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jazzsonnet's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Cursing, Sexual content, Addiction, Death, Body shaming, Terminal illness, Racism, and Grief
strange's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Racism, Classism, Colonisation, Medical trauma, and Animal death
Moderate: Infertility, Addiction, Racial slurs, Fatphobia, Death, and Chronic illness
Minor: Infidelity, Bullying, Homophobia, Genocide, and Police brutality
hollyd19's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This memoir is a masterpiece.
Quiara Algería Hudes uses every inch of this book to embrace her wholeness in a world hostile to her nuances. When discussing this read with my book club, someone described Hudes as a stained glass window and I cannot imagine a more apt comparison.
Recounting her childhood, Hudes invites the readers alongside her journey to find language to encapsulate the many dimensions of her identity: Puerto Rican, daughter, Jewish, white-passing, English-Spanglish-Spanish speaking, cousin, North Philly resident, pianist, big sister, activist, Quaker, academic… Her deeply bonded maternal family grounds her and empowers her search for her truth. Her mother, a practitioner of Santería, fosters Quiara’s curiosity, self-confidence, and ambition. Her tias and cousins expand her world and provide ballast when seas are rocky. Her neighborhood offers community, connection, and courage.
Hudes is a gifted storyteller and I was struck by the richness of her language, especially in a book ostensibly dedicated to its “brokenness.” She seamlessly intertwines cultures, dialects, and slang across seemingly disparate groups — a skill honed as she grew into a Pulitzer-winning composer and playwright. I alternated the physical book with the audiobook which added verisimilitude to the reading experience (Hudes narrates herself). Additionally, Hudes commits to telling her story honestly but not tragically. She doesn’t dwell on the hardest parts of her life. Instead, she acknowledges them plainly but spends much more energy celebrating the Perez women in all their diverse, indefatigable glory.
I turned the last page with enlivened understanding and fresh hope. I so deeply recommend this read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Grief
Moderate: Body shaming, Addiction, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Racism, and Infidelity
Minor: Pregnancy, Medical trauma, and Child death
tilo's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
I was invited to a small group discussion about this book as part of the 20th anniversary of "One Book, One Philadelphia".
[I was gifted the book but also bought the audiobook read by the author. The last 200 pages I listened to the audio version while reading simulteanously (allowing a faster read due to double speed as I was behind on pages to finish on time for the discussion). That was a fun experience and the audiobook is great.]
Being one of the few memoirs that I have read, this one made me curious about the genre. However, I do feel that a downside of this genre seems to be all the loose ends that were left by creating so many backstories to so many characters.
Nonetheless, this memoir is a refreshing insight on what issues Latinas face but focusing more on problems often overseen by white feminism such as poverty and lack of education. Interestingly enough, this book does not focus on issues caused directly by men but rather other challenges of a Latinx upbringing such as language, spirituality, and above all the question of whether one is being - in this case - "enough" Puerto Rican.
The style is beautiful and the discussion on language is fascinating. Some of the challenges of becoming an artist/writer described in this memoir comforted me in a way I was not expecting.
Again, the only but slight downside was the hinting to so many interesting sidestories that the format did not allow to be explored and the - to quote one of the members of my discussion group - "what feels like the need to include an American dream success story" which the story did not thrive upon considering all the other positive reflections on language, body, education, spirituality, and identity.
[I was gifted the book but also bought the audiobook read by the author. The last 200 pages I listened to the audio version while reading simulteanously (allowing a faster read due to double speed as I was behind on pages to finish on time for the discussion). That was a fun experience and the audiobook is great.]
Being one of the few memoirs that I have read, this one made me curious about the genre. However, I do feel that a downside of this genre seems to be all the loose ends that were left by creating so many backstories to so many characters.
Nonetheless, this memoir is a refreshing insight on what issues Latinas face but focusing more on problems often overseen by white feminism such as poverty and lack of education. Interestingly enough, this book does not focus on issues caused directly by men but rather other challenges of a Latinx upbringing such as language, spirituality, and above all the question of whether one is being - in this case - "enough" Puerto Rican.
The style is beautiful and the discussion on language is fascinating. Some of the challenges of becoming an artist/writer described in this memoir comforted me in a way I was not expecting.
Again, the only but slight downside was the hinting to so many interesting sidestories that the format did not allow to be explored and the - to quote one of the members of my discussion group - "what feels like the need to include an American dream success story" which the story did not thrive upon considering all the other positive reflections on language, body, education, spirituality, and identity.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Terminal illness, Child death, Death, Racism, and Death of parent
Minor: Abandonment, Body shaming, Mental illness, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Grief, Homophobia, Police brutality, Blood, Colonisation, Misogyny, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, and Pregnancy
martachbc's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, but I absolutely loved it. Hudes has such a way with words (if you didn’t know from her book work for In the Heights and Vivo). She expressed a uniquely American experience, but also one that’s unique to her and her Puerto Rican family, while finding that commonality of the human experience we can all connect. I’m not sure how much more talented this woman could be! My only complaint is I prefer a more linear narrative (it’s a mixture). Come for the beautiful storytelling, stay for the learning experience.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, and Racism
Moderate: Grief
caseythereader's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, Gun violence, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, and Terminal illness
hannahdotmay's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
A memoir to rival most, My broken language is Quiara Alegría Hudes chance to tell us of girlhood in Philadelphia, an adolescent at yale and a coming of age at Brown. She, like us all, has had many iterations, a daughter of immigrants, raised in a matriarchal community built on Puerto Rican spirituality and socialist values, a writer, a composer, a playwright. She has lived many lives and laid bare both her mistakes and accolades. Language is at the heart, expressions of Spanish and Spanglish fall in equal measure. She talks of an upbringing surrounded by a community language, one that united her family but separated her as she climbed the echelons of social mobility, joining her middle-class counterparts studying Bach and Mozart, in the hallowed halls of Yale. Background commentary on the AIDS epidemic, how it ravaged her specific community, how they lacked the words or desire to express the grief from a hideous disease, her phrasing is so poignant, she talks of hushed voices and gaunt cheeks, watching loved ones waste away and wondering in her childhood naivety, what she could have done differently. Poverty, neglect and gentrification are rife among her smart social commentary, houses that weren’t built to hold families, mothers who weren’t always equipped to raise sons. There is an absence of masculinity as Hudes attributes much of her selfhood to her mother, a community activist and spiritual leader, a woman among women who raised her and her cousins, and taught them lessons of self-love and respect. She talks of the legacy of a body, the curves that were passed down through generations, the love she had for families of thick thighs and luscious chests, she speaks only of skinny when it shows illness and hurt, ‘I didn’t learn about [it] until blood sickness rolled into town’ it compares to in the dream house, to how we fight for our lives, to hunger a memoir of my body. It is a memoir of self hood and belonging, a white America obsessed with assimilation and a thriving community who are competing to show them, western isn’t the only way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Addiction, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, and Grief
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