Review by Melitta von Pflug

Please be advised that this review includes references to eating disorders and suicide.

Silence keeps 
the structure of us 
from 
falling 
apart. 

That was how things worked in the unnamed protagonist’s family in this verse novel from Hong Kong by Luna Orchid, Blue Squared. For readers with experience growing up in an Asian household, this culture of silence within families and in society, particularly on the thorny topic of mental health, will no doubt feel acutely familiar.  

The teen girl, both the central character and the narrator, brings readers along as she navigates growing pains from the age of eleven to seventeen.  She lets us in as a fly on the wall in a working-class Hong Kong Chinese family in the nineties. Through semi-fictionalised political events, the girl draws parallels between her city and her body, both riddled with anxiety about being handed over to a mother and a motherland that no longer knew their deepest thoughts, dreams, and fears. She gives us a glimpse of what it was like attending a Catholic girls’ school: “Lunch breaks in a school / where the length of one’s bangs, / one’s skirts, one’s socks / are all restricted / are no less than / prison breaks.” She wonders, as all teens since the beginning of time have done, “…if it’s true / that grown-ups really see everything / but they / just don’t say anything.” 

However, do not mistake this book for a typical coming-of-age novel. As the girl finds solace from the torture of P.E. class in lengthy Russian novels at the library, she imagines herself as a Matryoshka doll, and her story is no less layered and complex. 

While there is no mathematical equation for the risk factors and events that add up to the development of eating disorders, the author skillfully crafts a narrative akin to the showing of steps in a problem for Math class. Take body image issues that often accompany puberty, add to them relentless criticism on appearance and weight from relatives and strangers, an undying custom in most Asian cultures, then multiply that by the family’s compartmentalisation of her brother’s suicide within walls of silence. Not surprising to reach the result of starving, bingeing, and purging as coping mechanisms, is it? 

Amidst all this doom and gloom, the teenage character’s sharp wit will crack readers up when least expected. She calls herself the “disciplined bulimic”, maintaining both her unhealthy eating behaviours and academic excellence in all subjects (except P.E.) through Years 9-11. When a teacher selects her as the director of the class drama but proceeds to give her a list of detailed instructions, she notes, “Guess I am not the only control freak.”  

How does our tortured teenager, imprisoned on the cover of the book within the Chinese character meaning mouth (口hau2), break free of the shackles of her mind, her mother, and her culture?  

Blue Squared is a book for young adults, either familiar with or curious about the peculiar, trans-cultural, liminal space that is Hong Kong. Luna Orchid, a penname that comes from the author’s translation of the characters in her Chinese name, writes in a unique voice and language shaped by her upbringing in the city. “How can I brew / centuries of colonial history / and post-colonial uncertainty / into a cup of tea?” Though there is no answer to the almost-adult character’s question, this verse novel offers a rare, albeit fictionalised, insider’s look at what it was like to grow up as a Hong Konger at a time when the city’s anxieties about her future were at its peak.  

Blue Squared
Written by Luna Orchid
2018, Scholastic Asia
ISBN: 9789814885034

Melitta von Pflug is a German-Thai Hong Konger. Her multilingual, multicultural upbringing in the city of islands informs her perspective on life, literature, and everything in between. She is trained as an English language educator and previously taught English at a primary school in Hong Kong for 3 years. She is currently studying for a Master’s in Applied Linguistics with a special focus on Multilingualism and Education at Goldsmiths, University of London.  

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GLLI’s 2024 International YA Literature Month has been curated by Dr Emily Corbett. She is a lecturer in children’s and young adult literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she leads the MA Children’s Literature: Theoretical Approaches to Children’s and Young Adult Literature programme. Her research focuses on the growth and development of YA from literary, publishing, and cultural perspectives. She is also General Editor of The International Journal of Young Adult Literature and was founding Vice President of the YA Studies Association. Her monograph, In Transition: Young Adult Literature and Transgender Representation (2024), is forthcoming with the University Press of Mississippi in June. You can find her contact details on her institutional website and connect with her on Twitter and Instagram via @DrEmilyCorbett.