Ponti

April 1, 2018

Winner of the inaugural Deborah Rogers Writers' Award, this Singapore-set debut features isolated teenager Szu, living a low life with her former actress mother, who now conducts séances with her sister. Things change considerably when Szu meets and befriends the wealthy, smart-mouthed Circe.

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July 15, 2018
United by shared awkwardness, two high school girls in Singapore forge an intense if short-lived friendship that shapes the course of their lives in Teo's buzzy debut.At 16, Szu pales in comparison to her beautiful, dying mother, Amisa, who once starred in a trio of cult horror movies, playing a beautiful, cannibalistic monster in the only role of her career. Her husband, Szu's father, is long gone; instead, Amisa works as a kind of medium with her so-called sister, another job that plays to her strengths. "She promises these people everything," Szu observes, "and she is so wonderful to look at, so dazzling and persuasive, that a few of them have even agreed to bring over their life savings." Szu is not what she wanted, motherhood not what she'd hoped for. But Szu has Circe, a recent transfer student and fellow misfit, and they quickly form an all-consuming sort of friendship, obsessive if not entirely pleasant. In the future--the novel weaves among three timelines: Amisa's past, Szu's adolescence, and Circe's adulthood--Circe will be a "social media consultant," assigned to a campaign to promote the kitschy remake of Amisa's films. By then, she will not have spoken to Szu in years. Shortly after Amisa's death, they'd fallen out. It's a poetic sort of premise: Amisa, the horror would-be starlet, haunting Circe through the remake. (In a particularly novelistic flourish, Circe, when we meet her, is taking medication to kill off an "uninvited" tapeworm that's taken up residence in her guts.) All three women have objectively compelling stories: Amisa, escaping her small village only to wind up with new thwarted dreams; Szu, navigating adolescence through a haze of grief; and Circe, now divorced, still unable to shake the grip of her former friendship. But the novel never quite amounts to more than the sum of its parts, the quieter intricacies of the relationships overwhelmed by the volume of the premise.All the pieces are there, but the end result is frustratingly hollow.

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Starred review from July 16, 2018
In Teo’s stirring debut, an adolescent friendship ripens and festers in the oppressive heat of Singapore. It’s 2003, and 16-year-old social outcast Ng Szu Min grapples with her weight, social awkwardness, and her mother, Amisa, who has a fan following due to her role as a ghost named Ponti in a cult film. Decades earlier, young Amisa leveraged her beauty to remake herself in the globalizing city as a B-film actress. It is the voice of Szu’s friend, Circe Low—reminiscing as an adult—that gives context to the surreal wanderings of the Ng women. Outside of the toxic social hierarchy of their all-girls school, Szu and Circe consider themselves “citizens of nowhere.” Although they come from different worlds, the two become best friends after meeting. Wealthy Circe is enchanted by Szu’s bizarre home life, which features hack séances run by Amisa, who believes she is a medium. Szu appreciates Circe’s honesty and humor whenever she comes over, making her feel more comfortable amid the specters of her cold mother’s beauty and the void of her absent father. But the fiery fascination between the two burns quickly, leaving a blistering resentment. Teo’s relatable yet unsettling novel smartly captures earnest teenage myopathy through a tumultuous high school relationship.

Starred review from September 1, 2018
Teo's first novel, winner of the 2016 Deborah Rogers Writers Award as a novel in progress, follows three women in different eras. In 2003, Singaporean teenage outcast Szu tells anyone who'll listen about her mother Amisa's starring role as the monster in the 1970s cult horror film Ponti! No one, however, is interested, until Szu finds a friend in admirably aloof newcomer Circe, and just in time, too; Amisa is dying. Circe speaks for herself in 2020, when she's recently divorced and working for a marketing company hired to promote a reboot of Ponti! and its sequels. Amisa's tale, perhaps most remarkable of all, spans years that encompass her teenage flight from her home village to the big city, marriage to Szu's father, and acting career. As Szu narrates her life-changing friendship with Circe in real time, and Circe examines it only in rear-view, the pleasure for readers is in piecing together their echoing, diverging stories. On their own, Teo's sharp characterizations and setting?so alive that the book seems to create its own, humid microclimate?would set this book apart. Add to that her imaginative plot, prose that turns from humor to devastation on a dime, and original storytelling, and Ponti is a beyond-promising debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)