Reviews

What Lies Between Us by Nayomi Munaweera

utahmomreads's review against another edition

5.0

I loved Naomi Munaweera's first novel Island of a Thousand Mirrors. It was one of my very favorite novels in 2014. So, when I saw that she'd written another novel, I was thrilled to be able to read it. What Lies Between Us takes the reader back to Sri Lanka, where a young girl grows up surrounded by the tenuous love of her parents. Her relationship with her mother is at times loving caresses and tenderness but often her mother withdraws and is distant and emotionally unavailable. At the same time, the girl loves her homeland--the lush surroundings and dear friends. However, under it all, she hides a terrible secret that is threatening to destroy her entire family. When disaster sends them to America, she must now try to fit in within a completely different society and culture.

In What Lies Between Us, Munaweera again delights with stunningly beautiful language and haunting imagery. I was enraptured as she wove her tale of familial love and its power for complete destruction. The narrator is a sensitive character who endures so much and has a way of observing and describing situations that shows her keen insight.

Munaweera exposes parts of human nature that we wish to hide and wish they weren't true. It is at times uncomfortable and yet so very valuable to recognize and understand. She never lets the reader off the hook and doesn't shy away from painful topics. She writes a novel that will make you feel and think and maybe even squirm. What Lies Between Us is an unforgettable novel.

lisagray68's review

dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

eblankenship23's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

ellementary's review against another edition

4.0

Staggering and brutal.

adrianyt's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This is an intense book dealing with trauma, abuse, mental illness. Tough to read at times. Characters are believable and compelling. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Suicide

towering_tbr's review against another edition

3.0

3.5

chilks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

audaciaray's review against another edition

4.0

I recently described the kind of fiction I read as "sad books by and about sad women" and this book is soooo much that. Written as a first person confessional from prison and taking place in Sri Lanka and California, really gorgeous prose that is essentially about the violence and awfulness of being a daughter and then a wife and mother. Really heavy and upsetting. I'm totally going to read the authors previous book.

minithemouse's review

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

emjay24's review

4.0

This book is a fictionalized memoir account, narrated by a woman who grew up in Sri Lanka in the mid-1970s to 1980s, relocating to Fremont, CA as a teen, and who lived in the Mission in San Francisco as an adult. She begins in relatively now time, and then narrates her story beginning when she was born, trying to explain why she is now in jail. Most of the time I forgot she was currently locked up as her story took me in. Beautiful and horrible things mixed together in her descriptions in both Sri Lanka and SF. I live in San Francisco myself, so I enjoyed reading about places I’d been to or passed by, contrasted with the earlier part of the book, Sri Lanka, a place I know almost nothing about. I’m not quite sure that I liked anyone in the book, but they interested me. The author, Nayomi Munaweera has a wonderful writing style, I can’t wait to read more. This was her second book, her first is about the Sri Lankan civil war, which was introduced in this one, but not at depth.