The cover of Tiffany Tsao’s novel The Majesties is an abstract painting of a head with a monarch butterfly and this stunning yellow cover is enough to draw a reader in and to want to learn more about what this story is about. The Majesties begins with Gwendolyn (Doll) Sulinado in a coma, on life support, recounting the murderous actions of her sister Estella on the evening of their Opa’s eightieth birthday celebration. The reader immediately finds out that Estella has taken her own life and the lives of 300 others with Doll being the sole survivor. What seems like a fast paced thriller in the beginning turns into a story about family dysfunction, secrets, and that even those closest to us, and most treasured by us, are not always as they seem.
The Sulinado family is a large, rich, and powerful Chinese-Indonesian family living in Indonesia in the mid 1990’s. The beginning of The Majesties can seem a little overwhelming to the reader as there are a lot of characters that are introduced in a short period of time. Thankfully, as the story progresses the focus zeros in on Doll and Estella as the main characters with Doll trying to figure out how and why her sister could murder 300 people so callously. The novel is told from Doll’s perspective and even though she is the one telling the story and she does discuss things about herself, the emphasis is more on Estella’s life and the relationship that the two of them share. Doll talks about different events throughout hers and Estella’s lives that she believes impacted her sister enough to commit mass murder and suicide.
Family dynamics and dysfunction are huge themes in Tsao’s novel. The reader will find that as Doll describes different things that happen throughout hers and Estella’s life that the plot can sometimes feel like a coming-of-age story. The sister’s learn a lot about who they are through their family and as the story progresses, Doll and Estella have to come to terms with the seedy parts of their family’s history, both individually and collectively.
Throughout the novel, the reader will learn about the love of entomology (the study of insects) that both Doll and Estella share as it becomes a huge theme through the entire plot. Tsao takes such an interesting and unique topic and does a wonderful job at introducing, describing, and explaining what entomology is throughout as it is likely a topic most readers are not overly knowledgeable in. Tsao weaves this theme into the plot seamlessly with other themes and characters, and makes sure that it is a focal point to the novel.
Tsao has absolutely brilliant prose all throughout The Majesties and in the end, the reader is bound to see connections that they may not have noticed right away. While the beginning of the novel may seem misleading and a little daunting with all of the characters right off the bat, it finds its footing and Tsao tells a wonderful story about what we can and cannot see, and how those things shape us into who we are. The Majesties truly isn’t all that it seems, and maybe that is how Tsao meant for the story to be all along. Instead of a suspenseful thriller throughout the entire plot, the reader is gifted with learning about the Sulinado family and their secrets to remind the reader that those around us are never as they seem.
Tsao comes full circle with the plot and creates a thrilling and suspenseful end that is bound to leave the reader satisfied. While the novel was not entirely what I was expecting it to be, I was pleasantly surprised with where the story went. Tsao has created a stunningly smart story about a messy family full of dysfunction, deceit, and drama while tying in pieces of plot that feel similar to a coming-of-age story. What drew me to The Majesties in the first place was its stunning cover and while many people say not to judge a book by its cover, this one connects the entire story together so poetically. Pick up a copy of Tsao’s absolutely brilliant novel to learn for yourself how her entire novel is a metaphor for the life cycle of the butterfly and the emergence of that butterfly in the end.
The Majesties is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
Have you read The Majesties? Will you be picking it up? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
In this riveting tale about the secrets and betrayals that can accompany exorbitant wealth, two sisters from a Chinese-Indonesian family grapple with the past after one of them poisons their entire family.
Gwendolyn and Estella have always been as close as sisters can be. Growing up in a wealthy, eminent, and sometimes deceitful family, they’ve relied on each other for support and confidence. But now Gwendolyn is lying in a coma, the sole survivor of Estella’s poisoning of their whole clan.
As Gwendolyn struggles to regain consciousness, she desperately retraces her memories, trying to uncover the moment that led to this shocking and brutal act. Was it their aunt’s mysterious death at sea? Estella’s unhappy marriage to a dangerously brutish man? Or were the shifting loyalties and unspoken resentments at the heart of their opulent world too much to bear? Can Gwendolyn, at last, confront the carefully buried mysteries in their family’s past and the truth about who she and her sister really are?
Traveling from the luxurious world of the rich and powerful in Indonesia to the most spectacular shows at Paris Fashion Week, from the sunny coasts of California to the melting pot of Melbourne’s university scene, The Majesties is a haunting and deeply evocative novel about the dark secrets that can build a family empire—and also bring it crashing down.
