Last year’s last book that I read was this book: Penaka, written by Altami N.D. I started it exactly on December 31st, and finally I finished it yesterday. Honestly, the main reason I read this novel is because a lot of people I follow on Twitter are talking about it: how it’s a great book, full of surprises, nicely written characters—and oh, the cover! How pretty the book cover is!

However, although it has been reviewed with such dear (and, in some way, it can be included in one of the hyped books in the Indonesian book twitter community) I set my expectations both high and low. High, because, hey people think of this book highly for some reason, right? Low, because this kind of story is not in my niche and I rarely read books about marriage life, so I honestly don’t know what to expect in a book about almost failing marriage.

Yet, driven by an impulsive thought and freshly transferred payroll, I bought the book from a local bookshop last month, and now I’m glad I bought this!

Penaka, the Book

Well, what is the book about exactly? The blurb at the back talks about a mother and a wife named Sofia, who asks for a divorce because she feels her husband no longer supports her in the way she wants, and that she cannot keep up with the people around her. That, until one morning she finds herself as her husband’s water bottle. During her transformations, she finds out about secrets from the people around her, and those revelations slowly change her in a lot of ways.

(There’s a kinda-spoiler about the story in the summary above if you look close enough, hehehe.)

I believe the genre is metropop in Indonesian literature, and its equivalence is chick-lit. I’m not well-versed in Indonesian literature’s genres, sorry. It’s written in Indonesian and there’s no official English translation at the time this review is posted. The book itself is quite thin, printed in serif font with an okay size for my myopic eyes. The beautiful cover is designed by Orkha Creative! I love it so much. Visit the book’s goodreads page here!

The title, Penaka, interests me and from a short visit to Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (The Great Dictionary of Indonesian Language), it’s a particle and a classic word (word that is rarely used anymore) meaning sebagai; seperti; seolah-olah—or similar to ‘as if’ in English. New Indonesian obscure word unlocked!

A friendly reminder before we (finally) enter the review section below: as I said before, this book has no official English translation at the time this review is posted, so all the English translations on quotations below are translated by me. If there are any mistranslations or context that get lost in translation, it’s all on me.

Also, this review is not spoiler free! Please proceed with precautions!

Reading Experience

Honestly, this book is a page turner. The reason why I spent too much time reading this is because I didn’t want it to end quickly, and ended up forgetting it amidst the heaps of work on January /sad worker noises. I believe you can read this in one sitting, because each chapter is pretty short in my opinion. Aside from that, the story is fast-paced—it makes you want to know what happens next, quickly! Oh, Sofia is this now! And what about tomorrow! And tomorrow! And without you realizing, you reached the conclusion chapter already.

Talking about the character, there are a lot of cameos in the story. Aside from Sofia and her husband, Laksana, there’s this family friend, Jena the wife, Yuda the husband, and Gio the son. Along the way, during Sofia’s transformation (literally), she meets (and, becomes) the grandma that sells traditional cakes, that young girl that works in a convenience store, a stray cat and dog, the daughter of their divorce case lawyer, and—and you have to read the book to find out the rest of the cast! /grin.

I scribbled random thoughts during my read, and looking back to those, there are lots of sentences (and sometimes paragraphs) that I underlined. It’s either that they are 1) interesting, 2) Sofia’s realization as well as mine, and 3) a very relatable experience.

Sheepishly enough, I admit that I shared Sofia’s stubbornness. With my lack of experience in dealing with people, I tend to see the world in its ideal state and overlook the surprises and how things can go wrong—and how oftentimes we cannot fix that with a mere ideal thought.

Here is one of the quotes that I underlined:

Kini aku sadar, menjadikan seseorang sebagai rumah itu salah. Rumah sejatinya statis, sementara manusia adalah makhluk yang dinamis. Sampai kapan pun manusia tidak bisa dijadikan tempat untuk pulang. Satu-satunya tempat terdekat untuk singgah dan beristirahat adalah diri sendiri. Tapi bagaimana itu bisa terjadi kalau kita sendiri tidak menemukan kedamaian dalam hati?

