I didn’t know whether I would enjoy this book as it is a little outside of my usual genres and I wasn’t sure I would relate to any of the characters. I was pleasantly surprised.

I think the author is a brilliant storyteller, the narratives switching between the three narrators takes a little while to get used to but I think it was ultimately the right choice.

The novel is about family secrets and through the voices of the other characters, the author enables there to be more secrets even once the novel is finished.

I liked the portrayal of the three Lee women who give their voices to the story. Each had secrets of their own and through their stories the reader is able to pick apart how and why their relationships were like they were. It is frustrating as the reader to know more than the characters sometimes. I felt myself wanting a happy ending where all their harboured feelings were revealed.

Obviously a “happy” ending in the traditional sense does not happen in this novel, but it was still an enjoyable read nonetheless.

I think as I neared the end, it became more and more obvious how the book was going to end but there was plenty of guessing throughout the book. I felt myself latching onto Amy’s hope that her sister was okay.

The storyline on the whole was just about believable, the characters being in debt but affording flights from the USA to Amsterdam can be overlooked to be able to grasp what the author was trying to do with the storyline.

In conclusion, I enjoyed this book and the characters. It was a frustrating read at times, switching between the voices and timelines was a little confusing at first, but ultimately the author pulls it off to write about complex family issues and how secrets can pull a family apart even many years later.

This was a really interesting and difficult book to read. I went to the reviews afterwards to see if anyone else had the same thoughts and there are definitely similar.

The story is told from the points of view of Amy (in the present), her sister, Sylvie (in the past), and their Mother - also in the present. It’s set mainly in The Netherlands as Amy goes to the country to find her sister who was supposed to have returned home to the USA, but didn’t. Jean Kwok has tried hard to give each character a voice. Amy and Sylvie’s Mother known as Ma - is in the USA, waiting for news of her daughter. She talks mainly in Proverbs and it’s incredibly annoying - but I can see why the author has written her this way - to highlight her lack of English language and bring her Chinese voice to the foreground. Nevertheless, there could have been a few less proverbs and saying’s that’s for sure.

In The Netherlands, the characters who speak Dutch also speak in their translated way - which again is interesting but possibly not necessary. It makes for very disjointed English between Sylvie who speaks fluently, Ma who speaks it hardly at all, and the other characters who pepper their speech with Dutch translations. I’m torn between being in awe of Kwok’s skill, and also frustrated.

I would say that the book really picks up speed about a third of the way through, until then I was dipping in and out of it along with other books and wasn’t really invested in getting to the end. Once the pace changes and secrets unravel it becomes more interesting. There is strong exploration of family, heritage, values, respect and traditions. The author explores racism, family secrets and the underlying mystery carefully.

Sylvie spent the first nine years of her childhood in the Netherlands being raised by her Chinese Grandmother and distant relatives. When she returns home to America she has a new sister, Amy, and strangers as parents. But Amy loves her and looks up to her. Sylvie is successful and pretty, marries well and works hard.
Sylvie returns after many years to the Netherlands to visit her dying grandmother and then vanishes.
Amy goes in search of her but finds out things about Sylvie that are out of character and disturbing. Will she find the real Sylvie and what life changing secrets will she reveal.

I loved Searching For Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok. I enjoyed reading its beautiful descriptive language and the mystery of what had happened to Sylvie. I think the characterisation is very good, the three main characters, Sylvie, her younger sister Amy and their mother Ma are each clearly recognisable by the way they speak. The story alternates between the two sisters and their mother’s perspectives, as the details of what happened to Sylvie are revealed.

Sylvie had left her home in the USA to visit her dying grandmother in the Netherlands where she had lived until she was nine. After the funeral she was supposed to return home, but she never arrived. Amy and her parents are distraught and she flies to the Netherlands to find out what had happened to her.

This is a mystery full of suspense and it is also a story about family relationships, about secrets and the barriers that language can raise – Amy’s dominant language is English, whereas her mother and father, Chinese immigrants living in America, have just a basic grasp of English and still speak Chinese. Sylvie also speaks Dutch as until the age of nine she had lived with the Tan family, Chinese immigrants living in the Netherlands. It’s not just the language but also the different cultures and the racism they experienced that separated the characters.

I had realised quite early on what the family secret was and what had happened to Sylvie, but that didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book. My only criticism is that in the latter part of the book, particularly as Sylvie describes her visit to Venice I thought that the book veered offline. Although the episode is essential to the plot the detailed description took away the momentum of the mystery and my attention wandered a bit. But the ending made up for that!

This is the story of two sisters. Sylvie Lee and her younger sister Amy. Sylvie was brought up until the age of nine by her grandmother and aunt and uncle in the Netherlands. When she learns that her grandmother Is dying she leaves her home in the USA to be with her. When she doesn't return home after her grandmother's funeral and cannot be contacted, Amy decides to go to the Netherlands to find her. I really enjoyed the way the story unfolded and I thought that having chapters from the points of view of Sylvie. Amy and their mother worked really well. I look forward to reading more from this author.

