Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - America Is Not the Heart

America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo ❤️‍🔥
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

❤️‍🔥 The plot: When Hero de Vera arrives in America, disowned by her parents and still recovering from two years imprisoned by police in the Philippines, she feels like she's already lived many lifetimes. Living in America with her Uncle Pol, his wife Paz, and their daughter Roni brings her a new family, a new job, new potential for love. Can she reconcile this new life with the home and the memories she's left behind?

I bought this after seeing @hannahdotmay rave about it and, like so much that Hannah brings into my life, it was beautiful.

It's rare that I read a book where the characters feel so real and loveable even when they're not "likeable". Paz is the queen of this: The novel opens with a section in second person about her upbringing, which at first I thought a bit strange as it then veers hard into third person for Hero's story. But this section sets the scene so perfectly for the rest of the book and allows you to understand the complexity of her character as she operates in the background of the main story, to see her softness even when she's being harsh to Hero or Roni.

As well as delivering complex characters, the writing here was beautiful. There were a million moments where I had to put the book down for a moment to appreciate what I'd just read.

Overall, I was amazed by how much love was packed into this book, its deep appreciation for the different ways in which love can be shown, and how painful it can be sometimes, to let yourself feel and to give to other people.

❤️‍🔥 Read it if you love stories about families that aren't just about parents and children, scenes focusing on food and meals as sites of connection, wlw stories, and romantic storylines within larger novels.

🚫 Check TWs before reading and avoid if you're looking for a more quote-unquote "heartwarming" read as this is definitely more on the bittersweet end of moving storytelling.

Content Warnings

rieviolet's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really do not think that I am the target audience for this book, and that is perfectly fine but it just means that it was a bit difficult for me personally to really get the story in all its nuances and complexities. I really do not know how to explain it, it felt a bit like always being a step behind and not really being able to catch up and that might be completely intentional on the author's part but it just made for a bit of an unbalanced reading experience.

For the most part I liked the writing style and there were some passages/reflections that really stood out to me, but other times I struggled a bit with it (for example, sometimes I found the sentences either too long-wided and confusing or a bit too flat).
Since the narration moves between different timelines, at certain points I got a bit lost and forgot what and how much we as readers already knew about a certain event. Also, I'm not sure that I appreciated the shifts in point of view, I guess that I just liked certain narrators more than others.

All in all, it was a bit of an up and down reading experience for me. I got on better with the beginning and the final sections, but I found harder to get through the middle part of the story and also struggled with the more explict parts because they are really not my cup of tea.
Also, I don't really think that I understood the very final scene of the novel, its meaning or what it stood for went right over my head.
I didn't like the book as much as I'd hoped but I'm sure it'll work better for other readers.

Content Warnings

forsan's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This book focuses on three generations of Filipino immigrants in the Bay Area. The book opens (extremely compellingly) by focusing on Paz and her immigration , and then we turn to focus on her niece and daughter, both named Geronima (but with different nicknames, Hero and Roni). Hero, ultimately the main character, had joined the New People's Army in the Philippines in the 1970s and, after two years of imprisonment and torture, joined her aunt and their family in the US in the early 90s. The book follows the family and traces their joys and sorrows after Hero's arrival.

I really like this and think that it was really well done. I've read a lot of reviews complaining that the initial second-person prologue with Paz's story is more narratively compelling than the later sections; while I'd agree that that's true, the rest is stilly really well done. There are a lot of flashbacks to Hero's earlier years that were definitely confusing at first, though I think they started to make more sense later. Another thing that I really liked about this book was the use of language. Tagalog (and, occasionally, Pangasinense and Ilocano) is used pretty often throughout this book in recounting dialogue, and probably about half of it is translated--not being able to understand it was definitely a surprising reading experience, but I think it worked really well. I'd definitely recommend this one!

Content Warnings

knkoch's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was so good! I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, especially the characters and the changing structure. It was a little hard to get into at first (the first chapter/prologue is in second person), but once I got to the main narrative I was hooked. The setting is so strongly realized, and the characters are so distinct and well drawn that it's very easy to move from recollections of the past to the present. This was a window for me into a culture and language I knew very little about before this, and truly expanded my perspective. I wish I could sound less vague! But the joy in this novel is in discovering the characters, their developing relationships, and all the personal history that contributes to who they are and what they want to be (or not be).

Very interesting book and one of the better ones I read this year! It stands above many.

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