I had requested this from NetGalley but wasn’t selected so I am happy the library ordered it.

The Night of the Storm was a mixed bag.

The setting— a hurricane headed for and then hunkering down in Houston, Texas—was fun and different. I liked the time spent on family and cultural dynamics.

However, there were pretty much no sympathetic characters over the age of 18 which made the book a bit of a slog at times and the main character Jia behaved in very odd and inconsistent ways.

The writing wasn’t bad but there were a lot of odd similes and metaphors that were clunky and repetitive—she would describe a scene and then describe it again in the next sentence using an awkward metaphor.

Spoilers below:

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Why would Jia recant her testimony to get Seema out of jail? Her sister was a very mean, manipulative person and murdered her own husband. Seema admitted to so many crimes and wrong doing. Why would Jia want her out of prison to raise her niece? Wouldn’t it make more sense for Jia to take Aisha in? I could understand putting up with her sister’s nasty behavior herself because of her low self worth and cultural expectations but to think that a toddler being happy to see their murderous mother (and her sister being happy to see her child) is reason enough to try to get her out of jail so she can raise that child was wild and nonsensical. The whole book outlined how awful her sister had been since childhood. Her behavior had been unhinged for decades.

It would have made more sense for Jia to raise her niece with visits to her mother in prison and help from the child’s grandmother (who was also a murderer but Jia didn’t know that) and the trust that was established.

The storyline with Jia’s husband was a little odd too—why did he think people would think he was a criminal? Why did she think the police were coming to get him in the flashbacks? What he did was awful and gross but the details shared in the book were not illegal. I understood her not wanting to be married to him and limiting his access to their kid since who knows what grooming situation was there with neighborhood child Molly before the “relationship” began when she was 17 but she changes her mind about that too and wants him to have a lot of access to their son. Jia was not a great mother herself and always believed the worst of her own kid but at least she seems to try and have his best interest at heart.

I couldn’t quite see what Lisa helped with beyond knowing what was going on and distracting the children. I also don’t know why she would help Seema who apparently had been nasty to her for years after a brief friendliness. Why would she trust Seema to help her later?

The message from the book ended up being that really amoral people should be raising their children unfettered.