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A review by sfujii
America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan
2.0
Very glad to be done with this one. (you can tell it was a bit of a struggle because of how long it took me to read it)
The book started out strong - I found the history very interesting and informative, and the overall narrative well put together. The background of Filipinos to America is a narrative that isn't told nearly as often as some of the other minority narratives, and yet, it played just as significant a role in the development of our state, and nation.
As the book progressed, though, I found it lost focus, jumped all over and was really difficult to follow. I think that many of the anecdotes could have been eliminated to make for a more coherent and clearly focused story. It is a non fiction book, but one can still have a solid narrative or flow within that genre, and it was really lacking here. I found the last 1/2 of the book really frustrating - he alternates focus between giving long lists of books he reads and finds inspirational, talking about meeting up with people he met earlier in the story and drinking/planning labor union moves, and being frustrated with American life.
There are moments of amazing insight, but they were too few and far between. For historical interest, I give it a 3.5, for how it's all packaged and put together - a 2. So overall, a 2.5 stars, but brought down by my frustration with its flow/purpose/focus :(
The book started out strong - I found the history very interesting and informative, and the overall narrative well put together. The background of Filipinos to America is a narrative that isn't told nearly as often as some of the other minority narratives, and yet, it played just as significant a role in the development of our state, and nation.
As the book progressed, though, I found it lost focus, jumped all over and was really difficult to follow. I think that many of the anecdotes could have been eliminated to make for a more coherent and clearly focused story. It is a non fiction book, but one can still have a solid narrative or flow within that genre, and it was really lacking here. I found the last 1/2 of the book really frustrating - he alternates focus between giving long lists of books he reads and finds inspirational, talking about meeting up with people he met earlier in the story and drinking/planning labor union moves, and being frustrated with American life.
There are moments of amazing insight, but they were too few and far between. For historical interest, I give it a 3.5, for how it's all packaged and put together - a 2. So overall, a 2.5 stars, but brought down by my frustration with its flow/purpose/focus :(