What a rough book to read. Urrea writes without judgement, like an observer, about the lives of Mexican dump dwellers and orphans along the border, scWhat a rough book to read. Urrea writes without judgement, like an observer, about the lives of Mexican dump dwellers and orphans along the border, scrapping a gritty life however they can and unable to escape. He's spent time working with nonprofits to try to help the people and so knows many firsthand. The poverty is horrendous, beauty and riches and hope just beyond the wall. Americans on mission come like wonderous angels periodically to bring food and offer baths to clean off the filth and lice. I think some of the intimate details of the people's conversations, thoughts, must be imagined, but the people and their stories are real and Urrea is a beautifully eloquent writer. Skip the chapter on the monkey unless you don't mind your stomach turning and having nightmares....more
I finally read this book sitting on my crowded bookshelf since attending an author event years ago and raced through this harrowing road trip full of I finally read this book sitting on my crowded bookshelf since attending an author event years ago and raced through this harrowing road trip full of colorful, strong characters. The premise is a bit of a stretch, for a young woman and her friends to find their own "Magnificent Seven" to save their remote little town from low-level narcos that moved in. In a switch, they want to cross the border (illegally) to bring back Mexican men from the US since so many have left the town, including leader Nayeli's father she will search for - in Kankakee, IL, of all places. The author was born in Mexico, raised in CA, and returned to Mexico to do relief work on the border and at a Tijuana dump area so he has real life stories as well as research to work from, and what a story he weaves. Danger abounds, strangers help, women show power, characters bring humor - and love. Those who need their endings wrapped up in a bow will be disappointed. For the rest of us, here's another great book by the great Luis Alberto Urrea....more
This book is a Wow to me! I won't be going to Southeast Asia, but I loved following the author around on her mostly solo journeys around China, Tibet,This book is a Wow to me! I won't be going to Southeast Asia, but I loved following the author around on her mostly solo journeys around China, Tibet, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Taiwan using all sorts of transportation modes. Carrie's stories are fun and easy to read, fascinating, educational and astonishing. Her "Toilet Experiences" were almost as scary as her cliffside narrow road adventures. Yikes! I appreciated hearing some history and cultural practices at places she went to, and to hear about her encounters with the local peoples. What incredible experiences! I am impressed by Carrie's very adventurous spirit and bravery and enjoyed being safe in my armchair while reading about her travels. (I had to look up what a "ute" with "tray" was. In the U.S. that's a pickup truck with a custom bed.)...more
Pulled this old leather-bound classic off our bookshelf, finally curious enough to read it to see where the derogatory term "Uncle Tom" came from. WasPulled this old leather-bound classic off our bookshelf, finally curious enough to read it to see where the derogatory term "Uncle Tom" came from. Was I surprised! The author wrote a powerful and gripping story showing the evils of slavery; however it is very melodramatic, with broad brushstrokes and odd generalizing statements of the nature of the black people. It's a story meant to persuade and proselytize, a testament against slavery and for Christianity.
Uncle Tom is a big, strong, faithful Christian exhibiting kindness to everyone. He has strong morals and does his best in all circumstances, with good masters and bad. Black people have rebelled against his gentle, yielding nature, preferring the side story of the rebellious George escaping with his wife and child. Also, I learned white men took the story and performed it in blackface, becoming a ridiculous step-n-fetch-it Tom rather than the gentle, strong Jesus character written by Beecher Stowe. Tom suffers and then sacrifices himself to save others, specifically two women escaping a monstrous master - I learned where the description "Simon Legree" came from. I can understand how this was ground-breaking and influential, written prior to the Civil War. ...more
Oh my Lord, I can't believe I finished this tome - finally! I could only stand to read a few chapters at a time, and the chapters are short. This monsOh my Lord, I can't believe I finished this tome - finally! I could only stand to read a few chapters at a time, and the chapters are short. This monster of a book has a good storyline but oh, so much detail and distractions and on and on and on it goes so the storyline is almost lost. The old dialect is hard to understand and the author/narrator Ishmael is so well read I had no idea what almost all his references and name-dropping were about. I did get the Biblical references. I slogged through this because it's a famous classic on my bookshelf forever, and now there's a theatre production of it, so it was "good for me," but it was good for me like chewing a huge plate of tough kale. Fortunately, some of the kale had some nice dressing on it.
