Service95 Recommends is the home of the books we love and reviews from our contributors. The South by Tash Aw is about desire, inheritance, and the longing that blooms between two boys over one summer in the 1990s.
What We Say: “Over long, balmy days in rural Malaysia, Jay and Chuan, two boys on the brink of adulthood, work side by side on a small farm that barely scratches a living. Evenings are spent swimming, drinking cold beers and, eventually, in secret sexual trysts. Set over one swelteringly hot summer, this coming-of-age love story examines class divides and the secrets families keep. And there’s more to come – this is the first novel in a planned quartet from Tash Aw, a novelist stepping into his power.” – Maria Padget
What They Say: “Shimmeringly intelligent and elegiacally intimate” – Yiyun Li
Available on Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble
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Maria Padget is Book Club Director at Service95