Danur

Danur by Risa Saraswati
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Synopsis

"Jangan heran jika mendapatiku sedang berbicara sendirian atau tertawa tanpa seorang pun terlihat sedang bersamaku. Saat itu. mungkin saja aku sedang bersama salah satu dari lima sahabatku.

Kalian mungkin tak melihatnya.... Wajar. Mereka memang tak kasat mata dan sering disebut... hantu. Ya, mereka adalah hantu, jiwa-jiwa penasaran atas kehidupan yang dianggap mereka tidak adil.

Kelebihanku dapat melihat mereka adalah anugerah sekaligus kutukanku. Kelebihan ini membawaku ke dalam persahabatan unik dengan lima anak hantu Belanda. Hari-hariku dilewati dengan canda tawa Peter, pertengkaran Hans dan Hendrick—dua sahabat yang sering berkelahi—alunan lirih biola William, dan tak lupa: rengekan si Bungsu Johnsen.

Jauh dari kehidupan "normal" adalah harga yang harus dibayar atas kebahagiaanku bersama mereka. Dan semua itu harus berubah ketika persahabatan kami meminta lebih. yaitu kebersamaan selamanya. Aku tak bisa memberi itu. Aku mulai menyadari bahwa hidupku bukan hanya milikku seorang....

Namaku Risa. Aku bisa melihat 'mereka'.

Dan 'mereka', sesungguhnya, hanya butuh didengar."


My review:

The book tell us the story about Risa and her five 'special' friends. This book have unusual main story , the characters involved in it is not our usual peoples we meet every day. Some stories are presented like short stories, not connnected with one another but still has one link that is Risa, the listener of those stories.

The stories have the ability to make me rethink about life, potray how bad the war caused to so many people, there's no glory in it, too much to lose. One of unique thing I get from this book is how I can see the point of view from Netherlanders at that times. Colonialism and colonizer is a heavy topic, not an easy topic for me but after read several stories from Risa's friends it helped me to see things clearly, what's past is in the past, I can't paint all in black and it reminding me again that good can't be denied and disguised as bad.

It makes me more understand about topics that were very foreign and (before I read this book) is very frightening to me (no kidding, I’m a scaredy-cat). This book helped me to understand and to stop feel too much afraid of the things that can’t be seen. After reading this book I can say that in the end human is human after all. Don't get me wrong, I'm still feel scared,  the spooky-factor is still there (and local unseen creatures is still most scariest) but at least I'm more calmed to face the topic now.

In terms of writing it still feels a little clumsy, I feel like reading a diary, especially the chapter that presented as conversation, it was very little I can gather from that.

All in all, I love this book :) .