her unhappy marriage to Jake. Jay’s father is a mathematics teacher who has just lost his job.

The parents have to decide what to do with the farm which has become a piece of dry land and has little worth other than sentimental reasons. The land which was thriving once with produce and human labour is now barren with part time workers. It is no wonder that Chuan is planning to leave his father and go to Singapore which promises a better future.

Into this scenario, Aw describes the growing infatuation of Jay for Chuan. It is easy to dismiss the story as another coming of age story but the depth of feeling and emotions are extremely well developed and portrayed and the relationship is described in a touching terms. Whereas Jay is totally committed to the relationship, one gets the feeling that Chuan seems to be more involved in the physical element.

Though the story is basically told from Jay’s perspective we also have glimpses from the points of view of the mother and Fong. The novel moves in an unobtrusive and elegant manner from first person to third person and between times schemes, past and present which make it a delight to read.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

The South can be considered part of a coming-of-age and part of a family novel for those who like categorization. It is told by Jay, 16, the youngest child of a Malaysian couple, Sui and Jake, both of Chinese origin. We are also introduced to siblings, Lina, 22 (the oldest child, already at university, usually in opposition with her father) and Yin (the middle child, at around 19, an almost close copy to their mother). The father decides they will spend the month of December in the south, somewhere close to Singapore, where Sui has a small farm that she inherited from her father-in-law. It is there where we are also met with Fong, the farm’s manager who has lived there for a lifetime, and his son, Chuan, 20, who dreams of leaving everything behind to pursue a better life, yet aware that he cannot leave his old man behind simply like that.

Besides the economic turmoil of the time, a certain moment around the end of the last century and the beginning of the new one, the drought caused by the effects of El Niño is ruining the prospects of the place.

What I loved about this novel were the options Tash Aw took to write this beautiful story. Though we navigate it by Jay’s narrative from an adult age, the author also introduces us to the inner lives and thoughts of Sui and Fong from time to time, and that is how we can gather the pieces of the puzzle together, allowing us to have the exact vision of all that is taking place around these people, their frustrations, troubles, relationships. When the narrative comes back to Jay (the one who gives voice to his mother and Fong), we are introduced to a story of self-discovery, first love with Chuan, and slow founding of his place in the world and his personality, notwithstanding the turmoil that takes place around him.

What also touched me in this story is that characters are shown, as much as possible, in all the possible shades of gray, leaving us with this feeling that many times people aren’t either good or bad, but due to the many circumstances of life, we allow things to happen the way they do, instead of fighting against them, like in Sui’s situation, her yearnings washed away to accomplish a marital life and all the rage that comes from it, silenced somewhere inside her, inherited by her oldest kid, Lina, quite an interesting character.

Tash´s prose is beautiful, no matter the dryness of the land and the turmoil these characters face. It is a reading experience I so much enjoyed.

Using multiple points of view, The South beautifully captures the story of Jay, a Malaysian boy, and his family as they inherit a southern family farm following their grandfather’s passing. Their summer at the struggling farm reveals the rich inner feelings of family members, touching on themes of time, growth, and transformation. The blossoming attraction between Jay and Chuan, the farm manager's son, adds a hopeful touch, though I wished for more depth in their relationship. While I found the other family members intriguing, the shorter length of the book left me yearning for a deeper exploration of their stories. Nonetheless, the prose is stunning, and the themes of time and change are intricately woven into this beautiful narrative.

Set in Malaysia, this is the story of a first summer love.

Jay and his family travel to the south end of their country after the death of his grandfather, to visit the land they have inherited. Once there, Jay meets Chuan, the son of the farm manager. As the summer carries on, Jay and Chuan become closer. Unfortunately, summer must come to an end, and difficult decisions about the farm must be made.

While doing some research for this one, I stumbled across a post saying this would be the first book in a series. I hope that’s true, because these characters feel like they have a lot of story left to share.

The cast of characters were beautifully written, each unique and with some depth. Reading about the Malaysian culture was interesting, a culture I haven’t read much about before. Also included in this story is a glimpse into the generational differences in the Malaysian culture, the expectations from each, and the different Asian cultures that come together to create this family and their mindsets.

Finally, I really just loved Jay and Chuan and their summer together.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher/author for this copy of the book.

