I notoriously don't like horror films, because I'm a big baby that hides behind my hands, but leaves just enough spaceAPI Month
Holy shit. What a ride.
I notoriously don't like horror films, because I'm a big baby that hides behind my hands, but leaves just enough space between my fingers to see, thus furthering the problem. This doesn't span formats. I enjoy the genre in books. Asian horror is particularly gruesome, and I love what Kylie did with it. This is my first book by her, and certainly won't be the last.
I can talk about COVID and Asian racism all day. I imagine some of you are tired of that. This book isn't for you. I won't say Asians have it worse than other minorities, but there is a particular brand of racism that exists for us. I read once that some people don't even consider us POC, because our skin is light. First of all, not all Asians have light skin. The continent spans many countries, of which most are not East Asia. Second of all, fuck you.
Cora Zeng is a biracial Chinese American crime scene cleaner and a germaphobe. She excessively washes her hands, uses sanitizer until her hands bleed, and takes more precautions than the average person. The casual racism she is dealt feels very familiar.
Cora grew up with her half sister Delilah. Delilah's mother is Chinese and she grew up speaking several dialects. Cora struggles with Mandarin, as her mother is white.
The book starts off during March 2020. The scene is New York City. The sisters are at a train station. As they hover ever closer to the edge, a white man pushes Delilah into an oncoming train. Cora spends the entirety of the book dealing with the repercussions of this. This is where her job as a crime scene cleaner comes into play. Most of the crime scenes she is called in to clean are young Asian American women. A serial killer is on the loose.
What else is on the loose? Delilah's hungry ghost. I didn't grow up with this mythos, but hungry ghosts are very prevalent in East Asian, in particular, Chinese culture. The story is beautifully intertwined between family, horror, and racism, and I loved every second.
“Let me begin this story with a confession: I don't know how to pronounce my own name.”
This book launch inclWomen in Translation
Wo auch immer ihr seid
“Let me begin this story with a confession: I don't know how to pronounce my own name.”
This book launch included a lot of firsts for me. My first time at {pages}. My first time in Manhattan Beach. (Obsessed. I see why the couple I met on a tour in Saigon bought a home there.) My first time reading a Vietnamese German novel.
While I am spoiled with Vietnamese American novels nowadays, and have read a spattering of Vietnamese British and Vietnamese Australian literature, the Vietnamese diaspora in Germany is something new to me.
I've annotated novels before, but this is the first time I truly delved deep. This book meant so much to me, I have five different tab colors. It alternates between three POVs, Kiều's in present day, and her father's and uncle's in the past.
“For every German word I gained, I shed a Vietnamese one.”
As always with a book like this, stereotypes comes into play. Kiều is born and raised in Germany and only dates white Germans. She speaks badly accented Vietnamese and is a bit far removed from her Vietnamese identity. One of my annotations is felt, and I felt a lot of Kiều's chapters.
Her father, Minh, leaves Vietnam pre-1975 to go study in Germany. While his first choices to study abroad were the US and France, his grades leave much to be desired. While abroad, he gets sucked into anti-war sentiment and ends up with a communist cohort. He feels farther and farther removed when he deigns to speak to his family.
Minh's brother, Sơn, goes a different route. Stuck in Vietnam post-1975, he marries the daughter of a communist, and yet, at a few points, tries to flee the country. As with many others, they are unsuccessful their first few tries. When they finally make it to the US, they apply for reunification. In present day, they are the sort of first generation refugees that tend to support Donald Trump.
“the fate of Vietnamese women is to suffer for others until there is nothing left of themselves”
Africa is one of the most, if not the most, diverse continent on the planet. It is not just Egypt. It certainly isn't the Egypt of the past, ruled by Macedonian Greeks.
This picks up after Egypt. Several countries from varying areas are discussed, and the role colonization played in depriving citizens of natural resources. A map shows a tiny area that wasn't colonized. It's hard to say which European nation did the most damage, but know it was extensive.
My thirst wasn't quite quenched here. I'd like to delve a little deeper into each country's own history. As always, if you have recommendations, by authors of that background, please send.
I went into this thinking I'd love it. While I'm not sure I hate it, I can also say I certainly don't love it. There are some massive oof moments.
AnnoI went into this thinking I'd love it. While I'm not sure I hate it, I can also say I certainly don't love it. There are some massive oof moments.
Annotated a ton. Tabs, if you care, are: (1) internalized racism, (2) stupid shit white people say, (3) sad, (4) who is allowed to do what, and (5) too close to home. I can't keep things normal. It's not in my blood.
The good? There were some insightful things about growing up a Taiwanese American immigrant, the problems with marrying inside your race, the problems with marrying outside it, raising mixed race children, etc.
The bad? See above. No, but seriously, as much as I am tired of the WMAF narrative that populates the big cities of the US, if you choose to marry a white man and have children with him, maybe cut him some slack as he tries to understand you. And I'm not just blaming Anne. Everyone who is involved should be more cautious in their thinking. This memoir is obviously skewed in her favor, as she wrote the book, and I'm very much aware of that fact.
This is more a collection of interconnected essays than a true memoir, and I think with some editing some of the parts should be moved around. It's a bit choppy in pieces. Some of it is very woe is me.
I don't care enough to re-find some of the quotes I annotated to drop them here. Just know I wanted more from this. And if you're still with me, three stars isn't bad. I did like parts of this. I just didn't connect with it in a way I wanted to, and that's okay.
I read fast. I started this a month ago. I had to start binging it with Zana in order to get myself to finish this. I found The Bone Shard Daughter meI read fast. I started this a month ago. I had to start binging it with Zana in order to get myself to finish this. I found The Bone Shard Daughter mediocre. I don't think Andrea is for me.
I am on a very long journey to find enjoyable diverse fantasy. It is quite few and far between. While this started with promise, it quickly fell flat. At first, I enjoyed sisters Hakara and Rasha. When the time jump occurred, and more POVs appeared, their stories became lost against the whole. My favorite POV is in the past, pre-Shattering, with many cats.
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