Something I really enjoyed about reading this novel was how it took place in a time and setting I haven’t read about before – in 1971, Suyin goes between her family home in Penang, Malaysia, where she is a seamstress, to being a trainee nurse in London’s Bethnal Green hospital – and both these settings are brought to life with not too much and not too little detail.
It’s a novel of a woman trying to find her place in the world, trying to find love, and drive, and people to trust, when the political climate makes things so hard for her in so many ways, and she’s so far from home. This is a gentle and tender novel, even though it does include solemn and traumatic events, there is a nurse’s dignity and compassion to the voice, and throughout there’s a sense of trying to look for shared humanity, even when life is at its most bewildering and isolating.
Penang, 1971. When Suyin Lim is offered the opportunity of a lifetime - a place as a trainee nurse in London's Bethnal Green Hospital - she jumps at the chance to leave her job as a seamstress and unite with her sister, who left for the same path a year before.
However, without warning her sister returns to Penang, a shadow of her former self and Suyin is forced to leave without any answers. Suyin soon finds herself starting a new life in London, falling in love with the vibrant city and its people and as she immerses herself in the gruelling but rewarding work of caring for her patients, she begins to understand what she really wants out of life . . .
BETHNAL GREEN explores the themes of sacrifice and heartbreak, the power of using your voice and the will to build a life of one's own against the odds. It is also a powerful love letter to dedicated NHS workers from around the world, whose work touches countless lives every day.