As coming of age tales go, this one is gentle, piercing, resonant. Aw doesn’t confine himself to a single perspective, instead moves between several characters in the family that has gone south to visit the neglected farm it owns. Each character is finely drawn, notably Jay who finds his first love and sexual experience in Chuan. But Chuan too, and jay’s sisters and mother and father. All have definition and ring true. Similarly, the sense of place is finely drawn and clearly imagined.
This is deceptively understated work, but achieved with great skill and quiet insight. Impressive.

It's really interesting, not but not what I was hoping to read – the romance has a bit too much relevance for what I was expecting.

Tash Aw’s The South is a beautifully written novel that transported me to a sweltering summer filled with tension, desire, and family secrets. When Jay’s grandfather dies, he travels with his family to a neglected farm in the south, where he meets Chuan, the farm manager’s son. The connection between the two boys grows in the heat of the fields and town streets, even as their families wrestle with buried regrets and fragile hopes.

Jay’s father struggles with his failed career, while his mother holds the family together despite her unspoken dreams. The land itself, parched and on the brink of collapse, mirrors the uncertainty everyone feels. Aw captures this moment of change with quiet intensity, blending personal longing with the greater forces of time and loss.

The South left me reflecting on love, identity, and the weight of inheritance. It’s both tender and haunting, a novel that lingers long after the final page.

What a wonderful new book from Tash Aw! It describes the life as it is: past (secrets) slowly unfolding, ambiguous present, insecure future. It made me revisit my view om my youth and my family's history in a challenging yet liberating way. It is really well written, easy to read and to get lost in the story full of sharp constatations on what life truly is in contrast to what we try to make it look likes. I recommend this book to everyone as it's deep but not heavy and it's clever and hopeful. You come out of this book wanting more, wanting to stay with the characters to see how things wil evolve for them as you have become attached to them and hope for the best. Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Remarkable. Constantly felt connected to these characters and happy that each got their own time. Such strong emotion throughout. More of this.

Tash Aw's The South is a beautiful coming of age story. Jay, his two sisters and his parents spend some time at a failing farm down south which they inherited. At the farm, Jay shares a room with Chuan, who he immediately takes a liking to.

"In that moment, forever seems like a comforting notion. But at that age, what does either of them really know about time?"

I found myself unable to put this book down. Something about its atmosphere pulls you in and keeps this grip on you. I felt a deep sense of nostalgia and sadness throughout the whole book, despite it not really being a sad story. Any queer person will probably deeply relate to Jay and his first time navigating his identity and feelings.

The book focuses on a lot more interesting things. Jay's family each have their struggles, his mother most of all. Tash aw has done a great job at fleshing out every character in a relatively short amount of pages.
With the importance of the characters themselves it's easy to overlook the setting of the story. Set in Malaysia, it focuses on a lot of issues like the cause of climate change and the xenophobia against the Chinese.

This was a beautiful, somewhat melancholic but also hopeful coming of age story.

"This emptiness feels like hunger but Jay thinks that it is really a longing, though he doesn't know what he is longing for."

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a tender, melancholy coming of age story set in Malaysia just after the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Jay Lim is the teenage son of an ageing maths teacher Jack and his younger wife Sui. There are unresolved tensions in the family that are gradually revealed. Jack decides to visit the farm that once belonged to his father and has now been bequeathed to his wife. The manager is Fong, a poorly-educated man who struggles to make a living from the farm as it declines in the face of climate change and underinvestment. When Jay meets Fong's son Chuan who is a few years older, he finds himself having to confront his own burgeoning sexuality.

I enjoyed this book as it is beautifullly written and evocative of the time and place, ie south-east Asia in the grip of crises both economic and environmental. It deftly describes poverty and the struggle to escape one's circumstances without becoming bogged down in social commentary. The gulf between generations and between the educated and uneducated is sympathetically depicted. The encounters between Jay and Chuan are tender and romantic and reminded my of Andre Acíman's 'Call Me By Your Name'.

My only quibble is with the ending which seemed weak compared to the rest of the novel.

