A review by demisty
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston

4.0

Kingston melds legend, her past, her family's past, and her present in a very narrative (as in story) memoir. To say that this work challenges the genre is an obvious statement, but still an understatement, and less than a page into the chapter “White Tigers,” I found I did not care about the genre because it is so well written. What is impressive are Kingston's frankness and her courage to impart her social faux pas, such as bullying a fellow Chinese student for keeping silent.

I never questioned her veracity of the tales because they are told so well—showing the story and the telling of it is an imperative truth in memoir. So in spite of ghosts and spirits and warriors from long ago, Kingston's writing it down brings the truth of it out.