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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Disclaimer: This was assigned as reading for a class on Asian American Literature.
I liked the first 3 stories, but the last two were harder for me to understand. It's an interesting book, but not quite something I would have picked it up on my own.
I liked the first 3 stories, but the last two were harder for me to understand. It's an interesting book, but not quite something I would have picked it up on my own.
I feel bad saying it but this was a boring set of short stories and none of them really had me engaged. I really wanted to like it as I usually like books like this but it just did nothing for me.
want to keep reading, but library needed it back or was going to charge me (only read the first two stories)
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
The first 2 short stories were so compelling. The 3rd was moving but slowed down in pace. And the last 2 of the total 5 were exceptionally slow and didnt come full circle or pack as hard of a punch as the others. So, it sadly started strong but ended flat.
Many people have criticized this book for being confusing, being too much of a mix between memoir, legend, and fiction - but that's what makes this book wonderful. Hong Kingston takes Chinese legend and mixes it with her mother's stories and her own childhood memories, and what's real and isn't real is often unclear. The qualities of magical realism convey beautifully the sense of growing up on the border between two cultures: Hong Kingston describes her and her fellow American Born Chinese as "half-ghosts," not quite an American, but not quite Chinese either. To Hong Kingston, China is very real in her family and the different crazy beliefs her mother has, but it's also a mystery, a legend far away on the other side of the world that she can taste in her mother's talk-stories but cannot quite understand.
As a Chinese American myself, this memoir hit me in all the right places in my own search for identity, while also giving insight on growing up as a 2nd generation Chinese American in the 40s and 50s. Many have also criticized the book for trying too hard to be representative of the Chinese American experience, or for perpetuating negative stereotypes, but that's only the case if you read it that way. In the end, this is Hong Kingston's experience, the environment she grew up in, and her personal beliefs and paradigm, and if the reader keeps that in mind then this book is a wonderfully written, engaging look into Hong Kingston's life.
As a Chinese American myself, this memoir hit me in all the right places in my own search for identity, while also giving insight on growing up as a 2nd generation Chinese American in the 40s and 50s. Many have also criticized the book for trying too hard to be representative of the Chinese American experience, or for perpetuating negative stereotypes, but that's only the case if you read it that way. In the end, this is Hong Kingston's experience, the environment she grew up in, and her personal beliefs and paradigm, and if the reader keeps that in mind then this book is a wonderfully written, engaging look into Hong Kingston's life.
Reread this almost ten years after I first read it OMG that’s frightening.
The opening is still as vivid and disturbing as ever but the story of Moon Orchid is the one that I found most emotionally devastating this time round.
The opening is still as vivid and disturbing as ever but the story of Moon Orchid is the one that I found most emotionally devastating this time round.
i dont know how else to describe how thos book made me feel other than a deep and utter connection to the author, the authors lineage, my mom, my own lineage, and to the the past present future versions of myself
its not a sadness but it kinda resides like it if that makes sense
its not a sadness but it kinda resides like it if that makes sense
It's weird that I made it through howevermany years of formal education without being assigned (and subsequently neglecting) this book. It has a reputation as something people read in a sophomore English class. Also, weirdly, in my memories of school reading, I recall a long list of Japanese and Japanese-America narratives, but nothing Chinese or Chinese-American. I wonder if that's a peculiarity of the times and places of my schooling, or something larger about America.
Anyway, wonderful language, search for identity, etc.
Anyway, wonderful language, search for identity, etc.
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced