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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Traumas are earthquakes. The fault lines are reminders of what happened and haunting of what could happen. When it all hits you at once, it can be a healthy thing just to escape for a few days. This story is so much more than this (growing up interracial, migration through the world, deconstruction, etc)… but this is what I could relate to more than anything.
"She loves you in the way she can...I tried not to think about the ways she couldn't, the ways she never would except perhaps in the place between dream and daylight, in the split second between here and gone."
"Something about me I knew was no longer true - something about what my body was for, or rather what some men would expect and demand from my body in return for opening a door, for letting me in. It was not the first time those demands had been made; it was the first time I had agreed to them. I had agreed with my silence; since I had agreed, I told myself I had wanted it." :(
"[We] held up our middle fingers, held them up for a good long time. We held them up at him, and at all of them, all the men who had tried to take our bodies and our names and sell them back to us for less."
"'I don't think I'll ever get married,' George said, as though this had nothing to do with me. 'I don't see kids in my future.' Once drunk enough, I asked him where I was in his future - if I was. 'You can come with me wherever I go,' he said. Then he added, 'If you want.' This choice I was granted, it was one I did not want to be given. I wanted us to be inevitable."
"Something about me I knew was no longer true - something about what my body was for, or rather what some men would expect and demand from my body in return for opening a door, for letting me in. It was not the first time those demands had been made; it was the first time I had agreed to them. I had agreed with my silence; since I had agreed, I told myself I had wanted it." :(
"[We] held up our middle fingers, held them up for a good long time. We held them up at him, and at all of them, all the men who had tried to take our bodies and our names and sell them back to us for less."
"'I don't think I'll ever get married,' George said, as though this had nothing to do with me. 'I don't see kids in my future.' Once drunk enough, I asked him where I was in his future - if I was. 'You can come with me wherever I go,' he said. Then he added, 'If you want.' This choice I was granted, it was one I did not want to be given. I wanted us to be inevitable."
Beautiful memoir
Lovely and honest dive into belonging and self, family and displacement. I look forward to more from this talented young writer.
Lovely and honest dive into belonging and self, family and displacement. I look forward to more from this talented young writer.
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Following on with another tough memoir. I appreciated reading her perspective (and was intrigued that she went to school for urban planning, tho that was no where in this memoir) on such an unusual upbringing, and of course her experience as a cross cultural/third culture kid.
There was one chapter in particular that seemed like it could have been the entire book (perhaps an essay the memoir grew out of?); frankly, that could have sufficed. The earthquake conceit did not work to tie the memoir together for me, and I almost would have preferred a random collections of stories within the memoir. (Perhaps a different editor was needed?).
There was one chapter in particular that seemed like it could have been the entire book (perhaps an essay the memoir grew out of?); frankly, that could have sufficed. The earthquake conceit did not work to tie the memoir together for me, and I almost would have preferred a random collections of stories within the memoir. (Perhaps a different editor was needed?).
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This was an absolutely riveting journey across continents and back and forth through time. Owusu has lived in Rome, Addis Ababa, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Kumasi, London, and New York. With astonishing self awareness, Owusu describes both her privilege and its cost -- on herself, her family, and the world at large. “Let me show you my home,” she writes. “It is a border. It is the outer edge of both sides. They drew the lines right through me.”
This is really two books, a fascinating reflection of an international childhood and the brutal “aftershocks” of the cumulative emotional and geographic upheavals that result. Her narrative intersperses memories of youth with those of a harrowing psychic break, darkly foreshadowing cause and effect. She demurs, “I can only talk about the wars in Ethiopia and Uganda from a remove, from a protected place.” Yet she is not protected enough to prevent the world from marking her. At one point, a violent local militia invades her house looking for children to kidnap as soldiers, and a boy she’s played with unthinkingly hides in plain sight on their couch; her family’s wealth and status shield him from being revealed as a potential recruit. But danger does not lurk only in Uganda, Ghana, and Ethiopia. Threats at a playground in Rome and even her boarding school also imperil her physical and emotional well-being.
The combination of a heart-breakingly fractured family and frequent moves between cultures and languages constitute the book’s earthquakes, in response to which Owusu develops what she calls her “seismometer,” which emotionally calibrates “foreshock, mainshock, and aftershock.” As a result of these quakes and faultlines, she explains, “The story is reshuffled. In the sequence, we only know what goes where in retrospect.”
