Book Review: Dato’ Beatrice Nirmala’s Through the Looking Glass

Good writing is not just about stringing the right words in structured sentences, or having a perfect command of the vocabulary. Good writing is the ability to connect with an audience and resonate with their thoughts, and articulate what they have been thinking.

But you know what great writing is?

It’s going deep into topics that no one dares to talk about, and having the courage to meet it squarely and give a voice to it. To get out of comfort zones and chart new territories by talking about deep personal traumas without shame, guilt, or fear.

As a veteran journalist, I have rarely seen any writers daring to go that extra mile, especially when it comes to baring the soul and writing fearlessly, without holding back the punches. That is why this book is a rare literary gem.

The author is fearless in facing the demons very few talk about, and what more, she has topped it with liberal doses of wit, wisdom, kindness, compassion and intelligence in this masterpiece of hers, “Through the Looking Glass”.

Every page leaps out and wraps itself around your heart, and you are drawn into her world as she paints the pain, wonderment and simple joys of every man and woman, intricately woven into her story.

The journey of her life from a wide-eyed shy Ipoh girl from a loewr middle income family who gave up teaching Physics and Maths to build an empire of influence, with no mentors, no help, just her guts.

The crumbling of personal and business life, shattered to a million pieces with a heartbreaking betrayal and divorse.

Building back from ground zero again at the age of 46, engulfed with fear of the future.

And what we all need – a triumphant ending, as she finds her footing, reinvents her business, fortifies her confidence and then awakens to see the world with different eyes and a smile.

Those who walk through the valley of fear, anxiety and doubt, as we all do at many stages of our life, can take solace in this book. It is a wonderful guide, thinly disguised under a myriad delightful stories, and my favourite part: Happiness Is…, an entire segment that examines the simplicity of happiness and how we can all have it.

Everyone should have this book. It’s not just one of the best books I have read by a Malaysian author. I think this book has the potential to be an international best seller, for its universal feel good theme of triumph over darkness in our lives.

“Through the Looking Glass” is available through Amazon, Lazada, and Malaysian bookstores. Review by Datuk Seri Azman Ujang, former Chairman and CEO of BERNAMA, Malaysia’s National News Agency.