An engaging and beautifully written prose fiction. I engaged with the characters as each had their own quirks and voice and the world they lived in felt authentic and was therefore easy to let myself get immersed.

The story is based around Amy, the sister of Sylvie and her search for the missing woman. And while it started out as a mystery, it soon transcends genres into literary, world fiction, domestic fiction. This sometimes drew away the thrill of the mystery because the prose made the story slow down from the normal fast pace expected in thriller, but it somehow worked.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley and Jean Kwok for the ARC copy of this great book.

This book started out as a really good read, and I was engrossed until it got to around two thirds of the way through, then something changed. The story is told through two main points of view that of younger sister Amy as she goes looking for Sylvie, and Sylvie telling her story from around a month earlier, the chapters jump between these two with the extra added odd on added from the perspective of the mother.

Sylvie Lee is a beautiful, successful woman. When she hears her grandmother who raised her for some of her early years is dying, she flies to the Netherlands to be with her. She had been sent there to live by her parents as they were too poor to raise her, she had returned to them in the US at the age of 9. Her younger sister Amy, idolises Sylvie.

But Sylvie has disappeared. Despite her youth and shyness, Amy is determined to go and find out what happened to Sylvie. But her search uncovers family secrets that have been buried for a long time.

I liked the characters in the story, you felt the emotions the parents went through, especially the mother, how much she had to sacrifice, the effect this had on her relationship with Sylvie. The cultural difficulties are well portrayed, the racism the immigrants were shown in the Netherlands.

There is a strong family theme that runs through the story along with heritage. There are also secrets, betrayals and tragedy that revolve around the family.

As Amy, looks for her sister, she comes to realise that she hasn’t had to deal with some of the pressures and traumas her sister had had to deal with. Having been separated from her family at a very young age. Amy’s story is as important as Sylvie’s although at times it does become very overshadowed.

Towards the end third of the book something changed, I went from being totally engaged with these characters to losing interest. I had figured out what I thought the ending was going to be before reaching it, hoping I was wrong, but the momentum seemed to have just gone for me. Something seemed missing, it just went flat.
I couldn’t fault the writing it is beautiful, with lots of imagery, metaphors and emotion. I just wish it had kept that to the end.

I would like to thank #netgalley and #JohnMurray for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

I enjoyed this beautifully written book very much. The use of language is breathtaking in places, and the skilful characterisation brings the cast to life.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Interesting approach to a storyline, but I felt that it was a little unbelievable in places as regards some of the actions taken by the characters. Some of this may be around the cultural characteristics of the actors involved, but it did make it a little difficult to be totally convinced. Will perhaps try another novel by this author in the future.

This is a moving tale that, while billed as a mystery, transcends the genre. There is so much in this novel that mirrors modern life as Jean Kwok pulls us into the lives of people who encounter prejudice and ignorance as they struggle to assimilate.

The alternating structure allows readers to witness how the Lee sisters frequently saw the best in each other but thought the worst of themselves. Kwok’s novel is at its best and most engaging when exploring the Lee sisters’ relationships with themselves and each other, the effects of immigration on entire generations of families, and the weight that the adult children of immigrants often feel.

'Searching for Sylvie Lee' is a novel about Amy Lee, whose sister Sylvie goes missing during a business trip to The Netherlands. Amy goes off to find her and begins to unravel the enigma that is her sister and the secrets she's been keeping from her family. Seems like a good premise, right?

This book is a tale of two genres. You have a mystery/thriller element that follows who Sylvie really is and what caused her to 'go missing', but you also have a literary fiction element that just causes everything to drag. Because it's stuck between the both, you're missing the tension that generally characterizes a mystery book. I honestly did not believe that anybody wanted to find Sylvie because they were taking their sweet time doing anything. Similarly, you do read from Sylvie's perspective at a very deep level and I think this also took away from the 'mystery' aspect. Perhaps if they were diary entries or letters - things that are deliberately ambiguous. But because we knew all about her time in the Netherlands, it's pretty easy to see where things are going.

Fair warning - this book contains scenes of domestic violence and treads the line of cliché to the nth degree. I just wanted more from these characters and this story. Perhaps with a change of direction in the plot or just some tightening of the narrative, it'd have more effect.

Ironically for a novel set in the Netherlands, this book is full of waffle.

A beautifully written piece of prose and intriguing storyline which I will not divulge as it caught me by surprise. What did surprise me was that I only realised just how well written this is when reviewing the novel myself before writing this review. Each of the main characters speaks in their own voice and very true to the essence of their own individuality. It is a masterpiece of character writing so understated and so perfect that it feels unnoticeable. So thank you John Murray Press and Net Galley for the ARC of Searching for Sylvie Lee but more importantly, thank you Jean Kwok for writing this.