While this was a tough read, Melville can at times write beautiful prose, and the book is a fantastic historical narrative of what old-time whaling was like. It also tells everything you ever wanted to know (like it or not) about sperm whale behavior and their anatomy - fascinating to me, and so I did not like what happened to whales. Some incredible other stuff happens, like a guy falling inside the dead head of a whale and being saved from drowning in slime. The storyline picks up near the end (finally!), and I did really like the ending, so maybe this was worth the read. At least I can say I read Moby Dick - unadulterated, without any maps or notes or commentary. This book is not for everyone, and feel free to skim the boring parts....more
What a strange book, especially the ending. Etsuko, now a widow in England, is remembering her past life in Nagasaki, Japan, post WWII, so there is thWhat a strange book, especially the ending. Etsuko, now a widow in England, is remembering her past life in Nagasaki, Japan, post WWII, so there is that shadow in the background. She recalls a mother and her near-feral child living in a decrepit cottage along a river, near the apartment complex where pregnant Etsuko and her traditional Japanese husband live. Who is the mysterious woman that the little girl says comes to see her? The strange story with a lot of dialogue, often repeating, gives a feeling of alienation. Later, as Etsuko tries to comfort the little girl unhappy about having to move to the U.S. with her mother and the American Frank, she makes a pronoun switch that is unsettling. What is going on?
Etsuko is remembering her past during a visit from her younger daughter who lives a modern life in London that her mother doesn't understand. Her older daughter, born in Japan and who never adjusted to moving to England with her mother and British stepfather, had committed suicide not long ago. The ending of this story is unclear and disturbing, but the story of the woman and child in the cottage appears to be a kind of echo or premonition of Etsuko and her firstborn. Interestingly, the author was born in Nagasaki and raised there until his family moved to England when he was about 5 years old, around the same age as the feral girl and perhaps Etsuko's daughter when they had to move to a foreign country....more
My daughter loved this book and thought I would, too, but I didn't, despite being half-Asian and having a difficult relationship with my Asian mom butMy daughter loved this book and thought I would, too, but I didn't, despite being half-Asian and having a difficult relationship with my Asian mom but caring for her in her last years. The writing is very good, the storyline good but I found it a bit too chatty and meandering so I was skimming a bit. Most interesting to me was the caregiving part, also how the author handled her relationship with her very imperfect father. Somehow I did not bond with the author or most of her story, except for that feeling of losing your heritage. All the food references were unpronounceable and meaningless to me as I don't eat Korean food but other readers may drool over this. I never came close to crying but did cheer for the author as she became successful, and was glad she found Peter....more
I liked mostly the first half of this book, which started with how the US/Australian-raised author happen to marry a Japanese man and then led into JaI liked mostly the first half of this book, which started with how the US/Australian-raised author happen to marry a Japanese man and then led into Japanese culture and how the author adapted to it. It's also about the old house passed along through family generations. I loved the color photos and the lovely drawings by the talented author. This is not exactly memoir, seems more like essays, especially the later chapters of philosophizing. I wanted to know a lot more indepth, real life stories, including about her children's experiences growing up as half Japanese....more
This was passed on to me, who mostly reads memoirs, by someone who read it and thought I might like it. Except this is not a memoir or really a bunch This was passed on to me, who mostly reads memoirs, by someone who read it and thought I might like it. Except this is not a memoir or really a bunch of travel stories in the traditional sense but a series of feature articles the author wrote about various events she went to (child beauty pageant, taxidermy convention), specific places she went to (a school, a grocery store, a street in Bankok, Mt. Fuji), or certain subjects she was curious about (pet tigers, airplane magazine, Keiko the whale). Some stories were interesting to me, quite a few were not, and all were full of little details, thoughts, and research I did not usually care about. I made myself read to the end, skipping over the boring parts. Not my kind of book....more
This is a wonderful story of saving history and culture before it was lost. For someone with limited education, the author is a pretty good writer, anThis is a wonderful story of saving history and culture before it was lost. For someone with limited education, the author is a pretty good writer, and he did an impressive amount of research. Thankfully he collected a great many historical Ainu objects - or re-created them, with help from his wife talented in weaving. I love his story of growing from a young man who wanted to "discard everything Ainu" to someone who came to value his heritage as he saw it disappearing. He sat with elders, including his grandmother and father, to listen to and record their stories and the "yukar" and "uwepekere" folktales in poetry and prose. This memoir of history and lived experience is so valuable, filled with details of Ainu village daily life, sprinkled with Ainu words, while capturing that common experience of indigenous peoples having their land taken and their language and culture discouraged. I hope many universities have a copy of this book in their libraries. ...more
This is a fun and easy read set in Kauai, complete with all the "okina" punctuation marks that capture Hawaiian pronunciations. They can be a bit distThis is a fun and easy read set in Kauai, complete with all the "okina" punctuation marks that capture Hawaiian pronunciations. They can be a bit distracting, although not as distracting as the sprinkling of pidgin English. However, the dialogue (including some Nihongo) puts us right into multicultural Hawaii which I didn't know much about but enjoyed experiencing. This is also set during Covid so we learn how that affected this island nation.
