4.23 AVERAGE

nyadon's review

3.5
reflective slow-paced

vytalsign's review

5.0

Absolutely incredible read. This is why I love reading.
emotional informative reflective medium-paced

smareeb's review

4.0
challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

shannonmcnamara's review

5.0

Amazing memoir to start the year. Elizabeth Miki Brina does not hold back as she wrestles with identity and family bonds through a gorgeous narrative voice. It is beautiful, raw, important, and we are lucky it exists!
informative reflective medium-paced
oldladyots's profile picture

oldladyots's review

4.0
emotional informative reflective medium-paced

sophc996's review

4.5
emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.5 stars - a heartstirring, raw, impossibly vibrant memoir of brina’s life as the daughter of an american soldier and his korean war bride. brina writes with candidness and deep emotion about her complicated relationship with her parents, especially her mother, and her evolving view of her asian identity more broadly. there is something terribly moving about the chapters of this book where brina recounts how she treated her mother as a child, the regret she feels for never understanding what it must have taken for her mother to leave her home in okinawa and marry a man she hardly knew. prescient too is her examination of her father’s political views and how little they resemble the version of him she remembers protecting her as a child. my one gripe is with the chapters where she goes into okinawa’s history of occupation — it feels like too ambitious of a project for such a short book, and i question the use of “we” as a narrative device. if they were part of conversations she had with her relatives — even recognizing the language barrier — they would have felt much more personal and true to form. 

lyss_444's review

0.5
emotional informative reflective medium-paced

isabellaknox's review

3.0

2.5/5 listened to the audiobook

Best parts were the history parts