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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
The characters in this novel are nothing like me, which made it difficult for me as a reader to build a connection to the people we have been introduced to in their own story.
That does not take away from the craft exhibited here, and as a debut this work is fairly staggering. We get a complete and full picture of goals, dreams, and realities of characters from a specific and frequently idealized location and holding multiple marginalized identities, especially when the children leave for the mainland and experience novel challenges to their life on the island.
The story starts on a family trip, in which the middle child falls overboard a ship, and is seemingly rescued by sharks and returned to his mother unharmed. This sparks in this child an ability, which will affect the course of the lives of each family member moving forward. Chapters alternate perspective between the three children (two boys, one girl) and their mother over a decade exploring identity and how challenging addiction, grief, and physical needs can change the course of a life in a single moment or choice.
I didn't think that I had enjoyed this book, and I'm still not sure if I liked it exactly, but there is much to learn and appreciate from the experiences of the characters carefully and beautifully crafted in this novel.
That does not take away from the craft exhibited here, and as a debut this work is fairly staggering. We get a complete and full picture of goals, dreams, and realities of characters from a specific and frequently idealized location and holding multiple marginalized identities, especially when the children leave for the mainland and experience novel challenges to their life on the island.
The story starts on a family trip, in which the middle child falls overboard a ship, and is seemingly rescued by sharks and returned to his mother unharmed. This sparks in this child an ability, which will affect the course of the lives of each family member moving forward. Chapters alternate perspective between the three children (two boys, one girl) and their mother over a decade exploring identity and how challenging addiction, grief, and physical needs can change the course of a life in a single moment or choice.
I didn't think that I had enjoyed this book, and I'm still not sure if I liked it exactly, but there is much to learn and appreciate from the experiences of the characters carefully and beautifully crafted in this novel.
The characters, the setting, the language… I was mesmerized.
The writing for this was beautiful and felt magical (the audiobook especially does it justice). I really liked the beginning, but once I got halfway through, I just felt disconnected from the characters and the story so I was just passively listening to it.
2.5. This is one of those books that’s probably deep if you’re an intellectual but to me it just came off as depressing and had a lot of talk about farting.
Wow. I seriously just put this book down and picked my phone up to start writing this review. I still have goosebumps from head to toe from the ending.
This is a book about an indigenous family from Hawai’i. When their children were little, their oldest son, Nainoa fell into shark-infested waters only instead of being eaten, the shark tenderly carried the boy back to the boat to rescue him. From then on people came to Nainoa for his healing and regenerative powers. The rest of the book is how the family is affected by having a special son and sibling, with jealousy and guilt.
There is some magical realism to this book, but not a ton. I loved how in tune this family is with their island and heritage. Plus, this book serves as a huge metaphor for the harmful affects of colonialism on indigenous peoples. I’m seriously about to go down an internet wormhole to learn more about the history of Hawai’i.
While this book was beautiful, it was hard to read at times. When things are constantly bleak, it makes me want to speed on to a brighter section, which is definitely a reading weakness of mine. So even though this book is chock full of amazing writing and characters, it drug in the middle for me and I found myself wishing for resolution.
But folks. The last 10 minutes made up for any dragging in middle for me. WOW. There is a reason why this is on so many Best Of lists.
This is a book about an indigenous family from Hawai’i. When their children were little, their oldest son, Nainoa fell into shark-infested waters only instead of being eaten, the shark tenderly carried the boy back to the boat to rescue him. From then on people came to Nainoa for his healing and regenerative powers. The rest of the book is how the family is affected by having a special son and sibling, with jealousy and guilt.
There is some magical realism to this book, but not a ton. I loved how in tune this family is with their island and heritage. Plus, this book serves as a huge metaphor for the harmful affects of colonialism on indigenous peoples. I’m seriously about to go down an internet wormhole to learn more about the history of Hawai’i.
While this book was beautiful, it was hard to read at times. When things are constantly bleak, it makes me want to speed on to a brighter section, which is definitely a reading weakness of mine. So even though this book is chock full of amazing writing and characters, it drug in the middle for me and I found myself wishing for resolution.
But folks. The last 10 minutes made up for any dragging in middle for me. WOW. There is a reason why this is on so many Best Of lists.
Let this be the Goodreads equivalent of a standing ovation. This book is truly a triumph. Of prose, of thematic arcs, of character voices, of representing Hawaii. On that last point, I speak only as someone who grew up in Hawaii, not as a Hawaiian. But it is a glorious thing, to be able to read books like this, written from perspectives that are so specific and authentic.
It's a bit ironic, reading this immediately after The Swimmers, another book that resonated with me, but with a different piece of my identity. In this instance, I felt like someone else was speaking to me about what it means to be from Hawaii and to feel the pull of the land. What it means to move away to the mainland and still feel like part of you is tethered to the islands. It's a bit eerie, actually, to see your experiences reflected on the page. Eerie but incredibly affirming.
But mostly, this book is just gorgeous. Kawai incorporates Hawaiian pidgin unabashedly (no glosses, no glossary), which could be somewhat challenging for readers who are unfamiliar with those grammatical structures and phrases specific to the dialect. But I think, for all its specificities, that the story about the Flores family and the experiences of their three children also connect with emotions and relationships that are deeply universal.
It's a bit ironic, reading this immediately after The Swimmers, another book that resonated with me, but with a different piece of my identity. In this instance, I felt like someone else was speaking to me about what it means to be from Hawaii and to feel the pull of the land. What it means to move away to the mainland and still feel like part of you is tethered to the islands. It's a bit eerie, actually, to see your experiences reflected on the page. Eerie but incredibly affirming.
But mostly, this book is just gorgeous. Kawai incorporates Hawaiian pidgin unabashedly (no glosses, no glossary), which could be somewhat challenging for readers who are unfamiliar with those grammatical structures and phrases specific to the dialect. But I think, for all its specificities, that the story about the Flores family and the experiences of their three children also connect with emotions and relationships that are deeply universal.
Magical realism set in the non-tourist side of Hawaii. Good theme, nice writing, generally enjoyable
FINALLY. FINISHED. This book took me a looooong time to finish and I could blame it on busy (partly true) but I think it was more because I was not looking forward to reading it, which lasted about halfway through to the end. I was hooked very quickly at the start and then the momentum slowed to a crawl and near standstill. I liked the ending, but I wish it taken less time (or been more compelling) along the way.
A Hawaiian boy is saved from drowning by a group of sharks, and finds himself able to heal people. The book starts with him and his family struggling to adjust to this new dynamic in his childhood, then transitions to him and his two siblings each going to the mainland and branching out into their own lives. Then, almost exactly at the midway point of the book, tragedy strikes the family, and the second half of the book is pretty much all about the family members dealing with grief in one way or another. Of these parts, the second (mainland) portion is by far the most interesting, and feels at times like a backdoor superhero-origin story. It's a shame, then, when the book switches gears into grief-handling, which did not interest me all that much.