5 comments about Meyebela: My Bengali Girlhood.

1. I'll be brief since one reviewer elucidated my points quite well.

   There's no doubt that Taslima Nasrin will go down in history was one of the greatest writers the south Asian community has even produced. She has clear vision on contemporary issues within the south Asian world. Her recent novel is of course a "magnum Opus"that will be remembered by many. My only contention is that she tends to have a rather fervid tendency to over-generalize excessively. At times her statements about Islam in the book contradict her statements in speeches and other prints. Her critique of religion regurgitates old-fashioned arguments that stymies the reader( at least this reviewer). A good biography indeed. However, don't use it as a critique or religion.




2. My husband is Bangladeshi, so I was interested in reading this book. The book is interesting in providing an insight into a dysfunctional, abusive home and childhood. It makes clear the critical need for third world countries to seriously address the issue of abuse and oppression of women. However, the book gets repetitive and tiresome after a while.

   The reason I am giving the book only two stars is because it treats all of Bangladesh and all of Islam as one-dimensional. We are left assuming everyone is like that. Both of my husband's sisters have graduate degrees and his mother was head of the household, even though his father had spent a decade studying religion in an Islamic school. There wasn't any abuse and no prohibition against his sister's playing outdoors. They didn't wear head coverings either.
   
   The subtitle A Memoir of Growing Up Female in a Muslim world is misleading. Her story unfortunately is common for females all over the third world including India, China, South America, Africa, and to a lesser extent the US and Europe. Domination and abuse of women knows no borders and is practiced by members of all faiths. Nasrin is not objective and makes a lot of generalizations about Islam being the problem. I am Christian but I also grew up with a domineering father. Nasrin, unfortunately, has alienated her countrymen instead of engaging them.




3. A very interesting book, not always fun to read and maybe like the first reviewer says not always really well, or at least tightly, written. However, the account of this girlhood was shocking to me. I think now I understand feminism much better then before. And even though I've spent some time in Bangladesh, I now feel like I understand life in Bangladesh much better than before as well. I feel it was extremely worthwhile reading this book. It taught me a lot about how most of the world lives.



4. I usually enjoy reading books by women writers from the Indian subcontinent. This was one book that could not hold my attention - badly written, repetitive, and unnecessarily lengthy: a tedious read. Ms. Nasrin sounds like a manipulative child - she knows what the West wants to hear and makes too much of an effort to please.



5. Taslima Nasrinýs is a strong competent voice from Bangladesh. She has been in exile ever since her controversial book "Lajja" or "Shame" about Muslim persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh caused a fatwa to be issued against her. Meyebela, My Bengali Girlhood: A Memoir of Growing up Female in a Muslim World is Nasrinýs heart-wrenching account of a desperate childhood in Mymensingh, a relatively small town in Bangladesh.

   In this memoir (one of two volumes), Nasrin openly questions her religion, Islam, and its discrimination against women. Her sad and depressing childhood was an unfortunate byproduct of a unique combination of cruel elements, one of which was a repressive society where "I was simply supposed to acceptýwithout asking questionsýwhatever the grownups decided to bestow on me, be it punishment or reward." Taslima was treated like a second-class citizen all throughout and horrifically abused by her uncles. Add to these, Nasrin had very unstable parentsýa mother who was driven to religious extremism by a philandering father and a father who was extremely harsh yet very insistent on education. Having had his first two sons fail his "expectations", he pinned all his hopes on young Taslima and her sister, Yasmin. The girls were denied all social interaction (Nasrinýs father had high walls built around the house so the girls could not look beyond it and get distracted) and the books were made to be their only focus.

   Nasrinýs memoir, which is set against the Bangladesh war for independence, makes some very important points about religion and a girlýs role in an oppressive society. Like a flood of memories though, her memoir seems to shift out of focus occasionally. Towards the end, parts of her statements get to be repetitive.