‘Searching for Sylvie Lee’ by Jean Kwok focuses on a Chinese immigrant family in New York who make the difficult decision to send their elder daughter to live with relations in Holland when she is little more than a baby. Reunited with her family over a decade later, Sylvie feels more of an outsider than she did living with her Dutch relations. However, her little sister, Amy, adores her, seeing only her strengths: her academic success, her beauty, her stellar career. It is not until Sylvie disappears, now a management consultant and married to a wealthy New Yorker, that Amy begins to understand that her version of Sylvie is not entirely accurate.
Timid, hesitant Amy makes the decision to fly to Holland to investigate what has happened to her sister. From the outset she learns that, whilst her Uncle Willem and cousin Lukas evidently adore Sylvie, her aunt Helen takes every opportunity to disparage her.
This is a novel about what it is to be an outsider. The author is an immigrant from Hong Kong and her experience has clearly affected the way in which she approaches the central theme. It is shocking to read the Dutch racist remarks that Sylvie and Lukas have to endure as children and interesting to learn of the family’s Chinese customs and sayings. Nevertheless, the latter appear a little too frequently to sound like authentic conversation between a generation born and brought up in mainland Europe and the USA. But then, as a UK native, who am I to judge?
Whilst the insight that this novel gives into another culture is fascinating, the mystery of Sylvie’s disappearance is not particularly gripping and the reason for her aunt’s antipathy is obvious from very early on. This novel does not fit into any one category easily and, whilst this can be a strength, that’s not the case with ‘Searching for Sylvie Lee’. The characters appear rather stereotypical; the ‘chiselled jaw’ descriptions of the young men and the ‘wrinkled, old and sagging’ depictions of the older generation do nothing to bring Kwok’s characters to life. The plot lacks tension. It’s easy to guess why and how Sylvie disappears. All in all, read this novel for a window into elements of Chinese immigrant life but for that alone.
My thanks to NetGalley and John Murray (Publishers) for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Searching for Sylvie Lee grew on me the further I progressed in the book. Initially, I was of a 3/4 star state of mind but felt strongly for all the members of the Lee and Tan families by the close, as Amy's investigation uncovered more than expected. What started out as a strange arrangement made more sense as we, the readers, became immersed in Chinese and Dutch culture and the necessity for familial child care to enable work in both the U.S. and the Netherlands.

This novel was sprinkled liberally with intriguing phrases endearing me, especially, to the elder Chinese characters and even the young, too. Ma, in her stilted speech, was particularly colourful in her narration and the imagery she described so well. It provided a rich tapestry to sew the story against making the writing truly sing. There was a gentle lovely quality to the text making a fusion of Chinese culture in a Dutch background feel...well, right in some magical way. It's difficult to describe but beautiful to behold.

A very good book. Very well written and quite a page turner. It was quite different to most books that I have read and it kept my attention fully. The characterization was good and the plot very cohesive. The movement backwards and forwards in time meant that we had all the background first hand and made everything clear.
The only slight problem for me, was that every character was in first person, so that when the chapter changed and it was about a different person it sometimes confused me and took me a time to remember who was speaking. apart from that a really enjoyable read

I enjoyed this book to a certain degree. I liked the bits of Chinese culture but I didn't feel any emotion towards the characters.

This book looks at family secrets of a Chinese immigrant family split between America and The Netherlands . One part of the family Ma and Pa are in America with their daughter Amy . The other daughter Sylvie is left behind in the Netherlands with the Grandmother and uncle (Willem) and aunt (Helena) along with their son Lukas , Helena does not like Sylvie and treats her badly . When Sylvie is older she moves to America looks after Amy and later becomes very successful and marries well . Grandmother is dying and wants Sylvie to visit her , which she does . After a while Sylvie goes missing and Amy sets out to find her . A trail of misfortune unfolds when it reveals Sylvie has lost her job and her marriage has broken down , but why has she gone missing ? This is where all the family secrets are revealed . An interesting story but I did not find it totally gripping .

I failed to engage with this story and its characters, or they failed to engage with me. Either way, this came as a disappointment since I found the publisher’s description intriguing and I expected more. To be fair, I did quite enjoy the first few chapters, despite some reservations about the jarring effect of some of the writing. I spent the last few years in the Netherlands in the Amsterdam area so reading Sylvie’s and Amy’s experiences there rang true for me and filled me with nostalgia for Dutch people and places. I kept reading for more of this. I soon realised, though, as the book progressed that the characters were not going to gain any more depth and I didn’t care for the direction the plot took in the second half of the book. Not to my taste, I’m afraid.

Any travels from America to Holland to search for her missing sister. Who is Sylvie Lee, do her friends, husband or even her family really know her. How much do peoples opinion influence one and affect how you act, behave and eventually become.

I read this book to the end because I wanted to find out what happened out of curiosity but not necessarily because I cared.

I don’t feel the characters were developed in a way to get me invested in the outcome however, in the most part the story was an enjoyable and sensitive insight in to what it’s like being an immigrant family.