'The harshest ,most merciless indictment of Nazism ever written" Indeed, I have never read a book more pungent with the cruel reality of the Nazi syst'The harshest ,most merciless indictment of Nazism ever written" Indeed, I have never read a book more pungent with the cruel reality of the Nazi system than this living hell contained in these pages. I was only able to read 15 pages at a time as the sheer horror of the words, the cruelty, the barbarity and the ethnographic description of the reality consumed me . Be forewarned-an important eyewitness account but devastating to inhale. ...more
Stop. Do not pass Go and collect $200 unless you are willing to be confronted with the most raw, painful and devastating account of a young woman's faStop. Do not pass Go and collect $200 unless you are willing to be confronted with the most raw, painful and devastating account of a young woman's fall into mental illness. Superb writing but there is not a page where there is a respite from her struggles. It however is the most honest open account demanding to be read if you have the stomach for it. Hard to say that I 'loved it' given the material but I indeed found much to admire in her courage and honesty....more
Having just come back from the Kalahari, although in South Africa, not Botswana, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this novel. Disappointment did NOTHaving just come back from the Kalahari, although in South Africa, not Botswana, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this novel. Disappointment did NOT rear its ugly head. A remarkable and fascinating story of a couple who on a shoestring budget tried to conduct research on the lions and brown hyenas in the area. The writing pulses with their excitement and energy as we travel along with them, immersed in the animals' behaviors which was always captivating. Under the harshest conditions and beset by fires, hot sun and likewise cold temperatures they produced a significant amount of research that has contributed to their field. The story felt like a telescope was aimed at their day to day lives, from the daily grind to grooming themselves, to tracking animals, and digging themselves (sometimes literally) out of fraught situations. Never has a research field come so alive and engaging....more
A masterful rendition of the author’s life and his ruminations about decolonization, refugee vs immigrant, racism, war, genocide, and the voice of theA masterful rendition of the author’s life and his ruminations about decolonization, refugee vs immigrant, racism, war, genocide, and the voice of the other whose power is diminished by the Great White Man. Told in almost a stream of consciousness, we follow his life from his escape from Vietnam at age 4, his settlement in San Jose, California, where his parents owned a grocery store , his college adventures, his education and eventual job as an academic professor, to marriage with children and the love he felt for his parents, particularly his mother. This is a difficult book to review as it flowed from topic to topic including reflections on books, movies, and authors. Told with a biting wit and a sense of humor, this is a book to savor and mull over from a brilliant reflective mind. ...more
Who is Jewish? What is a Jew? What does it mean to wonder what it means to be Jewish? Is a Jew defined by skeletal pictures of individuals in work andWho is Jewish? What is a Jew? What does it mean to wonder what it means to be Jewish? Is a Jew defined by skeletal pictures of individuals in work and death camps? Or is it Moses dolls that you can buy on the streets of Warsaw, depicting him holding a penny, insinuating Jews are money grubbers. Why should you run out and get this book when it is published in May? Simple answer..it is authoritative, compelling, commanding, suspenseful and ultimately heartbreaking. It is rare that I have to put a book aside because it upsets me too much but this was a case in point. Be forewarned that there is alot of disturbing material contained with in its 500 pages, but the words leap off the page begging to be devoured. It is too important a book NOT to be read. Anne Berest's mother, Lelia receives a postcard in 2003 with a picture of the Opera Garnier in Paris on one side, while the other side contained the written names of her mother's grandparents, Ephraim and Emma, and their children, Noemie and Jacques who perished in Auschwitz.. Despite her wonder she filed it away, while the author's identity and objective continued to plague her. Some almost 16 years later, the author Anne and her mom attempt to find out the identity of the sender. This leads to an incredible scouting expedition involving graphologists, private detectives, and good old fashioned elbow grease.The book is divided into two main parts, each of which could have almost been a book on its on. The first part tracing the family's flight from Russia, and their journey to Latvia, Palestine and Paris shattered by increasing anti-semitism and its encroachment into their lives. The wording is so personal that the reader feels she knows the family well, making the horrors only too real. Being called a "dirty Jew" much of my own upbringing, it triggered much sadness. Reflecting