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A review by jasminenoack
I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita, Leland Wong, Sina Grace
4.0
i've been reading this book for a while. according to goodreads since december 11. up until the last novella I was planning on giving it 3 stars. I mean it's a great book and I enjoyed it,but it has it's issues as does everything. BUT the last novella is a really beautifully written who are we. Of the ten sections there are 3 really good sections: the first one, the one about ben and the last one. The other sections vary in their greatness, but none of the book is actually bad.
so the problems:
Parts of the book are historical events that would be much happier if they were better explained. I mean you can just call someone a paper aunt and then move on, and I mean I know what that is, but I think the book would benefit from having that explain especially for all the people that weren't in my american immigration class in college. A lot of the organizing and protest stuff probably could have benefited from better explanation, but since I don't know what I don't know I can't pinpoint exactly what I needed to follow the book better. The sections that I liked were the ones about people and relationships instead of the ones about weird organizing things in the city.
I read an author quoting an author once. I don't remember who I was reading but I think he was quoting ann patchett who said, paraphrased, when you do research for a novel read one book then write your novel. this book suffers from over research. it is so busy telling you every little thing that happened at moments it reads more like a history book than a novel. I think this style tends to lose a lot of the emotional weight of the events. If you think about tim obrien, he was able to convey the historical reality of vietnam war, because instead of writing about everything that happened he wrote about a few emotion laden events, and we leave that book feeling like he understand the horror that was vietnam. After some of the novellas in this book I left thinking, well god I guess that happened and I should remember these facts about it. Now I've forgotten all that. There is a reason I don't read history books.
I think this book would have benefited from being drawn into one story line instead of being separated like it was. Although I do understand the artistic decision to separate it.
I recommend the book though, it's a good read.
so the problems:
Parts of the book are historical events that would be much happier if they were better explained. I mean you can just call someone a paper aunt and then move on, and I mean I know what that is, but I think the book would benefit from having that explain especially for all the people that weren't in my american immigration class in college. A lot of the organizing and protest stuff probably could have benefited from better explanation, but since I don't know what I don't know I can't pinpoint exactly what I needed to follow the book better. The sections that I liked were the ones about people and relationships instead of the ones about weird organizing things in the city.
I read an author quoting an author once. I don't remember who I was reading but I think he was quoting ann patchett who said, paraphrased, when you do research for a novel read one book then write your novel. this book suffers from over research. it is so busy telling you every little thing that happened at moments it reads more like a history book than a novel. I think this style tends to lose a lot of the emotional weight of the events. If you think about tim obrien, he was able to convey the historical reality of vietnam war, because instead of writing about everything that happened he wrote about a few emotion laden events, and we leave that book feeling like he understand the horror that was vietnam. After some of the novellas in this book I left thinking, well god I guess that happened and I should remember these facts about it. Now I've forgotten all that. There is a reason I don't read history books.
I think this book would have benefited from being drawn into one story line instead of being separated like it was. Although I do understand the artistic decision to separate it.
I recommend the book though, it's a good read.