[Steeplechase] Supernova: Akar by Dee Lestari ★★½

[Tien]

Note: this book is in Bahasa Indonesia and I do not believe there is an English translation for this though there is one for book 1 (this is book 2)

I read book 1 nearly 10 years and so I do not remember much about it. This book feels quite different though and while I think it mostly can be read as stand alone, there is a big over-arching story/mystery (maybe...).

There are 3 chapters in this book with the middle chapter taking about 90% of the book. The first chapter does not appear to have anything to do with the rest of the book so I am very confused how this relates at all; maybe to the over-arching angle? In the middle book, we met a character called Bodhi who was found as a baby at the foot of a tree by a monk who then cared for him. It then follows his "unnatural" characteristics which then pushed him to travel across the sea with a number of supernatural incidents following him.

I expected more of science fiction novel but this is very magical realism and while I felt author has done her research well as to symbolism & mythologies, I felt lost mainly because I just couldn't make any connection with the stories. It was a struggle to read as my Bahasa Indonesia is really not up to par with reading something like this. However, there were some quite funny bits and some ticklish metaphors so I kind of enjoyed this. The main lesson being that life is like fishing; you never know what you're going to get!

Steeplechase - 58x indonesia
BWF - Team Sassy Sisters - Letter S - Nil tag