While I understand the reason for the narrative fragmenting, I found this toggling between locations and time periods disorienting and had to reread chapter titles to remember where and when the action was set. This jumbled organization, combined with a tendency to provide exhaustive background, were my only reservations about this protean memoir. Owusu has lived so many places, speaking in different languages and accents, that some context is obviously necessary. Owusu explains the Black Lives Matter movement, colorism in the African American community, post-colonial theory, anti-LGBTQ laws in Uganda, the Armenian genocide, and Bush’s PEPFAR legislation, among other ideas. Obviously she has been so misunderstood in so many ways that perhaps she errs in providing too much background rather than presuming on her readers’ knowledge.
Having lived through two literal tremors and countless figurative quakes, Owusu writes, “An earthquake is trauma and vulnerability: the earth’s, mine, yours. An earthquake is the ground breaking and the heart breaking.” Yet she bravely owns her history and writes, “A story is a flashlight and a weapon.” Reading this memoir is an insightful and inspiriting tour through the seismic moments of the last several decades.
This is really two books, a fascinating reflection of an international childhood and the brutal “aftershocks” of the cumulative emotional and geographic upheavals that result. Her narrative intersperses memories of youth with those of a harrowing psychic break, darkly foreshadowing cause and effect. She demurs, “I can only talk about the wars in Ethiopia and Uganda from a remove, from a protected place.” Yet she is not protected enough to prevent the world from marking her. At one point, a violent local militia invades her house looking for children to kidnap as soldiers, and a boy she’s played with unthinkingly hides in plain sight on their couch; her family’s wealth and status shield him from being revealed as a potential recruit. But danger does not lurk only in Uganda, Ghana, and Ethiopia. Threats at a playground in Rome and even her boarding school also imperil her physical and emotional well-being.
The combination of a heart-breakingly fractured family and frequent moves between cultures and languages constitute the book’s earthquakes, in response to which Owusu develops what she calls her “seismometer,” which emotionally calibrates “foreshock, mainshock, and aftershock.” As a result of these quakes and faultlines, she explains, “The story is reshuffled. In the sequence, we only know what goes where in retrospect.”
While I understand the reason for the narrative fragmenting, I found this toggling between locations and time periods disorienting and had to reread chapter titles to remember where and when the action was set. This jumbled organization, combined with a tendency to provide exhaustive background, were my only reservations about this protean memoir. Owusu has lived so many places, speaking in different languages and accents, that some context is obviously necessary. Owusu explains the Black Lives Matter movement, colorism in the African American community, post-colonial theory, anti-LGBTQ laws in Uganda, the Armenian genocide, and Bush’s PEPFAR legislation, among other ideas. Obviously she has been so misunderstood in so many ways that perhaps she errs in providing too much background rather than presuming on her readers’ knowledge.
Having lived through two literal tremors and countless figurative quakes, Owusu writes, “An earthquake is trauma and vulnerability: the earth’s, mine, yours. An earthquake is the ground breaking and the heart breaking.” Yet she bravely owns her history and writes, “A story is a flashlight and a weapon.” Reading this memoir is an insightful and inspiriting tour through the seismic moments of the last several decades.
(I do not do star ratings anymore, as I don't think they are a fair assessment to literature.)
One of my favorite books read this year. An interesting life paired with beautiful prose and deep reflection. An inspiration to me, who dreams of writing as well as Nadia.
One of my favorite books read this year. An interesting life paired with beautiful prose and deep reflection. An inspiration to me, who dreams of writing as well as Nadia.
This was a lively wee... Memoir-ish thingy. Owusu is one of those pretty international folk - grew up in multiple cities at the intersection of a few identities. So she spent time in Addis Ababa, London, New York, Accra, Rome (etc). The biracial kid of a black Ghanain and a white Armenian, with a pretty dizzying range of influences, languages around.
So on the one hand she's reflecting on a state of privilege - UN worker's daughter who gets to live in the nice parts of town. On the other there's a lot of reflection on mixed identity - too light skinned for Ghana, doesn't speak Twi with her family, a bit posh for black London, a bit black for Rome. I say memoir ish because it's as much an ode to her dad as it is her own life story. And also it doesn't move in chronological order, which makes sense.
I love me a good autobiography type thing and this was a lush read. It's a nice amd clear thing and one of the more careful and empathetic recognitions of the various intersections of relstive financial or cultural privilege against gender, race, colourism etc. Recommend.
So on the one hand she's reflecting on a state of privilege - UN worker's daughter who gets to live in the nice parts of town. On the other there's a lot of reflection on mixed identity - too light skinned for Ghana, doesn't speak Twi with her family, a bit posh for black London, a bit black for Rome. I say memoir ish because it's as much an ode to her dad as it is her own life story. And also it doesn't move in chronological order, which makes sense.
I love me a good autobiography type thing and this was a lush read. It's a nice amd clear thing and one of the more careful and empathetic recognitions of the various intersections of relstive financial or cultural privilege against gender, race, colourism etc. Recommend.