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jcontd's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
(Review just for My Parents, i.e., not the second book, which I didn't finish)
zainub_reads's review against another edition
4.0
A five star read for My Parents just loved it and wanted more but I did not really enjoy the second book This Does Not Belong to You
Definitely look
Forward to reading more from the author.
Definitely look
Forward to reading more from the author.
tonitrap's review against another edition
4.0
Hemon has penned a beautiful and bittersweet ode to his parents, rife with humour and honest reflection. This story of his parents lives and how they were upended by the war in Bosnia resonated with me for a number of reasons. Namely, living in Bosnia and seeing so many friends and loved ones whose lives have been marked by the war that broke up the former Yugoslavia. Honestly, there isn't a single person in my life in Bosnia that doesn't have a story of the war impacting the axis of their life in inalterable ways. As Hemon writes:
It struck me, and broke my heart, how obvious and brutally simple the evil of war is: war takes away lives and never gives them back. It transforms people, unless they're killers, into something they never want to be. it diminishes them, even when it doesn't kill them.
Hemon's parents were forced to leave their home and move to Canada with nothing to begin a new life at a time when they assumed they would be retiring and enjoying their days in Sarajevo and weekends in the mountains around the city. Hemon focuses each chapter on a specific idea - music, food, marriage, etc. - tying them all back to identity and how his parents tried to hang on to theirs while forging ahead in the unknown. As child of an immigrant who has gone on to emigrate to another country myself, I couldn't help but laugh at times (and feel on the verge of tears in others) at Hemon's descriptions of the way is his parents clung to "old ways" in Canada, no matter how crazy and laborious it all seemed to their children.
And, never do you not feel Hemon's love and reverence for the people that brought him into and up in the world.
It's all so lovely, really.
It struck me, and broke my heart, how obvious and brutally simple the evil of war is: war takes away lives and never gives them back. It transforms people, unless they're killers, into something they never want to be. it diminishes them, even when it doesn't kill them.
Hemon's parents were forced to leave their home and move to Canada with nothing to begin a new life at a time when they assumed they would be retiring and enjoying their days in Sarajevo and weekends in the mountains around the city. Hemon focuses each chapter on a specific idea - music, food, marriage, etc. - tying them all back to identity and how his parents tried to hang on to theirs while forging ahead in the unknown. As child of an immigrant who has gone on to emigrate to another country myself, I couldn't help but laugh at times (and feel on the verge of tears in others) at Hemon's descriptions of the way is his parents clung to "old ways" in Canada, no matter how crazy and laborious it all seemed to their children.
And, never do you not feel Hemon's love and reverence for the people that brought him into and up in the world.
It's all so lovely, really.
apbryant32's review
4.0
I LOVED the first book in this two-fer, "My Parents." Hemon has such a skill in all his work for relating what seem to be day-to-day, mundane routines to the horror of war, and that skill is applied to a heartfelt portrayal of his parents. It also gives a decent amount of history to the Bosnian war, which lets me further appreciate his other work.
The second part, "This Does Not Belong to You," is not quite my cup of tea. I have a hard time seeing the connection or themes behind its short memories (no section of this book is longer than three pages). I think Hemon works best in longform, free to let his mind wander where it will. Perhaps I'll revisit this in the future and "get it," but for now it left me a bit dry.
The second part, "This Does Not Belong to You," is not quite my cup of tea. I have a hard time seeing the connection or themes behind its short memories (no section of this book is longer than three pages). I think Hemon works best in longform, free to let his mind wander where it will. Perhaps I'll revisit this in the future and "get it," but for now it left me a bit dry.
hsutherland2's review
As much as I loved My Parents: An Introduction, I couldn't get into This Does Not Belong to You.
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