Honolulu King

I have been on a ‘Nederlands- Indie' binge lately and have been reading some books on the subject. While mostly informative or entertaining this book disappointed me.
A few chapters in I thought too myself ‘Mmm I think this is written by a white person'. Now that's not a bad thing by itself. I think a good writer can make you forget what background he or she is from. With this writer though it felt a bit insecere. From the discriptions of Indonesian snacks, all the cliches Indo's in The Netherlands like and the cartoony side characters, it just didn't work for me.
Yes she did some research, as she mentioned in her afterword. One instance she described in her book felt so familiar to me, she took that verbatim from an interview in a documentary she watched.
Yeah I can tell she watched that doc, she went to Indo nursing home and she went to get some food at her local restaurant. But it felt that that were her only sources and it shows.

Also that Liam Neeson lookalike sideplot.. why? What was even the point besides it being gross.

If you want to read a book written about this period in time I would highly recommend ‘Lichter dan ik' or the brutal ‘De tolk van Java'.