Reviews

House of Kwa by Mimi Kwa

hbreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

5.0

laura_reads_'s review against another edition

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informative reflective fast-paced

3.5

ashiploadofbooks's review

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5.0

I read the entire book without reading the book description or knowing who the author was (I had it on kindle and just kept reading) - it wasn’t until I read the authors note that I realised it was a memoir… wow. What an amazing life and an absolutely astonishing book.

bec104's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.5

rnmcfarlane's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad medium-paced

4.0

rhodaj's review

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4.0

4.5 stars

Thank you to HarperCollins Australia for sending me a copy of this book to review!

This is a memoir by Australian journalist Mimi Kwa and tells the extraordinary story of her family. Her father was one of 32 children of a wealthy silk merchant in China who fled to Hong Kong during WWII. Years later he was sent to study in Perth by his wealthy sister Theresa.

There he met the author’s mother who had an undiagnosed and quite severe mental illness which resulted in a rather tumultuous and unstable childhood. As the author’s father was also very eccentric and difficult, her anchors in life were her beloved maternal grandparents and Aunty Theresa who she visited at least once every year of her life in Hong Kong.

This was a pretty incredible book to read and to be honest, I’m amazed by the author’s life, what she has been through and her ability to forgive. I’m not sure I would have such forgiveness in me!

This is definitely a fascinating book for anyone who likes multi-cultural stories and memoirs. There is never a boring moment in this book and I sincerely hope that the rest of the author’s life is a little less dramatic and harrowing than it has been thus far. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

hecatereads_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective fast-paced

4.0

kj2355's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

paulineisreading's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

3.5

archytas's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

A deeply engaging memoir outlining the extraordinary childhood of Mimi Kwa, and the Century of family saga that led up to it. Starting in pre-Opium War China, Kwa traces a dynasty to Perth. By early adolescence, Kwa shuttled between the high life of Hong Kong's elite and long days of work at her father's Perth backpackers spiced with alcohol-fuelled parties and managing her mother's delusion-induced self-harm. Kwa steadily highlights the family grandeur that underpins her father's ambitions and the history of sharp changes in fortune which help him survive his own bust years. The world of polygamous dynasties, opium and silk in the early book give way to migration, textile start-ups and the brutal occupation, hunger and deception, collaboration and survival.  And yet, through it all Kwa draws the thread of what it is to be "Kwa", to be part of this intense, loving, crazy ambitious and sometimes just crazy, family.
The book is in part a love letter to Mimi's extraordinary Aunt Theresa, and the scenes in China and especially Hong Kong are by far the most engaging. The occupation of Hong Kong is vividly and heartbreakingly evoked - and a reminder of how fast things can change in the most stable of societies.