I liked the main character, Leilani, very much - she's a regular person, down to earth, says it like it is. I had some questions about the ending, but overall the writing is good, the plot is interesting, we learn some things. Author Naomi is certainly good at doing her research of history and culture. I pulled this off the library shelf and did not realize it was second in a series, but it stands alone quite well....more
I did not particularly enjoy this book but I give it credit for being based on life experiences of the author. I did enjoy reading about the family's I did not particularly enjoy this book but I give it credit for being based on life experiences of the author. I did enjoy reading about the family's life in the Dominican Republic. It was an elite life, though, in a compound with other relatives in a fun big crazy family community. Walls separated them from surrounding poverty and crime but danger from the government was everywhere. Papi became involved in a failed plot to overthrow the dictator and the family escaped to New York City where the girls had to learn to adjust to a very different life and lifestyle, eventually becoming too Americanized to their parents' consternation but they still enjoyed visiting their relatives back in the compound.
The problem is that there are many stories (chapters) each about one person but sometimes more and not in particular order in time - or perspective. This could be confusing and even annoying. The writing itself is good, the cultural color appealing, the transition to American life interesting but it was put together in too disjointed a fashion, and the ending is strange and abrupt. ...more
This is a beautiful cross-cultural love story of Navy man Stephen whose life was changed after he met Ryuko while stationed in Japan. It offers one ofThis is a beautiful cross-cultural love story of Navy man Stephen whose life was changed after he met Ryuko while stationed in Japan. It offers one of the most sensitive descriptions I have ever read by a "gaijin" of life in Japan while the country was not fully recovered from WWII, and prior much modern technology. No condescending, broad judgements per the famous Donald Richie. Stephen also details about his life in the Navy which I found interesting. The two eventually manage to be married in Japan and moved to the U.S. where Ryuko has to adapt to a new world.
While author Stephen wrote this, I believe, for family only as it contains a lot of personal and extra details, it was a lovely and most interesting story, especially about life in Japan in the later 1950s. This is around the time my Army dad was in Japan and met my mother, so I was particularly thrilled to read this as I work on my dad's lifewriting. The book was published after Stephen's death, leaving not only a beautiful legacy for his family but a sweet story for us of love, history, and culture....more
Overall I liked this novel, moving back and forth between the past and present to connect the two in an interesting way, but found some parts did not Overall I liked this novel, moving back and forth between the past and present to connect the two in an interesting way, but found some parts did not seem plausible. The story of young Jewish girl Sarah and her family is compelling as well as being an important note in WWII and French history that I did not know about and apparently many want to forget. But how did a non-Jewish family in a small town "hide" Sarah in plain sight after police dragged away another refugee in their house? The modern-day protagonist Julia is very much an American living in Paris, not quite fitting in but loving the city, her life complicated by her French husband's behavior and his family's attitudes toward her. But suddenly some attitudes completely change?
Julia's chapters go on and on with her thoughts, which I wished less of, and obsession with tracking down Sarah. She assumes her family knew of her past. Many trauma victims won't talk about their past and do not want other people insensitively forcing it open! I liked the history, the Paris culture, the Sarah story, but Julia was a bit much....more
While I did not particularly like the first half of this book where nothing much goes on but readers learning about the 5 main characters and how theyWhile I did not particularly like the first half of this book where nothing much goes on but readers learning about the 5 main characters and how they are either having sex or wishing to, the second half comes roaring in to grip readers into a narrative of a war most (including me) probably knew nothing about. It's boots on the ground and war is hell, as any combat vet or civilian survivor knows - graphic details and trauma ahead.