the rising of hate in the world today, reading this book became a necessity rather than choice. The second half deals with more Ephraim's daughter, Myriam, her unusual marriage, a threesome, her work in the Resistance, and the birth of Leilia. The question of antisemitism rears its ugly face in a variety of situations including Anne's own world when her daughter shares a fellow child stating that he" didn't like Jewish." There is so much substance in the book that I will only gloss over it here. One of the questions..How does and did the Holocaust and France's role play a part in the French mentality today? Immigration for safety reasons was constantly on the players' minds, as I surmise it may be today as well. And yes, you will find out who sent the postcard as the book is neatly wrapped up in the end. But it is the sandwich filling that makes this novel so deserving of all the awards it has won. Run. Don't walk . Grab your copy and be consumed for hours. It's just that stellar,upsetting but stellar.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review. ...more
After reading Chung's previous book, All You can ever Know ,I eagerly looked forward to her newest memoir. Chung is an adopted Korean daughter of whitAfter reading Chung's previous book, All You can ever Know ,I eagerly looked forward to her newest memoir. Chung is an adopted Korean daughter of white parents who grew up in Oregon and couldn't wait to leave the racist environment in which she was raised. Not by her parents but by the community, something her parents were not aware of. Trying to make sense of her parents’ lives and her role within the family constellations, she examines their life of living paycheck to paycheck and often without health insurance. She escapes to the East Coast for college but then has many conflicted feelings about abandoning them out West. As her father develops more and more complicated health issues she feels sandwiched between her own burgeoning family and the one who raised her. Money being tight she was not able to help them out much financially and visiting them was perhaps once a year. When her father dies of kidney disease and diabetes, she is struck with a grief so profound that it consumes the reader. She's angry at the health system that has not allowed him to get health benefits that he so dearly needed. Shortly thereafter her mother dies from cancer that has spread throughout her system. Unfortunately, this occurs in the time of COVID when tight restrictions do not allow interactions with the dying individual and funerals become a long-distance affair. Chung's grief is so robust, devastating, and depleting that I had to stop several times because I felt it seeping into my pores. For those who have been in similar situations this book might be a trigger, but it also could be a wonderful release to identify with someone who has experienced this same tragedy.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in return for an honest review....more
I think I am a little late to the game in discovering this autobiography but what a "heavy" find..It is heavy in ways that could flatten a soul, but sI think I am a little late to the game in discovering this autobiography but what a "heavy" find..It is heavy in ways that could flatten a soul, but so immersive for the reader. There was a nugget or kernel I found meaningful on most of the pages. Heavy is intense, devastating and a profoundly personal exploration of what it means to be a black man in America, and cope with the legacy of slavery where the black man has to fear that he will be doubted, demeaned and even demonized because of his color. Kiese wrote in an unusual style-addressed to his mother in the form of you. He shared a loving but complicated relationship with this well educated woman-a single parent who was trying to advance her life through continued studies. She made him write letters and essays all the time, hoping that an educated man would make him safer in this world. However, she would also beat him with belts, fists and shoes because she wanted the best for him, which was being faultless. His life was filled with humiliation as he ate his feelings-- weighing around 230 pounds at the end of middle school. It was filled with instability, getting kicked out of several schools. When he finally seemed to be on track, he became anorexic filling myself with horror at the extremes he went to control his world and identity...He did eventually go on to become a professor, but his addictions got the better of him, the food inhaled and another vice, gambling, came onto the scene and threatened his financial security and his love life. This book is a stunning while stinging book..frightfully honest and filled with dichotomies from tenderness to animosity and adoration to deception. An unsettling book that demands to be read. Just be prepared....more
What an emotional riveting account of Keri's struggles from childhood to her prison years and after! Her words are emblazoned with a fiery fierceness What an emotional riveting account of Keri's struggles from childhood to her prison years and after! Her words are emblazoned with a fiery fierceness and an uncompromising candor that led to a powerful and immersive memoir. Starting out she looked like a model suburban upper middle class child from Eastern Pa. But in retrospect the warning signs flashed early on. Bullying at school, toying with cutting herself, forays into anorexia and bulimia as her perfectionist self competed at all consuming skating activities. When her male skating partner dumped her in search of a better partner, depression set the stage for further escalation with huffing glue, alcohol abuse, drugs, and suicide attempts. Although she was admitted to Cornell, getting A's on her report card, her clandestine life became a cloud of using heroin and crack, selling drugs, and sex encounters to support her habit. However, one day, she was busted with a Tupperware replete with 6 oz of heroin. First, she was put into jail and then into the prison system for nearly 2 years. In unflinching terms she describes the barbarous living situations and horrific (and I mean that with all its intensity) abuses that occur to women that are incarcerated . I was so aghast by many of her examples, furiously underlining passages that seemed too unreal to be true. While in prison, she reflects on how her privilege has made it easier for her than women who are poor and persons of color. When she is released she becomes employed by the Marshall project as a journalist committed to exposing the flaws of the system and beaming a light on it as only an insider can. Throughout the book she is reflective, pondering the meaning of "doing time", and of her own ordeal. Her reflections are compelling, elevating this call for criminal justice modification into an extraordinary feat. This urgent memoir will educate you in ways that will open your eyes and open your heart. Not for the faint of heart but for those willing to step inside the pain of someone else's shoes. ...more
A heartbreaking, meaningful and inspirational true story of the author's experience as a young 9 year old boy who sought to leave El Salvador to join A heartbreaking, meaningful and inspirational true story of the author's experience as a young 9 year old boy who sought to leave El Salvador to join his family in San Rafael, California. He barely knew his father who had left during the Salvadoran Civil war and his mother decamped a few years later. Finally his parents saved enough money for a coyote to help him cross the border. Reported from a 9 year old's perspective, the horror of the voyage becomes so vivid. Issues that were relevant to a young child's mind, ie. undressing in front of strangers, total embarrassment having to urinate with others around, and working hard not to cry and be strong were so ardent and unfeigned.The entire book showcased many such examples leading to such an affecting and earnest portrayal of his nightmare. The trip to the US was supposed to take only two weeks but 9 weeks later and three attempted border crossing, freedom came to roost. During his journey he found 3 incredibly selfless individuals, a mother and her daughter and another young man who became his second family and helped him navigate and survive the ordeal. From the sun's burning rays, painful cactus spikes, lack of water, sleazy individuals, sleeping on cement floors with no access to cleanliness and being disillusioned by untrustworthy souls, Javier and his adopted "family" bond in a way that is so touching and poignant.The journeys were horrific but highlighting the need for human closeness and relationships makes this story one that will reverberate in your heart for a long time.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review. ...more
The time to hear the survivors of Shoah is fast dwindling. Soon, there will be no new stories to record. So, a big shout out to Frank, who met the 99 The time to hear the survivors of Shoah is fast dwindling. Soon, there will be no new stories to record. So, a big shout out to Frank, who met the 99 year old Holocaust survivor from Rhodes,Stella Levi, and produced an all too familiar glimpse of the horrors and displacement in her life. Stella grew up on the island of Rhodes in a district where Judea-Spanish speaking Sephardic Italian Jews lived. When Frank met Stella in 2015, over 100 Saturdays and 6 years, he spells out her life history to the best of her recollections. The cultural and historical information about Rhodes was fascinating and I loved learning about old customs and the closeness of community and family. However, in 1944 the Jews of Rhodes were rounded up by the Germans and in 3.5 weeks they arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Having read a great deal of prisoners' experiences at the camps, I did not find that her experience added to the breadth of what I was familiar with. From there Frank goes on to describe her passage to Landsberg, the Camp with No Name, Allah, Bolzano, Modena ,Bologna, Florence and finally the United States. I had really wanted to like this book but the writing felt somewhat staid and stale. Rather than an engaging story it felt like a straight chronicle from reporter to subject. Tons of names were mentioned that became quite confusing as one continued in the book. All told though, it was an enlightening picture of a stubborn, gutsy and independent lady whose story needs to be shared.