   Taslima Nasrin did become a doctor and lived up to her fatherýs expectations. In that sense, he "won". But eventually Nasrin did manage to find her own voice-- one that continues to speak powerfully on behalf of oppressed women all over the world.

   Nasrin in her memoir tells us what life truly is like for many girls around the world. It is our duty to listen. It is sad though that we can often do little more than be outraged.

No comments about Catch Me Before I Fall.

5 comments about Kitchen Privileges : A Memoir.

1. I read this book when it first came out and was not disappointed in the slightest. I've read every Mary Higgins Clark book ever written. They're page turners, pure and simple, with often riveting plots and always nice, dignified characters. In an increasingly nastier world, I LIKE nice :). A lovely book about how a very lovely lady came to be one of the top fiction writers, triumphing over many odds.



2. My Mother has been suffering from memory issues. We recently lucked out and found a prescription drug that has helped her focus more than she has in years. We couldn't believe it when she told us she read a book (the only book she's read in several years) that she borrowed from a friend at her Assisted Living facility. Apparently it was in large print and she loved it. I personally haven't read it, but she did pass it on to her older sister (83) and youger sister (77) and my sister 50) who all read it and said it was great. So, probably good gift idea for those form the depression era.



3. A member of my church loaned me this book and to be frank, I wasn't all that interested in it. I had never read anything by Mary Higgins Clark before, and why did a writer name her book after a kitchen anyway? I was also intent on reading the Elsie Dinsmore books, and so put this book down, thinking that I'll return it after a week or so.
   
   Two weeks passed and I finally realized that I should at least make a seventy-something woman happy by reading it and so I began reading it after reading another borrowed book, "The Secret Life of Bees" (see my review on that superb novel). From Chapter One, I was hooked.
   
   Mary Higgins Clark writes her story with charm, wit and detail. She tells us the story of her childhood in the 1940s, the death of her father, her first jobs, her marriage and the births of her five children. She discusses her dream of becoming a writer and I can relate to this. I love to write, but my work is either rubbish or incomplete or both.
   
   However, the book was very short and left me asking some questions. She's written a lot of books, but only goes into detail about writing two of them-one of which was a failure. The epilogue leaves you asking questions that she doesn't answer, especially since she devotes an entire sentence to her second, failed marriage. Wow...
   
   Despite these flaws, I am going to read Mary Higgins Clark's fictional works and see if they are as well-written as this book is. I encourage any aspiring writer to read this book.



4. The voice of Mary Higgins Clark comes through clearly to her many readers in "Kitchen Privileges." Her story-telling skills are on display as she relates the events through the decades of her life. Populating the story are family and friends, dear to her, and a theme throughout (though understated) is her warm Irish pluck, that courage that enabled her to raise five children when she was left on her own as a young widow. Clark is modest about her highly-honed writing ability; also, she never overplays her unfolding story. Instead she carries the reader along in a highly competent, yet matter-of-fact style---it's like she's
   refusing to take the role of heroine. The woman we meet in these pages is modest, immensely likable, and still young in spirit after all these years and all these best sellers. Clark's memoir deserves the highest recommendation.



5. I've been reading Mary Higgins Clark's well-woven tales of mystery since I was a little girl. I long admired and enjoyed Mrs. Higgins Clark's gift for writing entertaining mysteries with characters that still seemed like "real people". When I saw her memoir available I scooped it up immediately and read it in one afternoon. Several times I laughed out loud and cried tears of sorrow reading about her life from its humble, beautiful beginnings in the Bronx to her struggle as a young widow with five small children. I had no idea that the author had undergone such a road in her life to reach the success and fame she now well deserves. I highly reccomend this book to any Mary Higgins Clark fan, or anyone who would like to read an account of a resourceful, tender on the inside, tough as nails on the outside lady. Bravo!

5 comments about The Book of Sarahs: A Family in Parts.

1. This book touched me to the core! Catherine's story is searingly honest, human, passionate and moving. Inspite of being extremely busy I could not put it down from the time it was delivered until 3am when I had finished it. This tour de force not only addresses issues of adoption, identity, race and prejudice but also how one's environment and circumstances affect one's own perception of events and experiences. It is the best book I have read in years!



