Kathy
rated it
it was ok
3 months ago
Shelves:
memoir
I received a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This memoir has a fantastic hook; I love memoirs that delve into family secrets. Unfortunately, after alluding to this family mystery, Wong doesn't revisit it until the last quarter of the book (and even then it isn't I received a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This memoir has a fantastic hook; I love memoirs that delve into family secrets. Unfortunately, after alluding to this family mystery, Wong doesn't revisit it until the last quarter of the book (and even then it isn't the sole focus). Mostly, this is a memoir of Wong's childhood as a mixed race child moved from NYC to New Hampshire. There is a quote about memoirs (I don't recall who to credit) that you should write from a scar, not a wound. This memoir feels like a gushing wound; Wong seems to write from a place of bitterness and rancor towards her parents and white society. She endured a lot, so this is not a judgment of her feelings, rather a statement about my experiences as a reader.
I grew frustrated with Wong's tone and poor editing (this was an ARC, but the writing was unclear at times). She seems untrusting of either herself or the reader to gain/provide empathy as many of her experiences are accompanied by parenthetical reminders (i.e. "remember I was only a child when this happened..."). There are many misplaced modifiers and other grammatical issues that led to confusion while reading, and she refers to some people by several names (Papi/Peter/my father) and other family members, like her half-sisters, are never referred to by name, which was odd and disconcerting. When Wong is not trying to elicit sympathy, she comes off as bragging about her accomplishments. She displays little to no accountability for her actions, either - she had two failed marriages and describes herself as powerless to them, despite claiming that she saw red flags from the very start (never really describing a period of falling in love, as if perhaps she feels this would be viewed as a weakness?), and similarly writes as a victim of her graduate school experiences, though it seems she never fully researched the income and realities of the profession she was pursuing.
By the time Wong does revisit her paternity (oddly, the synopsis here refers to her stepfather as Charlie, but he is Marty in the book) I was frustrated and tired. These passages are interesting, but I'd grown fairly tired of the book by then. I think this could have been a fascinating essay but it does not feel like a flushed out memoir - I wish I had skipped to the end of the book after the opening. ...more
This memoir has a fantastic hook; I love memoirs that delve into family secrets. Unfortunately, after alluding to this family mystery, Wong doesn't revisit it until the last quarter of the book (and even then it isn't I received a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This memoir has a fantastic hook; I love memoirs that delve into family secrets. Unfortunately, after alluding to this family mystery, Wong doesn't revisit it until the last quarter of the book (and even then it isn't the sole focus). Mostly, this is a memoir of Wong's childhood as a mixed race child moved from NYC to New Hampshire. There is a quote about memoirs (I don't recall who to credit) that you should write from a scar, not a wound. This memoir feels like a gushing wound; Wong seems to write from a place of bitterness and rancor towards her parents and white society. She endured a lot, so this is not a judgment of her feelings, rather a statement about my experiences as a reader.
I grew frustrated with Wong's tone and poor editing (this was an ARC, but the writing was unclear at times). She seems untrusting of either herself or the reader to gain/provide empathy as many of her experiences are accompanied by parenthetical reminders (i.e. "remember I was only a child when this happened..."). There are many misplaced modifiers and other grammatical issues that led to confusion while reading, and she refers to some people by several names (Papi/Peter/my father) and other family members, like her half-sisters, are never referred to by name, which was odd and disconcerting. When Wong is not trying to elicit sympathy, she comes off as bragging about her accomplishments. She displays little to no accountability for her actions, either - she had two failed marriages and describes herself as powerless to them, despite claiming that she saw red flags from the very start (never really describing a period of falling in love, as if perhaps she feels this would be viewed as a weakness?), and similarly writes as a victim of her graduate school experiences, though it seems she never fully researched the income and realities of the profession she was pursuing.
By the time Wong does revisit her paternity (oddly, the synopsis here refers to her stepfather as Charlie, but he is Marty in the book) I was frustrated and tired. These passages are interesting, but I'd grown fairly tired of the book by then. I think this could have been a fascinating essay but it does not feel like a flushed out memoir - I wish I had skipped to the end of the book after the opening. ...more
