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earldizon's review
4.0
A lot going on here- the immigrant experience, escaping a dictatorship, moving to a new country, moving back to a different country, coping with cancer, dealing with society's expectations of being a woman of a certain age and having kids, complex family relationships, racism, and surving sexual abuse- but handled well and with sensitivity. A moving memoir that shows we are everything that's happened to us and, at the same time, more than all of that.
okinmybook's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
jeanneblasberg's review
5.0
This memoir is written as a collection of essays. The author’s story is a complex weaving of the “American Dream” with the sacrifices and struggles her family must deal with. Talusan approaches themes of race, abuse, and illness with such perspective, compassion and intelligence. She has created a beautiful, and important book that describes painful loss, but mostly the human spirit’s ability to be resilient.
docz's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Introspective and incisive, the author of this book invites readers to think again about family, home, and love in rich ways. More than a telling of harm, pain, and trauma, this memoir is a reflection of lives across borders and generations, and of how place shapes beingness. While at times the book seemed to lack a throughline for as a reader, I appreciated the ability to sense-make as I pieced the sometimes disparate sections together.
gsicat's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This book was something else. Quite special to me. The first book I’ve read my a Filipina author. Grace tulasan put into words many feelings I’ve had while visiting the Philippines and life as a Filipino-American. I put tabs all over the book because they were so many parts that stuck out to me. I read it in two days! Definitely a heavy and emotional book, but I’m grateful she wrote her memoir because of the ways it helped me heal and think about my own trauma and life.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Sexual assault
cestgelaine's review
5.0
An easy 5/5 for me.
"A book is a bomb. And if my book has done anything to chip away at the structures upholding inequality and suffering in our society by adding my one voice, or if I've helped repay the debt I owe authors before me by helping one reader feel less alone in the world, I choose explosion again and again."
"A book is a bomb. And if my book has done anything to chip away at the structures upholding inequality and suffering in our society by adding my one voice, or if I've helped repay the debt I owe authors before me by helping one reader feel less alone in the world, I choose explosion again and again."