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laurajones's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Racism, Xenophobia, Torture, Violence, Death, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and War
Moderate: Ableism, Medical content, Classism, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Child death
Minor: Abandonment, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, and Child death
kgraham10's review against another edition
5.0
This is a beautiful and moving tribute to her father. She does an amazing job describing her family, their love for each other, and the immigrant experience.
The beginning is slow but stick with it.
The beginning is slow but stick with it.
kjboldon's review against another edition
5.0
A lovely and loving memoir, of a father and daughter's voices entwined to tell the story of a family whose experience, past and present, is a saga the world needs to know.
tintina's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
libkatem's review against another edition
4.0
Kao Kalia Yang is such a brilliant storyteller - that the story is her, her family's, is ...words fail me. Heartbreaking, frankly. Refugees and newly American citizens, her family story is a powerful one.
I highly, highly recommend this book as a followup to The Latehomecomer.
All are welcome here.
I highly, highly recommend this book as a followup to The Latehomecomer.
All are welcome here.
robyn_m's review against another edition
5.0
When I was six, I befriended classmates that were newly arrived in Minnesota, and originally from Laos. Over the years, I learned bits of their histories, but not much. I was often welcomed into their homes, though, and treated as family. So I was looking forward to reading local author Kao Kalia Yang's memoir of her father, The Song Poet, as our next book club selection.
While Yang's book is the story of her father's / family's experience, I imagine pieces are representative of that of many families. Themes include family, leaving home, repeated loss, feeling otherness, sacrifice. It is a story filled with sorrow, but also strength. It is a story that will stay with me.
(Yang's first book, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, won a Minnesota Book Award. I have not yet read it.)
- - -
Passage from Track 6, page 157:
The problem of education had entered our lives. [...] No one had told us that education could change the way you felt about the world and the people in it, that it could give you words to use, and actions to take, not in support of those who love you but as a response to them, that education in America would make our father and mother less educated in our eyes.
While Yang's book is the story of her father's / family's experience, I imagine pieces are representative of that of many families. Themes include family, leaving home, repeated loss, feeling otherness, sacrifice. It is a story filled with sorrow, but also strength. It is a story that will stay with me.
(Yang's first book, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, won a Minnesota Book Award. I have not yet read it.)
- - -
Passage from Track 6, page 157:
The problem of education had entered our lives. [...] No one had told us that education could change the way you felt about the world and the people in it, that it could give you words to use, and actions to take, not in support of those who love you but as a response to them, that education in America would make our father and mother less educated in our eyes.
hmkuether's review against another edition
5.0
as usual from this author, the most beautiful writing. great story from her father's perspective