This title reflects a very popular old Chinese love song sung by a much-loved Taiwanese crooner, Teresa Teng. Like the moon that is constant, even when not visible, Pim says in the darkest times, if her heart stays open, she can always find the light. Her story uses this theme, mixing science fiction and reality, darkness and light. It fuses yearning for the past with appreciation of the present, using that elusive concept – ‘time’.
The main characters spring to life from the first page. The Wang family, Lily and Joshua and their eight-year-old twins, Tommy and Eva, develop the ‘gift’ of time-travel and are the first family to travel back in time together. They go to Hong Kong, where Joshua grew up, to meet their idol, Bruce Lee.
There are strict rules. When physically returning to the past via a memory, 24 hours is the absolute limit they can stay. The next day, the family spends a wonderful day at the beach in present time. The memory of this ‘good day’ has an important place in their future.
When the twins are 12, their parents travel alone but are late returning. Watching anxiously for days, the twins know something has gone wrong but still have hope that they will return. Their grandmother cares for them but the twins are able to time travel alone secretly. For years, they continue searching the past, dissatisfied with the present. Tommy meets a young girl in the 1930s and grows to love her. His travels back to her become obsessive.
Each chapter of The Moon Represents My Heart tells us what year it is. This, along with the diagram of their family tree, helped me successfully navigate their complicated lives.
Vivid images of places and feelings are often in poetic form, deepening the experience. I really enjoyed this cleverly crafted book.
Reviewed by Judith Grace
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