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redheadreading's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
The narrative of this is very stream of consciousness, she flits about making mental leaps before picking up the thread again in a way that works well to mimic the experiences she's going through - particularly with the experience of making her way through burned streets during the wildfire at the start, the sparking cable lines, so tense!
I found the Water section the most challenging to get through. Wittman can be a deeply frustrating character who is insufferable from time to time. With the plot of this section being so biographical, it's hard to tell what is deliberately constructed to evoke response and what is just an expression of Kingston and her beliefs.
There are some really vivid moments in this that will stay with me, particularly the snorkeling scene and Taña painting the Hawaiian women as the descriptions were ao vivid and technicolour. I also had some really great buddy reading discussions about art, peace, memoir, nature and more. My favourite discussion to come out of this was, are humans capable of curating peace? We have the ability to dream in meaningful ways, to write and create poetry and art, but are we capable of sitting in silence and capturing the peace of nature (although nature is obviously violent in its own way but it's violent for survival, unmeditated? It doesn't hurt for grand ideas, it just sometimes has wildfires that destroy all your possessions but it's not targeted, it just is beyond our control and comprehension)
Whilst I can see that the author has put a lot of interesting construction and details in, I do find it hard to connect with this fully on an emotional level, hence the lower rating, but I do see how some people will absolutely adore this.
I found the Water section the most challenging to get through. Wittman can be a deeply frustrating character who is insufferable from time to time. With the plot of this section being so biographical, it's hard to tell what is deliberately constructed to evoke response and what is just an expression of Kingston and her beliefs.
There are some really vivid moments in this that will stay with me, particularly the snorkeling scene and Taña painting the Hawaiian women as the descriptions were ao vivid and technicolour. I also had some really great buddy reading discussions about art, peace, memoir, nature and more. My favourite discussion to come out of this was, are humans capable of curating peace? We have the ability to dream in meaningful ways, to write and create poetry and art, but are we capable of sitting in silence and capturing the peace of nature (although nature is obviously violent in its own way but it's violent for survival, unmeditated? It doesn't hurt for grand ideas, it just sometimes has wildfires that destroy all your possessions but it's not targeted, it just is beyond our control and comprehension)
Whilst I can see that the author has put a lot of interesting construction and details in, I do find it hard to connect with this fully on an emotional level, hence the lower rating, but I do see how some people will absolutely adore this.
ellenjoannecampbell's review
3.0
I don't think I actually finished this book, but it's still relatively memorable, years later. I believe that I read it fairly close to the time I read The Opposite of Fate, a memoir by Amy Tan. They melded together in an interesting way. Different stories, common threads.
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