2. Catherine went searching for the truth and she found it. It was reality and not a made up story with a happy ending. I believe that she was very self serving in telling the story. I felt she did not really appreciate the parents who raised her, until the very end. I wondered how they felt after reading this book. She certainly laid out all her complaints about them. I personally could relate to her mother, who was doing the very best she could for a rather unappreciative daughter.
   On the other hand, I think I gained some insight to what it was like to grow up black in a white world, not easy at all. I'm glad she was able to tell this story with as much depth and clarity as she did.
   This story also brings to light the plight of the children of a middle class woman who had several children and didn't choose to acknowledge or care for them. What about birth control? Yes, she was mentally ill, but I wonder if we can excuse her for that.
   
   In the last several years I have done the research that reunited my husband (in his 60's) with the birth mother who gave him up. The search was very interesting and it was a miracle how it all came together. The story has a bittersweet ending, since his birth mother passed away within a year of their reunion.
   
   This is a great story and I couldn't put it down.



3. It can be hard enough to come to terms with family and identity when one is not adopted. Imagine growing up the transracial adoptee of a white family in a tiny working class town in rural Massachusetts (read: all white). Moreover, you are biracial and subject to putdowns and jibes by "full-blooded" members of your race. This background makes up the first part of Catherine McKinley's compulsively readable memoir. The second part is her search for her roots, and her reckoning when she finds those roots and they are not quite what she expected.

   McKinley has a superb ear for dialogue and mood. Moreover, The Book of Sarahs is so full of suprises that sometimes it's like reading a thriller. McKinley starts out by giving us her fantasy of her birth mother that carried her through her youth (most adoptees have one)...and part of the fun of the book is seeing just how different reality is from her fantasy, again and again. McKinley also writes with wonderful humor and subtle characterizations that make it difficult to dislike anyone in her book despite their foibles. Finally, I can't agree with other reviewers that McKinley was cruel to her adoptive family. Her adoptive parents clearly understood her journey, and by the end of the book she intimated that she had resolved her issues with them.

   Don't miss this one...one of the best I've read this year!




4. This book tells the tale of Catherine McKinley's search for her birth parents. McKinley, who is biracial, was adopted at birth. Brought up in a White family, she found herself drawn towards African American culture in her search for building her own identity. As an adult, questions about who she was and how she came to be gradually took over the focus of her life. In this book, she details how she searched for her birth parents and eventually found them, as well as other family members.

   From reading the blurb on the back cover of the book, I had expected the book to focus more on McKinley's experiences of growing up as an adopted biracial child. I have very little experience myself with issues relating to adoption, and I had no idea how consuming the questions of identity and family can be for an adopted child. Prospective adoptive parents might learn quite a bit from this book about how adopted children may have an unquenchable thirst for knowing their birth parents, a thirst that can taint relationships between them and their adopted family members if not handled appropriately. Adoptees, on the other hand, may be quite interested to read how McKinley proceeded in her search, and how the results of her search compared with her dreams. The emotional issues concerning adoption are never easy to reconcile; after all, every adoption starts with a tragedy that has resulted in parents having to give up their children. The children and all of their parents, both adopted and birth, must spend the remainder of their lives putting the pieces back together.




5. I beg to differ with some of the other customer reviews posted for The Book of Sarahs. Reality is messy. Members of the adoption triad--birthparents, adoptees, and adoptive parents--share a complicated, emotionally charged relationship from the moment the adoptee is born. There are one thousand and one reasons why birthmothers feel that relinquishment is the best possible choice for their child; there are just as many reasons why adoptive parents choose to raise a non-biological child. But the adoptee has the most to gain or lose. In my twenty-six years as a birthmother, I am continually amazed by the infinite variety of paths triad members have traveled, yet we're all connected by the same feelings of uncertainty, wistfulness, and longing for what might have been. Thankfully, adoption today is much more open, kinder, gentler; many studies have documented the impact of adoption on all triad members, and there are fewer black holes than there were a generation or more ago. Catherine McKinley's personal story of life as an adopted Black child raised in a white family and predominately white community will captivate readers. One does not have to a member of the adoption community to appreciate her search for self. Ms. McKinley's prose is a pleasure to read, a beautifully, richly written story of relationships that readers will find hard to put down.

