Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by laurenbachman7
Hawaii by James A. Michener
2.0
After 1036 pages and 23 hours of reading (thank goodness for the speed-up feature on audiobooks, ain't no way I was dedicating 52 hours to this), I am honored to finally hit that little "finished" button. This was a CHORE.
I picked this up thanks to my step-grandfather, who claims this was a fantastic read from his younger days (I will have to follow up on the validity of this). Personally I found it quite difficult to get through. The book itself is massive in length, exacerbated by the fact that there are only six (SIX!!!) chapters.
The premise is kinda neat and I was intrigued to read about the history of Hawaii through a historical fiction lens. Unfortunately, I just didn't care about it that much. I was bored and just wanted to get through the book. It was highly confusing trying to keep track of all of the generations of characters, especially because they all have the same names. Big thanks to Michener for putting genealogical charts in the back of the book, because I referenced them about a hundred times and still couldn't figure out who he was talking about. Some characters definitely stood out (Jerusha Hale, Nyuk Tsin, Malama), but the majority just jumbled together for me.
Probably the most difficult part of the book for me is the "outdated" language. There were a lot of slurs tossed around and a lot of misogynistic views. I don't know (or care) if this was "accurate" to the time, but the author could have used some creativity as a novelist to frame it better.
In all, I don't regret reading this but I cannot recommend it to the average reader. This is a very niche book for a particular type of interest.
I picked this up thanks to my step-grandfather, who claims this was a fantastic read from his younger days (I will have to follow up on the validity of this). Personally I found it quite difficult to get through. The book itself is massive in length, exacerbated by the fact that there are only six (SIX!!!) chapters.
The premise is kinda neat and I was intrigued to read about the history of Hawaii through a historical fiction lens. Unfortunately, I just didn't care about it that much. I was bored and just wanted to get through the book. It was highly confusing trying to keep track of all of the generations of characters, especially because they all have the same names. Big thanks to Michener for putting genealogical charts in the back of the book, because I referenced them about a hundred times and still couldn't figure out who he was talking about. Some characters definitely stood out (Jerusha Hale, Nyuk Tsin, Malama), but the majority just jumbled together for me.
Probably the most difficult part of the book for me is the "outdated" language. There were a lot of slurs tossed around and a lot of misogynistic views. I don't know (or care) if this was "accurate" to the time, but the author could have used some creativity as a novelist to frame it better.
In all, I don't regret reading this but I cannot recommend it to the average reader. This is a very niche book for a particular type of interest.