Thank you to the publisher, Edelweiss and Net Galley for an ARC in return for an honest review....more
Heartbreaking. Raucous. Dark humor. A confessional for those men who are struggling to make sense of their lives. I love memoirs but despite rave reviHeartbreaking. Raucous. Dark humor. A confessional for those men who are struggling to make sense of their lives. I love memoirs but despite rave reviews this was not for me. I didn't find humor at all in his situations described in these essays. His revelations drew pity from me for all the pain that he went through and the myriad ways he chose booze, drugs, and porn to block out the thoughts and words that his 8 year old inner child wanted to express. It reminded me of an old Irish saying, "First the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man." There was his love..outside of himself. From his early poor body image to his teenage years drag racing and performing wild stunts, to his love affair with bars, I felt trapped with him in a world I was desperate to escape....more
The definition of courage: "the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery." Never The definition of courage: "the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery." Never has this meaning been more apt when viewing the difficulties that our young narrator faced as he made his heroic journey from Ghana to Algeria to Libya and finally to Spain.This 12 year old had a dream of going to the "white man's land" where he thought Paradise could be located. The resilience of this young man is unlike any other story that I have read. He spent 5 years trying to attain his dream through a long stint in the Sahara where few survived when abandoned by smugglers, attempted rape, beatings and robberies. Indeed, reading the horrific events he went through, I could not even conjure anyone surviving this ordeal. When he finally arrived in Spain, lost and alone, he miraculously befriended a couple who assisted him in unimaginable ways. He proudly went on to get an education (he only had 2 years of schooling),learned a new language, went to university and graduate school and founded an organization, Nasco Feeding Minds, where he helped to increase the education of school age children in Ghana so that they never had to go through the vicissitudes he experienced. What a gutsy, tenacious and determined young man. What an honor it would be to meet him; he could teach us all life lessons.
Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to report an unbiased review....more
Although this book is billed as a profound meditation on grief, this erudite,and philosophical novel is so much more. It is organized as a triptych..lAlthough this book is billed as a profound meditation on grief, this erudite,and philosophical novel is so much more. It is organized as a triptych..lost, found and "&". This beautiful and thoughtful memoir focuses firstly on her father's death and an exploration of small losses in everyday life advancing to the larger societal issues including covid, war, falling in love. The next section spotlights how love and loss can exist alongside one another as she finds the love of her life." If we cultivate equilibrium around everyday losses, we might someday be able to muster a similar serenity when we lose more important things. This deeply penetrating and multifaceted memoir is a quiet and profound winner....more
There seems to be a lot of memoirs I have been reading lately that are talking about the fissures in their lives and their mental breakdown as a resulThere seems to be a lot of memoirs I have been reading lately that are talking about the fissures in their lives and their mental breakdown as a result. This is another one but does not have the power or erudition that I have noticed in my consumption of recent reads. Here we have a British TV and stage actor who first felt his "otherness" in Birmingham, England. If there was no black in the Union Jack flag, how could he be a black Englishman? Believing that his"blackness" contributed to the lack of roles he received, he realized that he had been living in a "white space" without thinking it was abnormal. The book takes on the trajectory of his life but focuses on his psychotic breakdown where he was hospitalized twice within short intervals. The rest of the novel focuses on his movement since then. I felt like I was reading someone's journal or diary..simplistic but giving a voice to how racism affects. Black mental health . It was interesting but very little was illuminating ....more
