April Fiction Book Club: Everyday Movement

Old Town Books' Fiction Book Club is free and open to the public. While buying the book at OTB is not required to attend, we would greatly appreciate it to help keep our free literary programming sustainable! Buy your copy of Everyday Movement by Gigi L Leung at the shop or online and note "book club" to get 10% off.

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About the book:

A powerful, award-winning novel that follows the lives of two women as democracy starts to crumble in Hong Kong
On a weekend morning, college roommates Ah Lei and Panda wake up with very different reactions to the night before. They have been chased and tear-gassed in the streets of their city after joining tens of thousands of others to protest a national security law that would effectively spell the end of democracy in Hong Kong. Ah Lei can’t get out of bed, her heart heavy with the lingering images of the police and the violence on the streets, and her worries about the future of her hometown. Panda, whose resistance is no less ardent, puts on a sundress, lines her eyes, and urges Ah Lei to join her for brunch.
While the demonstrations rage, the routine of life also persists for Ah Lei, Panda, and people in their orbits. They attend family gatherings, fight with their mothers, try and fail to focus at work on Mondays, and make time for dinner dates and app hookups. But the looming political tension and anxiety for the future transform such everyday encounters. In the span of a few months, life as they know it seems to become a mirage: the comfort of air-conditioned shopping malls is disrupted by bloodshed; tear gas and the sounds of rubber bullets amid neon signs strangely evoke happier memories of summer night fireworks.
Gigi L. Leung’s visceral novel Everyday Movement reveals existential questions that interrupt normal life: belonging, patriotism, and the meaningfulness of an electoral democracy, as well as the pampering sense of normalcy created by consumerism. Fiery and tender, Leung’s writing captures the heartbreak, turmoil, and rebirth in bearing witness to and engaging with a shattering reality.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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