5 comments about Of Beetles and Angels.

1. Scared for your life in the midst of a civil war. Then put into a Sudanese refugee camp, disconnected from your father but left with your terrified mother and siblings. After a while, you are reunited with your father, and your entire family is together. Then in America, where you must start over in an alien place, where you get most of your possessions from dumpsters. This was the childhood experience that Mawi Asgedom underwent.
   The book "Of Beetles & Angels" shows the extraordinary experiences throughout Mawi Asgedom's young life, which led him to America and to graduate from Harvard University. His amazing story shows the hardships, as well as the joyful occasions, as he discovers American culture and starts an American life. I thoroughly enjoyed his book and believe that I caught a glimpse at just how hard his childhood was.
   The chapters within the book are separated into different stories and times of Mawi's life. This way, the reader truly gets to see how wonderful and cruel our country can be to those who are starting over in a new place, and how Mawi and his family start in a new and foreign place. The book also shows Mawi's experiences viewing racism, biased brutality, and what it is like to be noticeably different from most others around you. " Most of our classmates treated us nicely, others ignored us, and the rest -- well, we could only wish that they would ignore us. We may not have understood their words, but we always understood the meaning behind their laughter. `African boodie-scratcher! Scratch that boodie!' `Black donkey! You're so ugly!' `Why don't you go back to Africa where you came from?' We were just two, and they were often many. But they had grown up in a wealthy American suburb, and we had grown up in a Sudanese refugee camp. We were accustomed to fighting almost daily, using sticks, stones, wood chips, and whatever else we could get our hands on. So it was usually no contest, especially when the two of us double-teamed them, as we had done so many times in Sudan. The cruelty of brutal beatings and the name calling left Mawi and his older brother scared and unsure about their new found home America.
   Mawi Asgedom's parents dreamed that their children would do well in school. The primary values that they taught their kids were that education was most important, knowledge was power, and that if all of the children within their family studied hard, they could earn scholarships and become smart and powerful leaders within their new country. Mawi kept his parents' values close and fulfilled them all. "I graduated from Harvard one year ago and have since thought much about my parents' dream. By earning my scholarship and graduating, I have fulfilled it. But along the way, I have found greater value in other dreams. And while Harvard University taught me well, my true education has come from less-likely sources. As I look back to the angels, the Charlenes and the Beth Raneys; as I look back to God's servants, dressed as beggrs and as beetles; as I look back to my inspirations, to the Mamas and Tewoldes, I see true guidance staring back at me. True power comes from focusing on what we can give, not what we can take." Mawi learned so much throughout his life and not only made his parents' dreams come true, but also made his own dreams come true.
   This book, with all of its extraordinary detail and description, probably cannot entirely summarize all of the struggles, hardships, and rewards Mawi and his family endured from their journey to America and once in America. However, throughout the pages and dialogue of the story "Of Beetles & Angels", the book does an exceptional job of showing how unique Mawi Asgedom's life was as a child. I absolutely recommend this book.



2. Beginning in 2001 I worked with two refugee families from Liberia. I wish I had read this book first, because it would have helped me to understand better the sorts of things these families might have experienced before they arrived in our country. While experiences of war, persecution and homelessness vary among people arriving in the USA, the feeling of confusion (even when you speak English, like 'my' families did) and dependence mixed with utter relief of finally getting here seem to be common among all. "My" families knew basic things, but our housing, food and school systems were totally overwhelming even for these educated people. And the police, which we're taught to depend upon, strike fear into every refugee I've ever met. Most of them have had bad experiences with police.
   So when I read this book I could relate to some things, I cried over others, and I put others in the back of my mind to remember for when I'm working again with refugee immigrants, especially in these days of heated debates about immigrants.
   Personally I think this book should be a must-read in every high school curriculum and for every teacher, not only because it's such a compelling story, but it helps us to see others through another lens and it is ultimately a story of hope.
   From a strictly literature point of view there are better books out there, but this one tugs at the heart. And it's also a fast read if you want it to be.



