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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
It was ok, the Okinawa history was interesting but I think there were a lot of unnecessary details about the authors life and choices she made in her teen years.
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Speak, Okinawa is a memoir by a biracial Okinawan-American woman that not only talks about her immediate family's history but dives into the oft-overlooked history of the Okinawan people from before they were annexed by the US and then sold to the Japanese.
The memoir goes back and forth through three different timelines — Elizabeth's, her mother's, and the Okinawan people.
I will say that the multiple timelines and jumping back and forth made it feel a little disjointed at times; I'd be reading for about a page or so before I am certain which timeline I'm in, which is my only negative about the memoir.
I wasn't sure what to expect when reading this — on some level I knew it'd hit on the confusion and anguish of having a dual identity. There were multiple times I ended up crying a little, at the shared experience and the distance that can grow between a parent and child.
I don't think I could say this book healed me, but it did make me think a lot about my own relationships to my family.
The memoir goes back and forth through three different timelines — Elizabeth's, her mother's, and the Okinawan people.
I will say that the multiple timelines and jumping back and forth made it feel a little disjointed at times; I'd be reading for about a page or so before I am certain which timeline I'm in, which is my only negative about the memoir.
I wasn't sure what to expect when reading this — on some level I knew it'd hit on the confusion and anguish of having a dual identity. There were multiple times I ended up crying a little, at the shared experience and the distance that can grow between a parent and child.
I don't think I could say this book healed me, but it did make me think a lot about my own relationships to my family.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
An emotional memoir about growing up as a daughter of an American father and Okinawan mother and how it affected her sense of identity. It is also a retelling of the experiences of the author's parents - notably, her father's tours of duty in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, and her mother's impoverished childhood in Okinawa. History lovers will also appreciate how Okinawa used to be neither a part of Japan nor China, a distinct territory called Lew Chew, with its own dialect, people and culture and by sheer misfortune of its geographic location, became an easy target for colonizers.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced