keeping up appearances

Are We There Yet? by Kathleen West

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: Books like these make me so grateful for my own mom-friends.  Like the women in this book, we met when our kids were in preschool and kindergarten.  Unlike the women in this book, we are genuinely caring and supportive of each other.  These characters care about appearances as much as they care about their kids (to be fair, they all care for and about their kids a lot).  The fact that, Alice, the mom from whom we hear the most, is an interior decorator, is a little too on-the-nose, a fact that doesn't go unremarked upon in the book.

When Alice learns that her 2nd grader is reading significantly below grade level and her 7th grader is acting like a bully, she is equally concerned with how her "friends" will react with how to actually help her children.  To be fair, she does step up and do the hard work to help her kids get back on track.  But following along as she perserverates about other people's perceptions was quite a slog (at least as bad as reading about all the brand-name accessories she uses to decorate her own and her clients' homes).  Alice's other problem is her mother, who is about to drop a bomb on her in the midst of all this.  Alice's mother a child psychologist, and I can only say that I'm glad not all child therapists are as selfish as she is.

The short version: You might not actually like any of these characters, but you might recognize them.  You'll almost certainly recognize their struggles, if you have kids.  You might not actually sympathize with them, though, or enjoy reading their inner monologues, but if you're in a book group, especially with your mom-friends, you'll definitely have a lot to talk about.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

more than just a sequel

Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: Alan Brennert doesn't pull his punches when it comes to some of the more shameful aspects of history.  In Moloka'i he explored the segregation of Hansen's Disease patients in Hawai'i, through the eyes of Rachel Kalama who was removed from her family and sent to the leper colony on Moloka'i at a young age.  Now, in Daughter of Moloka'i, Brennert tells the story of Ruth, the daughter Rachel was forced to give up for adoption.  And his unstinting gaze falls on the racism against Japanese immigrants and the Japanese internment camps of WWII.

As always, Brennert's gaze falls beyond the immediate drama to give us the full and rich sweep of a life.  Ruth's life is fully imagined, from her time in an orphanage and her dreams of finding a family to her happiness with her adopted parents and brothers to the hardships they faced as farmers in rural California to their internment and beyond.  Once Rachel is re-introduced into the narrative, it is fascinating to watch Brennert tell the same story, even many of the exact same scenes, but told from Ruth's perspective.  Reading the books back-to-back turns them into a wonderfully faceted multi-generational story that is a pleasure to read.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

not subtle, but not preachy

The Leavers by Lisa Ko
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: When he is 11 years old, Deming's mother goes to work one day, and never returns.  Deming is soon put into foster care and then adopted.  We meet Deming again 10 years later, and struggling with an identity crisis.  Does he want to try to be the academic his academic adoptive parents want him to be, or does he want to follow his own love of music and try to make it as a musician?  Ko is more than a little heavy-handed in making the reader understand that this is something of a stand-in for his mixed feelings about being an American-born Chinese who spent half of his life in a lily-white upstate New York college town.

This character-driven story will appeal both to readers who enjoy books about immigrants, as well as those about characters searching for their own personal identity.  Told through the point of view of Deming (in the third person) and his mother (in the first person), the full story of what happened to Deming's mother, both how she came to America and what happened the day she disappeared, is gradually revealed.  This is a grim, but ultimately hopeful and redemptive novel that lays out the difficulties of immigration and assimilation without being overly preachy.

how to build a family

No Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene
Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: memoir
Challenge: 100 Book Challenge 2011
Review: It may be a cliche to say that you laughed so hard you cried, except that I did while reading this book.  Several times.  Greene tells the story of how her family created itself with such wonderful humor that you can't help but fall in love with them all.

Of course, a book like this can't be all sunshine and smiles, and Greene doesn't pull her punches when relating stories of family tribulation.  Nor does she leave us in any doubt that children around the world face horrifying poverty and hunger every day.

If this book has a flaw, it's that it's a little uneven.  In the midst of discussing the process of adopting one child, the narrative jumps back to relate an anecdote involving an older child, or Green's own childhood.  These leaps never detract from the overall story, but the transitions are sometimes jarring.

Another cliche: this book is both hysterical and heartbreaking.  But mostly it is about how family bonds are about love and effort more than blood.

the American family

Digging to America by Anne Tyler

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: The title of this book comes from this question: if children in the U.S. dig a hole to China, are children in China digging to America? This seems to be a metaphor for the question of whether perhaps we're all, even the most American-seeming American, digging to America, or trying to figure out what it means to be American.

When the Donaldsons (American through-and-through) and the Yazdans (Iranian-American) adopt baby girls from Korea on the same day, the families become the best of friends. It is no surprise, perhaps, that the Donaldsons opt to keep their baby's Korean name and put lots of emphasis on her Korean heritage, whereas the Yazdans Americanize their daughter's name, and generally raise her as an American.

Unpredictably, it seems that the Donaldsons look as much to the Yazdans for clues about raising their daughter as the other way around. Which is what this book is really about, I think. It's not about being American. it's about creating a family.