3. Of Beetles and Angles is the remarkable non-fiction account of Mawi Asgedom's jouney as an African war refugee to America and the obstacles that he and his family had to overcome. In his own words he describes his inspiring transformation into a man with traditional values and principles mixed in with the demands of everyday life in a new society. Influenced by his older brother and father, Mawi sets out to experience the American dream and more importantly, look upon each and every person as angels sent to test the will of our hearts.



4. I won't take a lot of space stating what the book is about. Just get it and read it, everyone from middle school through adults. You'll be glad you did.



5. This book told me one thing: everyone can be an angel. No matter in what form, that thing could be an angel.
   From this story, a boy named Mawi was a refugee. His homeland had been involved in a war. His father decided the family would flee to Amerikha, as they called it. It was a place of peace, which was something that didnt exist in Eritrea, their homeland.
   Many perils were made in America. Mawi needed to go to school, with his brothers and sister. He survived through prejudice and violence at school. His dream was to be welcomed with a scholarship into a special university. He worked very hard to achieve his goal.
   How did it happen? Just read the book and find out!

2 comments about From a High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky.

1. Matthew Spender has something to offer for someone really curious about this artists work. I have been compairing the three biographies. Herrara's book has been much acclained. But, when it comes to getting into the nitty -gritty of an artist's work, Spender is better. Particularly when he writes of his work in the fields of Virginia.None of the other writers have really tackled this important part of Gorky's art. As a sculpture Spender must have wondered would Gorky like me and my work.The Armenian backgound has been covered by quite a few books. None can surpass some of Spenders insight into Gorky's creative process.A shortcomihg of this biography is the lack of color reproductions of the paintings.His choice of photos of the family of Gorky ,give us a glimpse of his background. The paper back (a catalogue ) "the breakthrough years /Arshile Gorky" would be a good companion book of this bio as it has ample repros and an essay by Spender among others ;Aupling for one.



2. Matthew Spender, son of poet Stephen, is a good writer who does a deft job of weaving his research into a lively story. But being the husband of Gorky's oldest daughter limits his interests to the "family" side of the artist's life: to hear Spender tell it, Gorky lived through three decades of New York's modern art revolution dreaming of butterchurns back in Armenia. He never really explains what drove Gorky to become an artist, let alone an abstract modern artist, in the face of family pressures, the trials of being an immigrant, and the burden he carried as a survivor of the Armenian genocide.
   
   Gorky's idyllic memories of childhood clearly played a major role in his life and art, but so did Picasso and Cezanne, whose style he copied until the breakthrough near the end of his life. Spender plays down the endless hours Gorky spent in front of the canvas trying to insert himself into the history of Western art, preferring to read the artist's somewhat restricted interests (he steered clear of the tumultuous politics of Thirties New York, avoided bohemia, and refused to theorize about the inner sources of his art) as a gauge of how deeply Armenia held him. Maybe. But more attention to the exciting world his work unfolded in would have helped to explain Gorky's achievement a little more clearly. Hayden Herrera's more recent "Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work" may have replaced this biography and is probably the better place to turn for learning more about his life.

4 comments about While the Locust Slept (Native Voices).

