Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
4.5 stars. This is a beautiful love letter to the community that raised the author, and a faithful attempt to acknowledge the trauma that has shaped it. I desperately wish this book had existed before my trip to Hawai’i a few years ago. I wanted to go to Hawai’i with a respect for their culture and baseline understanding of how I should act as a visitor, but it was difficult to find stories from native Hawaiian voices and covered both history of the kingdom and modern history as a state.
To be clear: this is not a book to dig into if you just want to lounge around a high rise resort in Hawaii without feeling an ounce of guilt about it. But it is a really great starting point if you want to understand the complexities of Hawai’i’s history, the beliefs of the Hawaiian people, and how you can be a ‘better’ tourist if/when you do go.
The book is also just a really great portrait of strong matriarchs and how family shapes us, in good and bad ways. The cover art is as beautiful as the story, and I found this to be a highly underrated book that deserves more praise in the book world.
To be clear: this is not a book to dig into if you just want to lounge around a high rise resort in Hawaii without feeling an ounce of guilt about it. But it is a really great starting point if you want to understand the complexities of Hawai’i’s history, the beliefs of the Hawaiian people, and how you can be a ‘better’ tourist if/when you do go.
The book is also just a really great portrait of strong matriarchs and how family shapes us, in good and bad ways. The cover art is as beautiful as the story, and I found this to be a highly underrated book that deserves more praise in the book world.
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
As a Floridian who has too many people moving here to be close to the beaches, I get the natural fury of people not respecting nature, high rise hotels choking the shoreline, and the disappearance of local culture. This is at a larger scale and it was very informative to hear Hawaiian perspectives and history tied in with a line of women’s stories of motherhood and activism.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I wasn’t aware of the author’s background prior to picking this up. This book has previously been marketed as “own voices” (defined as the author sharing the same background as the main character) but this author is not Native Hawaiian. I know some people don’t care, but I do so I wanted to put this disclaimer first. While the author’s voice works perfectly for the mixed daughter who constantly feels like an outsider, a lot of the novel is told through the “collective voice of a native community” which now feels disingenuous knowing the author does not share this background.
That being said, I really enjoyed this book when it was focusing on the generations of women. I love seeing how dreams and mistakes and traumas pass up and down between generations in a family. I also thought the author did a good job tackling such an enormous amount of Hawaiian history and interweaving it with the family narrative. Sometimes the pace dragged, especially toward the middle.
That being said, I really enjoyed this book when it was focusing on the generations of women. I love seeing how dreams and mistakes and traumas pass up and down between generations in a family. I also thought the author did a good job tackling such an enormous amount of Hawaiian history and interweaving it with the family narrative. Sometimes the pace dragged, especially toward the middle.
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes