This book highlights the emotions, frustrations, challenges, and hard-won successes of immigrants to the US. I felt befriended with the characters, empathetic to their unnecessarily difficult journeys, and furious on their behalf. Recommended.
I don't think I'm in the target audience for this, so please disregard anything I say.
I found it painfully neurotic. Not that I'm not neurotic too; just that each essay is a study in different neuroses, and there is little to no intersection between hers and mine. I could not relate, nor could I engage with her language which was at times conversational and other times abstrusely academic. The whole thing felt disjointed both at a macro and micro level: each essay was completely unrelated to the last, costing energy to get into; and within each essay there were deeply gripping pages followed by tedious ones.
But again: I'm not the target audience. Maybe it's targeted toward other Asian Americans, as catharsis or perhaps recognition of their experience? I learned of this book from [a:Mira Jacob|7273922|Mira Jacob|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1391461840p2/7273922.jpg]'s Instagram feed. (Jacob writes in a way which I think reaches a …
I don't think I'm in the target audience for this, so please disregard anything I say.
I found it painfully neurotic. Not that I'm not neurotic too; just that each essay is a study in different neuroses, and there is little to no intersection between hers and mine. I could not relate, nor could I engage with her language which was at times conversational and other times abstrusely academic. The whole thing felt disjointed both at a macro and micro level: each essay was completely unrelated to the last, costing energy to get into; and within each essay there were deeply gripping pages followed by tedious ones.
But again: I'm not the target audience. Maybe it's targeted toward other Asian Americans, as catharsis or perhaps recognition of their experience? I learned of this book from [a:Mira Jacob|7273922|Mira Jacob|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1391461840p2/7273922.jpg]'s Instagram feed. (Jacob writes in a way which I think reaches a broad audience.) I did learn from and relate to some portions of the book, enough to round up from 3.5 stars. But I just feel really sorry for Hong. Perhaps her suffering is what makes her a great poet/writer/artist; and perhaps her work will make the world a better place. I hope so.
A challenging, complicated book that provides a much-needed perspective via the author’s Asian American experience. I was drawn in by the first half, and again by the deservedly angry final essay. The rest of the second half is dedicated to her experiences as an artist, which are not always likable. But why should they be? She doesn’t owe anybody anything, and her honesty is a gift that we should pay attention to.
The honesty and pointed self-awareness of Cathy's offering has me thinking twice, and three times more, about the full range of emotions I felt as I made my way through each essay. At once affirming and upsetting... While also, tensioning? Tensionizing? Tensyonado? Ewan ko nga! Nakaka loka talaga! I felt like I was stretching and squeezing past some parts, breath held. Though I'm not yet sure what all, exactly, I was distancing myself from, I'm sure the distance will shrink enough for me to pin it down, eventually. Part of it has to do with being Filipino-American, but not all, I think. And it leaves me considering what it means to live in true and honest relation with one other. So yes, more of this, please! Very very much more :)
