terrahome 's review for:

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

3.0

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I wish I liked this book more, but it just never quite cohered for me. I think the idea of mixing fiction and memoir is compelling, but in practice I think it muddies the message of the book more than it strengthens it. My favorite moments were the ones grounded the most in reality: the fights between mother and daughter, the harrowing scene of bullying in the final fourth, etc. Kingston really taps into something raw and personal, and the critiques leveled at patriarchal Chinese culture are powerful and delivered well. Still, my former complaints, combined with some second-wave feminist ideas throughout the novel that have aged kind of poorly, made this book a somewhat difficult read for me.