The first name that his mother gave him was after the fashion of their people, designed to make him invisible in the eyes of malevolent spirits. It was Bucket…

Since the author is Vietnamese-American, I thought this tidbit might be relevant: there’s still a superstition in Vietnamese culture that if you say the name of an unborn child or small infant out loud, evil spirits will hear it, identity and target the baby. So they refer to them as innocuous household objects a lot of the time.

I remember when my Vietnamese sister-in-law was pregnant, she would call the baby something very similar (I think Mop) when talking with her parents, and her mom would chide her if she slipped up and used the name 😂

It sounds to me like Sukai is supposed to be from a culture similar to Vietnam’s, especially since he’s described as being from south of where they are!

Just saw a video of someone going to a bookstore to celebrate her own 30th birthday by bying 30 books. 🎉🫪🤠

I immediately though OMG what an idea! Like for me, I have a year and a half till my 30th birthday, so it should not be that big of an issue to start saving. If the book, I ofc want mostly hard covers for my library, are between 30-50€, even 50€ a month saved would go very far.

However, I do recognize that buying 30 bookss at once is a big investment, and in general that it is a huuuuge amount of books to buy all at the same time. 🫠🤔

So, I guess I just wanted to hear some opinions on this from other bookholics, and about the pros and cons that you think would relate to this type of a project 😅

Also to give this lovely idea to others, if you want to celebrate your 30th but have no other ideas? 🌞