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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
Wow - lots of thoughts. Will update with more later but as of right now definitely worth a five star.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Well written. So much important information about the history of Okinawa that i never knew. Also makes me think a lot about my mom and her experience in the us. I like the way the book is written and how it flows
I was really excited to read this. A very interesting memoir but her belief that all white people are racist and America is the only country that has done terrible things was disruptive to appreciating the deeper more sincere story about her search for identity and redemption. She implies that two people who are not the same race or speak the same language cannot love each other. These things download throughout the book just took away from an otherwise incredible story.
I'll never understand people who blame their parents for loving and caring for them.
I'll never understand people who blame their parents for loving and caring for them.
I enjoyed this memoir - the author and I are similar, because we both have an Okinawan mom and a dad who was in the military when they met! Like the author, I don't really have a strong connection to my half-Okinawan side. Our similarities probably end about there. I really respect this memoir, because the author is brutally honest about herself and her parents. There are times when she was pretty hard on her mom, and her mom was also unstable when the author was growing up. She chronicles her search for identity and how in the process she begins to understand her mother more. The book alternates between chapters about her and her parents with chapters that explain Okinawa's history.
i liked this book but actually i didn't because i cried so hard i had to take a nap.
4 stars because it was touching and the historical facts about okinawa were really interesting.
///spoilers//// like... im not kidding.
liiiiiiike, i know she was just a kid but its so fucked up that she wouldnt even try to communicate with her mom. i can only barely comprehend the crippling loneliness her mom must have felt to have no one (husband or offspring) try to know you? and to lash out because you're in pain and to be dismissed?? i sobbed and EMK if you see me in the streets... we are boxing. im glad things are turning around though, like honestly.
4 stars because it was touching and the historical facts about okinawa were really interesting.
///spoilers//// like... im not kidding.
liiiiiiike, i know she was just a kid but its so fucked up that she wouldnt even try to communicate with her mom. i can only barely comprehend the crippling loneliness her mom must have felt to have no one (husband or offspring) try to know you? and to lash out because you're in pain and to be dismissed?? i sobbed and EMK if you see me in the streets... we are boxing. im glad things are turning around though, like honestly.
Brutal, raw and often difficult to listen to as the author gives voice to what it feels like to be a child born of an American military service man and an Okinawan mother, and to grow up in a small town in upstate New York. This book resonated with my own experiences growing up, the internalized racism, the feeling of not fitting in, being exoticized or invisible, the dynamics of power and dysfunction in relationships. While this author explores all the hardship, there is also a lot of healing and growth. A beautiful story of self-discovery and reconciliation.
medium-paced
AH! This book. Wow. It had been on my radar for a while but finally read it this year as I was semi-partaking in January In Japan. Brina is a half Japanese woman living in the states, and this book is part memoir, part history of Okinawa - a small Japanese island prefecture which was occupied by the US Army during WW2, and which still houses 14 US military bases.
Brina talks a lot about her at-times troubled relationship with her mum, who was born in Okinawa and met and married a Vietnam veteran and moved to America not knowing anyone or any English. Beautifully layered with her personal stories is quite a traumatic portrayal of Okinawa as it underwent occupation. Through several chapters she writes in plural first person perspective to create a ‘voice’ of the Okinawan people, which was a unique tool that used sparingly was quite powerful. The title of the book started to make sense when listening to these chapters
Speak, Okinawa is very emotive and vulnerable book, and I couldn’t begin to imagine the research and personal journey Brina went through to write this. I really connected with her character (half Japanese, Japanese immigrant mother living in an English speaking western country). It definitely made me reflect on my relationship with my mum, and also made me quite sad because she’s no longer with us. 🤍 I think most people probably won’t cry as many times as I did reading this book!
I did audio for this which was incredible, narrated by Sachi Lovatt and the author herself.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced