MixedThe Boston GlobeNot much else happens in the novel, and that is both its strength and its weakness. Dubus, who teaches at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, is known for heavily researching his books, but it doesn’t really show here — and that, I believe, is a good thing ... I kept waiting for Dubus to complicate his characters, to show them existing in many more shades ... Dubus is, undoubtedly, a skilled writer, and Such Kindness is an admirable project for challenging us to show compassion for those on the economic fringes of society. But Tom feels like a prop to articulate Dubus’s worldview, and by the end, I found myself wishing for more levity to cut the woe.
Rachel Heng
RaveThe Boston GlobeUndoubtedly a book with a great title ... One of the things that makes this novel so original and moving is how Heng pushes back on the \'chosen boy\' narrative so often found in literature ... Singapore is given the complexity it deserves, and Heng shows us the price of modernity.
