Hi friends, happy Monday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m posting my review of Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio’s novel Reuniting With Strangers.

This novel was long-listed for Canada Reads 2024.

Reuniting With Strangers by: Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio: Over the course of one winter, this collection of short stories follows different Filipino families as they reunite in Canada. Some have been separated for a long time, some have never even met, but with each tale, is a real life experience about connection, family and the things people are willing to do and sacrifice for the ones they love. This novel was so beautiful, in so many ways. For such a short novel, it really packed a punch and hit the reader in the heartstrings. You don’t have to relate to this novel to feel any sort of connection, just being human is enough. This reader has no experience or relation to being an immigrant to Canada, but the stories within this and the way that the author wrote them were done in a way that really connected everyone. Each of these short stories were their own, but they also connected to the bigger picture and the overall theme of immigrating from the Philippines to Canada. The way the author was able to tell an emotional story in the short amount of time that she did, was incredible. She wasted no time; some would jump right into the action, while others had a bit more of a work-up, but either way, they all had the same magnetic power of creating these tender stories that the reader couldn’t help but love. The reader especially loved reading about Monolith and his journey as he weaved in and out of each of the stories. He was a beautiful soul who was just misunderstood and it didn’t help that the circumstances in his life caused for such confusion. Before we jump into the characters though, the theme around culture and culture identity was really strong in this, and the author did an amazing job of showing how the different generations felt about their culture. How the older generation could think the younger generation don’t care about it, or how the younger generation want to preserve it and the different ways characters thought it was either being lost or maintained. It was so interesting to read, and it was really touching when we could see characters who were so rigid in their ways start to crack as they realized that both viewpoints can be true. The characters are really what made this novel work so well because they were so memorable and worth remembering because they were so developed and human. While reading, it could get frustrating because the characters who were so stuck in their ways didn’t want to hear what anyone else had to say and that it could be a turn off. The further into each of these stories you got, the reader realized there are soft spots within each of them, you just have to search for them. The reader could see both sides of each of these characters, but it was so heartwarming and moving when the characters started to see both sides, too. Overall, this was such a well written and well told story that is going to stay with this reader for a long time.