Three Filipina maids working for rich families in Singapore become friends and fight to free another maid accused of murdering her employer. Corazon retired back to the Philippines, but escapes back to Singapore after her nephew is accused of dealing drugs and killed by the police. She ends up working for an older woman who owns a café chain and is used by the daughters to try and convince their mother to expand in order to get more money. Donita works for the abusive Mrs. Fann. She and her husband are estranged from their child and she leads a successful coup to take control of a woman's organization and make it more Christian. Donita also starts dating a man from a different immigrant group which causes problems for him. Angel is working for a family where the son seems to be spying on her while she also deals with a breakup from her long-term girlfriend. Flourdeliza is accused of murdering the wife of her employer. Angel, Corazon and Donita investigate and discover that the murderer was actually her daughter and her boyfriend who accidentally killed her when they tried to run away together. They realize that it was recorded on a hidden camera. Donita exposes Mrs. Fann’s treatment of her by locking her in a closet and taking over the interview Mrs. Fann was supposed to do for her new Christian organization. It then also comes out that Mrs. Fann’s daughter is transgender and that is why they are estranged. The daughter comes to thank Donita for speaking out and Donita tells her that her father misses her but her mother was threatening him. Angel leaves the house she was working in and goes to get her physical therapy license. Corazon is able to talk to her employer and draw better boundaries after her daughter continue to try and manipulate her. Donita’s boyfriend decides to not let social pressure from his family dictate his relationships and is able to continue to date her.
I think this book was overshadowed by how much I loved Bandit Queens and Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows. I really liked this one as well, but the humor and deep friendships in Bandit Queens I think was more well done. I liked that we focused on three main characters and the different types of abusive employers you could have. Even Corazon’s nice employer overstepped boundaries and made her uncomfortable by acting more like a friend and putting her in an uncomfortable position. I also liked seeing LGBT representation, I thought it was really well done.

Really great balance btw mystery and examination of a community and culture. This book puts a spotlight on a part of the world many people in my part rarely think about. It balances issues on race, class, gender and sexuality quite well. Highly recommend it. I might round this up to 5 stars.

Life as a maid in Singapore is no walk in the park. There are cruel bosses, complicated family dynamics, and plain hard work to navigate. So when Angel, Cora, and Donita find themselves also facing an event on the small island country where one of their colleagues is accused of killing her ma'am, they feel compelled to find out the truth, even at great risk to their jobs and safety. Meanwhile, each woman contends with her own personal troubles including a loss, a break-up, and a complex blossoming romance.

In a return to a more literary approach compared to Jaswal's last, the more comedic The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, Now You See Us is a fantastic choice for readers who are interested in trying the mystery genre without fully committing to a genre novel. Now You See Us may have a mystery in its plot, but it is much more a literary novel focused on character development and human interest, weaving in topics of social justice that make the book both timely and timeless.

With rotating chapters focusing on different characters, it takes just a little time to sort out who is who, but each perspective is soon made distinct and dynamic. Donita, Cora, and Angel are especially well-drawn with great detail and drivers that make them seem all the more real. Secondary and even tertiary characters, however, also enjoy a fullness that makes the world of domestic workers in Singapore a rich one on the page.

Pacing, tone, and a mix of types of prose (your run-of-the-mill fiction prose, views into Facebook groups, news articles, etc. -- all fictional) make the book move along easily. It's slow enough to savor and fast enough to keep the reader engaged, even though the centrally-advertised mystery plot is a latecomer. Readers who enjoy subtle hints that don't feel like hints will especially appreciate this one.

Now You See Us brings Balli Kaur Jaswal's thoughtful, international perspective back to readers in a book you won't be able to un-see or put down in the best ways.

DNF. I just could not get into this one for some reason. I even read 130 pages. I love Jawal, so I will maybe try it again sometime.

Balli Kaur Jawal’s Now You See Us is loosely inspired by the execution of Flor Contemplacion, a Filipino domestic worker who was accused of murdering a child in Singapore. Jawal remind us that the novel is “not a retelling of those specific events” but inspired by her experience of “traversing places and their truths”.

