In Everyday Movement, the reader meets several Hong Kong residents that are more or less connected to each other, in the midst of the 2019 pro-democracy protests. We meet Ah Lei en Panda, who are college roommates. The night before, they where at the mall, which is also a shelter for the protesters, and they where caught in the midst of the protests and tear gassed.Later on they take part in the protests, but as the protest become more violent, they push back. Around them people struggle with the same, and also their ups and downs in their normal daily lives. Everyone of the characters has different roots with mainland China, and also different views and opinions on the protests and the resistance movement behind it. The author spotlights on the daily lives of different characters in this book that sometimes know and sometimes don't know each other, amidst the social changes in Hong Kong that also changes relationships between people and family members.
Everyday Movement is a book about a specific recent period in Hong Kong history. It helps in understanding this book if you know a bit more of the background of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, protests that turned out violent between the protestors and the riot police. The characters in this book, which are quite a few, are in the midst of the protests. It was sometimes a bit confusing who was who in this story, what their backgrounds where, and how they where connected to each other or not, Some characters seemed to not be connected to any other person in the book, which made you wonder what the purpose of their role was, as sometimes these characters felt redundant. Overall the characters didn't have much depth, and their everyday lives amidst the protests where not very interesting as they where just too short and fragmentary. It was all too short and going from one character to the other in a somewhat messy story that also switches in time at some points. I found the topic of the events in Hong Kong interesting, but it would have been more interesting if there was a stronger storyline with less characters.
Overall, I wanted to like this book more then I actually did, and do not specifically recommend it.
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