This is a difficult book, but an important one. It forces us to look at how cultural identities and difficult pasts guide the shape and form of personThis is a difficult book, but an important one. It forces us to look at how cultural identities and difficult pasts guide the shape and form of personalities. When reading these types of books I often wonder what character traits provide such strong backbones for young individuals to weather these violent storms. In this current book, I had a hard time with the title. Labor there was, but love?? The abhorrent behavior of the mother, abusive, sharp tongued, castigating, domineering ,temperamental and narcissistic is not a word to describe love in my book. Yet, in the credits she avows that she loves her mother. My bet is that she is so afraid that this seething honest review of her life will further estrange her mother from her life. Anna is left behind in China after her father dies and her mother goes to seek a better life in the USA while leaving her daughter to be cared for by a loving grandmother. However, it takes 5 years, at the age of 7 that she is reunited with her mother. In the meantime, her mother has married the boss of a sweatshop that she worked in and has 2 children by him. From the moment Anna steps foot on American soil, vitriol expels from her mother; she is treated like a maid and never incorporated into family life and vacations. Later her mother makes her work at the sweat factory while Anna tries to go to school but her mother makes her take long public transportation rides home instead of driving her home in her car. All of this is so detrimental to Ann's sense of self worth but she is also torn between filial piety, and cultural expectations of duty. This upsets me just writing about it. The story continues through major ups and downs, with a courageous act of reporting her parents to child services stuck in between, until she graduates and also discovers how the US justice system fails her as well. Read this book, feel tremendous empathy for Anna, but know it is a difficult pill to swallow. My heart still aches for her....more
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nurse or work in the Peace Corps so I could help others who were hurt or disadvantaged. Well, I became thatWhen I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nurse or work in the Peace Corps so I could help others who were hurt or disadvantaged. Well, I became that nurse but have always regretted that I did not pursue my other goal. Elizabeth Nyamayaro has become my hero. Any person who is interested in humanitarian work and international advancement should run out to their library or bookstore to inhale this novel and all its remarkable messages. When Elizabeth was 8 years old and literally starving from a famine in Zimbabwe, face down on the ground, she was approached by a UN aid worker who doctored her ailments with porridge and water. She told her a profound statement by expressing the concept that all Africans must take care of one other. This concept, unbuntu, was told to her by her grandmother as well; "I am because we are, and because we are, you are. If one person is uplifted, then others shall rise."This 'holy' experience colored her life, making her goal to work for the UN. Through unbelievable hardships, through the love and support of her impoverished family, and through pure grit, boldness, dedication and conviction she achieved her dreams and more. Written in simple prose one cannot help but be overwhelmed by her passion and unshakeable belief in helping others. One can read the blurb to observe all that she has accomplished, but reading the book will allow you to internally embrace this exceptional woman....more
Who can forget the iconic picture of the Afghan baby being passed over the wall into the waiting arms of the Marine Soldiers? Who could forget the angWho can forget the iconic picture of the Afghan baby being passed over the wall into the waiting arms of the Marine Soldiers? Who could forget the anguished looks of parents trying to get their children and themselves to safety in order to secure a better life. Qian's book describing her resettlement in NYC from China aroused similar feelings regarding the life of immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants. While Qian's parents were educated professionals in their home country, here they could barely get by with menial jobs. Money was extremely tight, the constraint of not knowing the language, the constant fear of being discovered colored their daily lives. Qian lived with a sense of filial responsibility and from early on learned how to be independent as she navigated the streets to her mother's sweat shop, then to school, and then conquering the subway system at such a young age. While her parents were loving to each other in China, the pressures of life in America pulled them apart making them silent accomplices to Qian's confused mental state. Yet, there are moments of great levity as Qian expertly guides us with a child's voice throughout the novel.The novel moves on while the undocumented status continues to paint and color their lives. This is a book that tore my heart out. Save reading her biography until the end. It will make this heartfelt novel even more precious.
Thank you to Net Galley for an ARC giving my honest review....more
An unflinching reminder of the courage and resilience of immigrant families but also the high parental expectations that are initiated from wanting a An unflinching reminder of the courage and resilience of immigrant families but also the high parental expectations that are initiated from wanting a better life for their children. At many points heartbreaking incidents that Ly had to deal with just made me shake my head and wonder how does filial piety balance the needs of the individual. Simple .writing but a devastating story,....more
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