1. This is a chilling, true-life account of a childhood that should have never been, and 17 years of life that would forever haunt the author, Peter Razor. Peter, an intelligent boy that was raised in an orphanage as a ward of the state, then placed in an abusive indentured farm home had a childhood that is reprehensible, and sadly true. Supposedly protected by the state, Peter became a boy who flinched from physical contact, and had no understanding of what a normal happy home should be like. Unlike Peter Razor, not all children were lucky enough to survive the abuse that could be found in state orphanages when Peter was growing up. Corporal punishment went unchecked, and Peter, an American Indian, also had the added disadvantage of prejudice thrown in. Eventually placed on a farm, his placement was not carefully monitored, and the abusive treatment with this family was never noted by the social worker who was suppose to be monitoring Peter's placement. While the Locust Slept, a Minnesota Book Award Winner, is a compelling, well written tale that reads like a novel, yet is sadly a true tale of a horrific childhood that was unchecked by the state that was suppose to be protecting him



2. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Razor while on a trip to Cochiti Lake, New Mexico. After talking for a while he passed me a copy of his book and asked me to read it and then share it with others. I read the book cover-to-cover on the trip home and was amazed that the man I had talked to had once been the little boy in the book. Mr. Razor was a kind and gentle man that never revealed the scars from his childhood in any part of our conversations. America's inhumane treatment of the Indian people is well documented. This book offers graphic descriptions of individual cruelty that was fueled by ignorance and prejudice. I don't know if many human beings could have endured this sort of trauma and survived to be so kind. Peter is a truly incredible person and I would recommend his book to anyone.



3. Like Peter I lived and went through total hell from a matron while I was in the same orphanage. After reading Peters book while the locust slept,I relived the same anger, as Peter indured.This book should be a must read by anyone,who plans on going into the socialwork field and know that this is truly a non fiction tragedy which happened.This is a story that took place a long time ago,but could still and does happen today.



4. My father as well was in the Owatonna "orphanage" which he termed as an "intournment camp/prison"! Babies and children were treated more tragically at this place than you could even imagine. Babies died for lack of "touch" and nurturing! Children were beaten, mauled, and oftentimes died as a result of such treatment. Peter Razor cites an insightfully true story of just SOME of the horific experiences of babies and children in this most insightful book on our country's past (AND EVEN PRESENT) ways of "Social Services" treating our "lost" children!! A MUST TO READ!

No comments about Branch Water Children.

2 comments about My Sky Blue Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time.

1. A few themes run through these memoir-essays: rebellion against the father, books as an escape from life. Ok just two themes. The fifties and sixties (Birkerts was born in 1951) are what might be the most documented decades in the history of man. Its very difficult to write a memoir about this time that doesn't sound cliched.

   Birkerts parents were from Latvia and spoke Latvian in the Michigan family home. Ok thats new. But Sven who insisted on being called Peter was a rebel with a cause as a young man: he wanted to conform and be American. As he got older he traded in the desire to conform for a desire to be different and so he became a hippie and he did all the things hippies do: drug experiences, sex, travel, Woodstock. Though well written this kind of book is routine. Birkerts is strongest when he is talking about his grandparents but he is at his weakest when he is talking about the counterculture and his various girlfriends. Birkerts' first love is not women but books. When he is discussing a book all the lights come on in his head but when he is talking about a woman the room remains dim.

   Memoirs are reckonings and the person the writer is really attempting to reckon with is themselves. I get the feeling however that Birkerts has not quite gotten there yet. In this self-portrait the artist hides behind a series of 1950's and 1960's cliches; the experiences Birkert's describes just seem too generic. It is as if his mind is clouded with the popular view of 1950's-60's and he cannot see beyond that to form his own view of the times. Also there just isn't enough of his inner life in this book; no sense of intellectual evolution, no great awakenings to the world except in the most cliched kind of way, and no sense of love for his craft. In fact he doesn't really talk about his craft much. I was expecting some irony or some literary comment on the sameness of childhood and teen years. But no irony, no originality, just a generic MEMOIR.

   A few observations are precisely worded though the thoughts themselves do not sound particularly authentic. Birkerts is a careful reader and his essays are often thoroughly researched and he is excellent at giving an overview of an author's career but I don't thnk he has a particularly unique vision of life to offer. To offer something unique he needs to dig deeper into his experience than he chose to do here.




