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Cargando... America Is Not the Heartpor Elaine Castillo
Cargando...
Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. An excellent novel about immigration, family, love, romance, deceit, kindness, culture, and lives chosen. Hero dropped out of medical school to join a revolutionary group in her native Philippines. Ten years later she is captured and jailed for two years. Upon her release she is disowned by her upper-class parents. Shortly after she is sent (illegally) to live with her favorite uncle and his family in Milpitas. And thus begins her third life. In the American suburbs, in a house, running mundane errands with her 8-year-old cousin, finally meeting friends and a girlfriend, hanging out, eating the same food and speaking the same languages she always has. It is comfortable and also fairly odd, as she constantly wonders about her co-revolutionaries, her parents, her aunt--how are they, where are they, what are they doing now? Castillo does a great job illustrating suburban San Jose in the 1990s. Strip malls that are all the same yet so different to those that hang out or work at their particular strip mall. The hours of work put in by those trying to support so many people in different countries, the loss of job status among immigrants, the trying to do more so your children can have more. Is it all worth it? This may be the first of a trilogy. I hope so. I had high hopes for this one. A couple/few segments were impactful. Overall, though, I thought it was exceedingly long without being particularly engaging. I didn't connect with or like any of the characters. There's a lot of discussion about food and sex, but nothing especially deep or emotional. If the parts that mattered (their experiences) were developed more, I think it could have been stunning. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
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"How many lives fit in a lifetime? When Hero De Vera arrives in America--haunted by the political upheaval in the Philippines and disowned by her parents--she's already on her third. Her uncle gives her a fresh start in the Bay Area, and he doesn't ask about her past. His younger wife knows enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. But their daughter--the first American-born daughter in the family--can't resist asking Hero about her damaged hands. An increasingly relevant story told with startling lucidity, humor, and an uncanny ear for the intimacies and shorthand of family ritual, America Is Not the Heart is a sprawling, soulful debut about three generations of women in one family struggling to balance the promise of the American dream and the unshakeable grip of history. With exuberance, grit, and sly tenderness, here is a family saga; an origin story; a romance; a narrative of two nations and the people who leave one home to grasp at another"-- No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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I really like this and think that it was really well done. I've read a lot of reviews complaining that the initial second-person prologue with Paz's story is more narratively compelling than the later sections; while I'd agree that that's true, the rest is stilly really well done. There are a lot of flashbacks to Hero's earlier years that were definitely confusing at first, though I think they started to make more sense later. Another thing that I really liked about this book was the use of language. Tagalog (and, occasionally, Pangasinense and Ilocano) is used pretty often throughout this book in recounting dialogue, and probably about half of it is translated--not being able to understand it was definitely a surprising reading experience, but I think it worked really well. I'd definitely recommend this one! ( )