I particularly enjoyed reading this, as it is set in the exact opposite environment to where I live - scorching hot summer holidays vs smoggy cold school autumn/winter. The structure also helped the prose flow smoothly, switching between characters and timelines. If I have one criticism, it's that I wish we had spent more time with the main character. It felt like the novel was just touching on a lot of issues, and I wanted to know much more, as I know next to nothing about Chinese migration to Malaysia, let alone the queer migrant experience there.

eh… this one was a bit of a letdown, if i’m honest :/ i expected to enjoy it far more than i actually did. the writing is quite strong & raw, perhaps a little too much at times, and i feel as though it was rougher than i expected; which isn’t a bad thing per se, but i wasn’t exactly in the mood for that sort of story right now.

✰ 3 stars ✰

​​​“​​Time is something to be endured; there is​ too much of it ahead of me. Why​ doesn’t time accelerate and propel you into a new age, when you can​ emerge a different person – stronger, calmer, more beautiful?​​”

​ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ The South is very much a story that depicts time and the changes it brings into our lives and our very being. It is time that is both ephemeral and transient, fleeting that makes the now so much more tangible than what we anticipate it to be. It is the time that we reflect on our past, our mistakes, our foibles, our sins, and our desires, that the Lim family weighs in on when they return to their long-forgotten farm in Malaysia - one which is a respite, as it is a hope to fortify the roots that are weakening from within.

​​“​​That was how memory worked; it was the opposite of recollection, never as strong as we thought it was, always relinquishing the instances that mattered most to us.​”

​ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Through alternating perspectives and a nonlinear narrative we get glimpses into various members - sixteen-year-old Jay as he ponders about his future at school and his relationship with his older childhood friend, Chuan, his mother, Sui, as she reflects on her marriage and the challenges and chances she took with her husband, Jack, wondering if there is anything she regrets, and Fong, Chuan's father, who has dedicated his life to keeping the farm afloat, and now realizing that with the passage of time, was it all for naught.

​ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ It is these little instances of possibility and reflection that depict some beautiful and oftentimes, some thought-provoking passages that almost glide through the narrative, as seamlessly as it alternates in the format of which the perspective is written. It is easy to get lost in their thoughts, their story, their contemplative emotions that captures so very subtly of how change in one's life is weighed in by the measure of time. It's -- moving, and yet, it's also a quiet book, in which, not much happens, but with the passage of time - people's thoughts and emotions are changing. And that is where the writing makes you feel those subtle wisps of change.

​“​​As long as you don’t cut down the tamarind trees, she laughs.
They’re old and sick too, you know.
She shrugs. But they’re still alive and still beautiful.​​​​”

​ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ I liked how Tash Aw ​captured the quiet intimacy of their surroundings​ - the silence, the stillness, the calmness, and the protective nature of it,​ as well as the harsh bleak failing of it​ that makes one wish to turn away from it. It is a contrast to itself, that is also pointed back at certain members of the Lim family - how it is the question of whether their future exists here or back home.​ At times, the lack of quotations was difficult to get through, but I understood then, that maybe it meant when they were speaking in another language. There are also some rather long-winded phrases; but the descriptive and meaningful topics it portrays makes it so much more insightful and impactful that it is easy to overlook it - almost washing over you.

​ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Fong and Sui's thoughts conveyed a sense of longing and regret of the moments that have passed and never to come again. Jay's story was more than just a coming-of-age story of accepting his sexuality, but one that gently nudges him in a direction that may be a stern difference from the expectations of his rigid, if not conventional scholarly father's expectations.​'I was just about to turn seventeen,​ and at that age, what did I really know about time?​' The question of uncertainty of his own future that lies in the balance of where he wishes to see himself.

​“​​We feel as though our entire world changes when we get older, every object, every person, has been rearranged into some strange new configuration, but in fact nothing at all has changed.​”

​ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ There is one very moving comparison the author illustrated between Jay and Chuan that was so poignantly delivered that it captured the wish for a forever - for a love to last... I just thought it was beautifully done. Jay and Chuan's dynamic is tenuous, but brimming with hopeful anticipation - a longing for a connection - an understanding - a chance. 'What if it’s a boy? Who comes here because he’s yearning for another​ boy?​' There is that uncertainty of expectation, along with their own social standards that divides them, but to crave for a forever, when change is not in their grasp is a bittersweet, but tangible feeling...

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ And the way the story concludes, it is evident that the Lim family's trials and journey is far from over. There is a resolute fierceness kindled in the spirited souls of those who have spent their time here; one that is both daring and determined to transcend beyond what they've aspired for. It makes me curious to know what direction their journey in life will take each of them.

*Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.