The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The title “The Weight of Our Sky” is written in the top left corner of the cover in stacked white capitals. The author’s name “Hanna Alkaf” is written directly below this in smaller, stacked pink capitals. The background art shows two young people riding a red moped under a dark sky. The sky is covered in black, orange and grey smoke clouds. The person at the front of the moped is facing away from the audience, and has short black hair, a short sleeved white t-shirt, black pants and black shoes. The person at the back of the moped has their head turned towards the audience, and has longer black hair. There are wearing a blue dress that reaches their knees, with white shoulder length sleeves, white shoes and a brown backpack. /end]

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Content Warning:

From author’s website:

• Graphic Violence
• Racism
• On-Page Death
• OCD Triggers
• Anxiety Triggers

Additional warnings:

• Descriptions of Blood
• Panic Attacks

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Summary:

A music-loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

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Notes:

There is an ebook. There is a Kindle edition.

There is a webtoons comic.

This book is set during the 1969 Kuala Lumpur race riots.

Here is a link to the author’s website.

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Archivist Comments:

This book seems very loved, especially just for how much it manages to explore Malaysian culture as well as history. People have descibed the prose as being incredibly immersive, but have described the read itself as being one that is quite “intense” due to the subject material.

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