[ Now I realized, using someone as a house¹ was wrong. A house was static, while a person was a dynamic being. In the end, you couldn’t come home to a person. The closest place to rest and drop by was yourself. However, how could it happen if we were yet to find our own peace of mind? ]

N.D., Altami, p. 64

People. Yes. How people are predictable yet also unpredictable at the same time!

¹ Indonesian language doesn’t differentiate the word for house and home; they are both rumah. I use house in the first sentence because it’s followed by the concept of a static building, yet I use home in the next sentence because I think that sentence is about coming home to someone.

What Made Me “Ohh!”

The first thing that I want to mention before I forget about it later: Miss Altami gives a title to each chapter! They are all focused on jalan, or way/road, in both their literal and metaphorical meaning. The first chapter is titled Jalan Apa Ini? or What Kind of Road Is This? indicating the intersections that soon our lovely protagonist has to experience. It’s followed by Jalan Kenangan, or the Memory Lane, as the second chapter’s title, and then you read, read, read, until it reaches the last chapter: Jalan Pulang, or the Way Home. Seriously, reading the last chapter’s title gave me chills.

Other than that, I like how Sofia (and, later we found out, Laksana) transforms into different objects in each chapter. Since the book is written from Sofia’s perspective, it limits our point of view. Yet Sofia’s transformations effectively bring us (and her) to other’s perspective (and life), thus adding to Sofia’s (and our) inner conflicts. Usually I don’t really like books with first person POV, but for this one it’s necessary.

Talking about the characters, adding to the previous point, I like how each cameos proportion is enough. Well, it’s understandable since they do provide Sofia’s character development, but because they are people close to Sofia’s life, they don’t feel like sudden additional characters.

I also like how each cameo has their own personality. They don’t only serve as plot devices—if you want, you can turn each cameo’s life into Penaka spin-offs, and I genuinely think that it would still be interesting to read. I’ll want to read more about the continuation of the convenience girl’s life; whether she contacted the women protection service’s number Sofia gave to her or not.

Miss Altami’s story orbits around women and the problems they face in everyday life in Indonesia, and I think it’s lovely how she mentioned women from all sorts of social status. It makes us realize that nobody can truly be free from problems—kinda the true sense of “money can’t buy you happiness.”

What Made Me “Uhh?”

Truth to be told, I don’t have any major complaints to write in this section, haha. Other than I usually prefer first person POV, maybe I don’t really see the point of the tree and moon(?) illustration on each chapter. It doesn’t matter to the story, though!

The code-switch used in the narrations and dialogues are also acceptable—there aren’t too many and it is done in a good way so that it doesn’t feel pretentious. Besides, it’s logical since the story is told from Sofia’s inner thoughts. In this day and age, nobody really uses perfect Indonesian in their heads, don’t they?

Final Thoughts

Chapter 5 ended in Sofia yelling to Laksana about her choice to divorce him and telling him to go back playing with his online-game friends. I specifically wrote under that paragraph: if this book ended up in Sofia coming back together with him and justifying this kind of behavior, I’ll be so pissed.

Thinking about it now, this is such great writing because I think Miss Altami purposely led us (or me, rather) to think this way, because of Sofia’s mother’s still-patriarchal-way of thinking. She suggests such old-thinking suggestions to Sofia; something that shouldn’t be applied today.

The early chapters are filled with Sofia’s (and my) ego, unconsciously thinking that the world should revolve around her. It isn’t until the last line of chapter 15:

Kami terlalu sombong untuk berdiri bersama di tengah-tengah.

[ We are too proud to stand together in the middle. ]

N.D., Altami, p. 169

—and it is not only about Sofia’s ego; it’s about Laksana’s too, because ever since the first chapter, he is introduced as a man with a defined personality, something that made Sofia fall for him in the first place.

When it’s revealed that Laksana, too, becomes a random person and objects, I’m really happy, ha! Miss Altami also gives him his redemption arc, with changing into a nurse in her period, and lines that indicate that he also finds out that Sofia, too, is struggling alone at home. Besides, what makes them change back to their original body is their willingness to stand in the middle together, right?

(Also, this book makes me realize how unprepared I am in terms of having relationship with people, and somewhat strengthen my choice to not having partner any time soon, sigh.)

So. Five stars out of five! A must read for everyone, I believe. Whether you are in a relationship or not, this will add another interesting perspective in life.