Agnes Hussein, the protagonist of Liz Rosenberg's The Moonlight Palace, has a non-traditional family, but a loving one all the same. Her parents and brother all died in a flu epidemic, so she lives with her uncle and grandparents in a ramshackle palace in 1920s Singapore. You see, Agnes is the youngest descendant of the former sultan of Singapore, who gave control of the country over to the British and received a tenuously-legal grant of residency in a former royal palace, Kampong Glam, in return. The family is allowed to stay as long as a male of the royal line still lives there, which has created some problems. For one, Agnes's Uncle Chachi, no spring chicken, is the last remaining male of the line and Agnes is only a teenager, so she's not going to be having a baby anytime soon. Second, the family has virtually no income remaining but consider themselves too genteel to work, so the palace is deteriorating around them because they can't afford repairs.

They take on boarders to make ends meet, and their cozy, if perilously held together, little world begins to fall apart when one of those boarders, a young Muslim from Malaysia, is caught trying to carry out a bombing. One of the others, a shy Chinese math student, is caught up along with him and in order to protect him, Agnes induces her grandfather to make a bargain with the charming young British policeman who is investigating the crime. Although the cop and Agnes begin to see each other and she falls hard for him, he's more than she initially thinks he is.

There's more than happens after that, of course, but that should be enough to give you a general idea. The real strength of this book, to me, was the warmth of the family relationships that Rosenberg created. Agnes might have lost her parents, but she didn't lose out on the experience of family love. Their desire to protect her from the worst of the realities they faced, and her desire to help them as much as she could, felt true and sure. On the other hand, for a fairly slim volume, there were probably too many plots going on that were underdeveloped...there are side plots with several different love interests for Agnes, as well as the jobs she takes and the people she works with, that are only ever background noise. A more focused plot might have made for a more successful book, because while this was a pleasant enough read and got me interested enough in the time and place (I don't read a ton of books set in Asia) that I went looking for more information, it's not really more than just average. It's under 200 pages, so if you're interested in a relatively untaxing reading experience to introduce you to a setting you don't usually read about, it's enjoyable enough. But it's not so meritorious that I feel like recommending it without qualification. ( )

17-year old Aggie lives with her aging relatives and a series of boarders in a crumbling palace during 1920's Singapore. They family's claim to the castle is tenuous, and they struggle to maintain their very modest standard of living with a small pension and money from Aggie's job.

This book was utterly forgettable. The characters lack depth (I found myself going back and forwards in the book trying to remember who was who because many characters weren't distinctive). Aside from stating that the book takes place in the 1920's, nothing in the story gives insight into any specific time period, and I didn't get the feel of 1920's Singapore.

The book lacks build-up, conflict, and denoument. Plot tension appears out of nowhere and disappears just as quickly.

This is probably one to skip. ( )

Agnes lives in the crumbling Kampong Glam palace in Singapore with her elderly relatives. As the descendant of the last sultan of Singapore, her family made a special deal, that they would own the palace as long as a male descendant lived. Poor and without income, the family relies on boarders to survive.

This was a very interesting book. I know little about Singapore and found the culture absolutely fascinating. Agnes and her relatives were an eclectic group of characters. The author developed and flushed them out very well. Overall, highly recommended. ( )

This has been on my to be read reading shelf forever, I mean couple of years.
The cover is gorgeous and intriguing, but I would have most likely picked it up anyway because the plot is set in Singapore.

The book, particular the audio book I was listening to was excellent because of the speakers McFaden's voice and all the different roles she was able to bring in live and perfect pronunciations to local places and people.

However, the story itself was fine, it has some historical fiction elements and as I know the Singapore's map and locations pretty well it become handy, otherwise I would suggest someone keep the map open to full get the sense of the city.

The story tells about a 17 year old girl named Agnes or Aggie as everyone is calling her. She is representing a multicultural background as majority of nationals in the country. She is an orphan living together with her aunt and uncle who loves her dearly and would go an extra mile to save and provide her all the best they can. And who isn't when it comes to family - any time in a lifetime? Her uncle has served British army and there are some pinch of royal Sultan's blood in her. The time set in the book is some 1920's and they are at the very edge of poverty, struggle to survive and have proper school uniform. Agnes is going in one of the best High School's in Singapore. But the house they live is Kampong Glam, a historical building that is slowly but visibly the building is breaking down, new roof leaks here and there isn't nothing new, few rooms aren't usable anymore.

Agnes is longing is engaging in relationship very fast without fully wanting but the next minute she is over heel about the temperamental British guy who keeps on insisting he is there for her and he does seem fishy. She gets her first job as journalist in the local newspaper, thanks to her uncle's reference and she does remarkably well, turning the society and the ratio of newspaper readers. She is devoted to her family, torn between them and her boyfriend. She gets proposed but not everything seems to be as easy as that...

The main stress on this book, in my opinion, is about historic elements, powerful and strong woman, who is not forced down, but is ready to stand on her feet. She is naive at the first but her character grows when the book is about to end. It was a fine read, but did't attract me with very interesting other characters and the plot climaxes/ suspense. ( )

This book was in many ways just ok. The plot was fairly interesting and kept me reading further but but was not remarkable in any way. My biggest problem with this book was that it constantly felt like it was written from the perspective of a culture tourist. There were numerous instance of information dumps where the author used phrases like: this is how things were done here or this is how it was in Singaporean culture. These made the book feel forced as though some who had just returned from sightseeing in Singapore was trying to show me what they had learned. This subtracted from the believability of the narrator and made the story much less enjoyable. ( )