I did enjoy being immersed in the African culture presented and what was going on around this time of the fledgling country of Biafra that did not survive. Each chapter is a perspective of one of the interesting main characters so we get to know them well, but the houseboy Ugbu is the main attraction. Richard, the handsome but insecure white guy who likes living among the Igbo people and learns their language seems like an odd duck in this story, and why the very confident and aloof (and rich) Kainene loves him back is a mystery. Another warning: no happy ending, no wrapping it all up nicely. Because war really is hell....more
This is the third Jean Kwok book I've read - and liked. Charlie is clumsy and likely dyslexic, working as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant where hThis is the third Jean Kwok book I've read - and liked. Charlie is clumsy and likely dyslexic, working as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant where her traditional Chinese father works long hours cooking and cleaning. Little sister Lisa is the smart pretty one but suddenly struggling in school and with strange physical ills that her father hires Chinese medicine practitioners to fix - to no avail but he refuses to consider (expensive) Western doctors. The mother was a talented ballet dancer in China, married for love to live in poverty in the US, dying young. Charlie manages to get hired as a receptionist at a dance studio, (dream job) despite her hand-me-down appearance, fails but is amazingly hired to teach beginner students, thanks to studio desperation and her tai chi teaching background - and she learns fast and excels. And there's a love interest.
I can't even do the Macarena so all the dance explanations were beyond me, but I enjoyed learning about the professional dance culture and cheering the underdog Charlie while she tries to navigate between her dreams and her father's home country ways while worrying over her little sister. We know the romantic ending but the tension throughout was fun and exciting. We suspect the ending to the sister story, too. While the success story seems unreal, the author's life experience is of growing up in poverty and becoming a ballroom dancer - before becoming a very successful author whose books are inspiring film versions. I found this a fun Cinderella story and am looking forward to the author's upcoming book....more
Interesting and creative story about a half-Chinese American girl whose full Chinese half-sister comes to live with the family after the father dies. Interesting and creative story about a half-Chinese American girl whose full Chinese half-sister comes to live with the family after the father dies. Olivia does not like her strange, very talkative new older sister raised in China but Kwan pays no attention to annoyed Olivia and loves her completely. Kwan has "yin eyes" and can see "yin people" (spirits/ghosts) of her previous life and talks to them, so readers need to suspend their disbelief. Olivia and her estranged husband bring Kwan with them on a photo-writing assignment to see the poor village where Kwan grew up, and then the story gets interesting.
Narrator Olivia comes off as a spoiled young woman with fantasy expectations for love and married life and her nice half-Chinese American husband can't read her mind. Olivia babbles on about imaginings and annoyances to make sure she keeps herself unhappy. Kwan talks on and on but is a much nicer and more interesting character. Her speaking in Chinese is written in perfect English but otherwise her speaking is broken-English that is easy to read and flows well, it's just that she is chatty and does a lot of explaining (telling) which can drag the story down a bit, along with Olivia's chronic inner complaining. The previous-life story is complex but I enjoyed the China setting and Kwan's yin eyes and how everything eventually connected in spirit. Intriguing ending....more
These short stories are sometimes more like anecdotes about various characters living in cramped condiions on short and narrow Red Dust Lane in the miThese short stories are sometimes more like anecdotes about various characters living in cramped condiions on short and narrow Red Dust Lane in the middle of Shanghai. I really liked the historical and cultural aspect, with the year-end China history summaries written on the street's blackboard that puts some perspective on the story that follows. Catchy short stories are not easy to write and some of these are clever, some just okay. Overall I think best for those who find daily life stories interesting and don't mind quiet endings - me, and I liked and appreciated this book but didn't love it. ...more
I loved this memoir of King Ying "Helen" Yee written by her daughter Karin. What a strong person she was to endure poverty and discrimination in the UI loved this memoir of King Ying "Helen" Yee written by her daughter Karin. What a strong person she was to endure poverty and discrimination in the US and then sent to live impoverished with relatives in China after her mother died - just in time for the Second Sino-Japanese War. This meshing of history, culture, and overcoming hardships in both countries, sometimes shocking, always fascinating, drew me in to hope for and cheer for Helen through an incredible life story. Definitely a life story to save....more
This is a very good book I think meant for middle grade readers, exposing the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and based on the author's life. I've This is a very good book I think meant for middle grade readers, exposing the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and based on the author's life. I've read memoirs of life under Mao, something everyone should read as a warning of how easy it is for humans to become enthralled by power and turn into monsters under a devious leader....more
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