This is a clever social-political whodunnit, and an enlightening reading experience for those who, like me, have little knowledge of Singapore outside what tourists are allowed to see. Here, I was given a Singapore from the perspective of four Filipino migrant domestic workers and their employers.

I was invested in looking at Singapore through their eyes and following these four characters journey, they were all well fleshed out and so different. Cora, older, more experience domestic worker returning to Singapore soon after the loss of her only son; Donita, young, confident, sometimes abrasive. Angel, a down-to-earth Lesbian navigating society’s mores as best as she can, and the more elusive Flordeliza.

We have also the employer’s: from Cora’s kind-hearted, humanistic Ma’am Elizabeth to Donita’s power hungry, masochist Mrs Fan Poh Choo and others with greyer shades in between like the Vijays. Singapore has the world's highest percentage of millionaires, with one out of every six households having at least one million US dollars in disposable wealth. All these rich people being heavily dependent on agencies like Merry Maids to find them reliable, humble servants who are tied to horrendous working rules to stay in employment, with little, almost no protection. This is a place where money talks, and justice is not blind.

A quarter of the world’s 11.5 million migrant domestic workers are women from the Philippines (many working in Singapore), often unseen until something goes wrong. And it’s all going reasonably well, until one of the employers is found dead by her own daughter, and one of the helpers is accused of murder. Suddenly all these domestic workers turn into potential criminals, their lives descending into hell. The stakes are high, another innocent person could die, capital punishment is a legal and enforced penalty in Singapore.

Jawal takes us on a fascinating journey of love, loss, the search for justice, freedom and equality in a world where ethics, compassion and humanity seem to be quickly evaporating. Now You See Us is ultimately a story about the erosion of human rights in a contemporary world slowly taken over by Megachurches, US hired trans-bi-homophobic preachers and their ultra-moralistic religious views.

Now You See Us is well researched and very enlightening. Jawal has a knack to depict the plight of these domestic workers and create successful moments of tension in a narration that is peppered with poignancy and humour. It's almost pitch-perfect, and it could be another fifty pages longer, I could have done with a bit more information on Flor’s character and the end felt slightly neat and rushed. Nevertheless, all the storylines were captivating, some more heart-breaking than others. This can be cruel world, but we can change it, just seek the beauty of small act of kindness.

Jawal herself said that she ‘wrote this novel with hope for more dignity, compassion and recognition of women like Cora, Angel, Donita and Flordeliza’. Let’s all hope for that too.

Now You See Us goes into #pudseyreccomends

Thanks NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy.

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Now, this is how you write a book set in the Singapore that I know and love.

I felt myself being transported to the eclectic shophouses in Chinatown and Jalan Besar, envisioned strolling past the private landed estates of Marine Parade, and could vividly picture the swanky Marina Bay Sands skyscrapers in front of me. But it's not just the geography and culture that the author has nailed.

It's also the social and class divide, the classism and elitism and casual racism, the nation's reliance on a foreign workforce, our treatment and perception of these migrant workers, and a whole plethora of issues that tend to get swept beneath Singapore's glitz and glamour.

I love how this book is told through the alternating POVs of three migrant women in Singapore and enjoyed getting to know them, as it gave me a greater understanding of what workers like them are actually going through in reality.

Cora's grief and how she has been impacted by the Philippine Drug War, Donita's blossoming romance and the savage remarks that she delivers when standing up for herself, Angel trying to better herself... their experiences have all touched me deeply.

There were parts that made me laugh and scenes that filled me with indignance on behalf of the characters. But most of all, I felt quite ashamed after reading this book... in a good way.

Thank you to William Morrow for the Netgalley ARC.

Favorite quotes:

✨ "She knows it's all the little things added up that makes you really want to hurt a person.

✨ "He told her that a domestic worker needed to swallow her pride... but how? If Donita sets aside her pride now, she loses something precious, and look... look at her life scattered across this room. How many precious things does she have to lose?

✨ "...where they have to fight for space with all the other foreign workers in the few tiny public spaces and the even fewer private spaces they are allowed to inhabit."

Rounding up for this engaging, frustrating, infuriating story about domestic workers in Singapore.