What I found particularly compelling, however, was the complex morality and characterisation, particular of Lily's siblings, whose childhoods and interactions with the family are similar and yet very different to Lily. Another popular tropical fruit, pineapples, infuse the air with their sweet aroma as soon as they're cut open. she seeks to destroy them in anyway possible so that they can continue to obey her outrageous demands.

With Lily and her mama so vividly painted from the start, Bad Fruit quickly grips you, unfolding a complex family dynamic and a girl starting to question what she thought she knew. A graduate of Faber Academy’s novel-writing programme, she won the Blue Pencil Pitch Prize 2019 and came third in the Aurora Prize for Short Fiction 2019. The descriptions, of a sweaty, oppressive summer in Greenwich, juxtaposed against the cultural roots of Singapore, leap off the page. And despite her being pretty vile almost all of the time, it is a testament to the author's skill, that by the end of the book, I did have some sympathy for her. I don't know, I just feel like I should have felt something tugging at my heartstrings and I didn't.The dysfunctional (and abusive) relationship between Lily and her mother is the focus, but the rest of her family doesn’t fare well either. She lives with her parents in Greenwich, South-East London and has two older siblings: a sister, Julia and a brother, Jacob. This is such a well done character-driven suspense with some dark themes that will keep you guessing until the end.

A cleverly layered story of inherited trauma, a complex and damaged family dynamic, identity, trust, growth and a young woman understanding that the hardest thing she can do might just be the thing that saves her. She’s done everything from taste testing the three-day-old-expired juice mother prefers to dying her hair and wearing colored contacts to appear as Asian as possible in an attempt to keep her sated. Ella King deftly explores the toxicity of generational trauma while being unafraid to confront the racial tensions that can simmer below the surface. A masterful exploration of mothers and daughters, inherited trauma and the race to break its devastating cycle, BAD FRUIT will leave readers breathlessly questioning their own notions of femininity, race and redemption. Brimming with vitamin C, 1 cup of pineapple gets you very close to reaching 100% of the DV, according to the USDA.Lily escapes to a bolthole she has created in the attic and as if the toxic atmosphere in the home isn’t bad enough she starts to have flashbacks which present a puzzling conundrum, who exactly is the bad fruit? Maria Laura is a trained dietitian, almond butter lover and food enthusiast with over seven years of experience in nutrition counseling.