2. Having grown up in much the same time period and with much the same ethnic background (my family, too, came to the United States from Latvia during WW2), even in the same approximate area (lower Michigan), I picked up Birkerts' book (and, as chance would have it, I found it in the bookstore in Ann Arbor he describes as his place of employment) with immense curiosity. Just how similar would his experience be to mine? Initially, it was rather exhilirating to read this memoir that spoke of so much that I, too, knew so well, down to the ethnic bone. As I read of his discomforts and anxieties about learning a new language other than the one spoken in his home, his sense of being something of a misfit in both the Latvian and the American communities, I identified in most every detail. Ah, yes, this too I felt on my adolescent thin hide... Mine, I felt simultaneously as blessing and curse, as perhaps, in conclusion, did Birkerts.

   In later years, of course, Birkerts' experiences forked away very much from my own... but no matter. I didn't need to look into a mirror to sustain my interest. Indeed, that is the whole appeal of this book - it is not only for the multicultural reader. The writing is excellent, and my exhiliration at sharing in a similar experience soon veered to an exhiliration simply in reading a book so well written. Perhaps that is one of the blessings of being bilingual, this ability to approach a second language with greater awareness. Birkerts' use of language is vibrant and lush and frequently stunning. His insights and perspective on his work, his relationships, the inner workings of his developing self.... all are richly portrayed. No matter from what backgrounds we come, we all question ourselves and our life choices, we all struggle with similar demons at one time or another. Family dynamics are not so different, I'm sure, no matter what the ethnic background.

   Birkerts' `My Sky Blue Trades' is a valuable portrayal of the immigrant experience for more than one generation, but is also of value simply as a well written book.

5 comments about Crazy in the Kitchen: Food, Feuds, and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family.

1. I usually do not put aside a book before finishing it. In this case, I got about a third of the way through and just skimmed the rest and could not bring myself to read it in detail. I purchased this book hoping (despite prior reviews) that it was more food lit than self analysis. However, the strength of this book is in its description of tense family relationships, and indeed not in its descriptions of food in Desalvo's life. If you are interested in it anyway, good luck - there is a lot of emotion in it.



2. This book is the first in a very long time I've read word by word. Even when I could set aside her subjects, the vitality of DeSalvo's writing style was irresistable for me--elegant, layered, a bit vulgar, self-indulgent, complex, musical, heartbreaking, self-effacing, beautiful.
   My maternal grandparents were Italian immigrants to California; my mother and her sisters born in the U.S. DeSalvo's exploration of the Italian culture both here in the States and in the Old County gave me a handhold among my mother's family as no other source has.
   You'll either hate this book immediately, like tripe, or inhale it like the best cannoli.



3. OMG....I forced myself to get beyond page 13 and just had to give it up. There really isn't any 'food'in her repetitive writing, but a lot of angst squished up into a white bread samich that apparently NO one wants to eat, each for their own screwed up, twisted reasons.... what this book did for my stomach was put it in knots..... BASTA!
   This book makes me happy I am Sicilian NOT "Italian-American".



4. I enjoyed this book from start to finish. The descriptions of food were mouthwatering. I appreciated the view into the lives of Italian immigrants and their lives in Italy. The family interactions were well described. Each chapter was a gem of an essay. Unlike many memoire writers, this author sustained the high level of writing and self-exploration to the very end. I really admire her ability to dig into her real feelings and to try to understand her parents and grandparents. I plan to look for other books by this author.



5. I picked up this book to read thinking it was like so many other books I have read about Italian-Americans in an attempt to better understand my husband's family---a light-hearted look at the "crazy" antics of a close knit, pasta eating bunch of eccentrics. However, this is not at all what this book is, and what it actually is helped me more than any book I've read in understanding the family I have joined.

   When Desalvo says "Crazy in the Kitchen", she is not kidding. Her mother and much of her family really does have seriously crazy tendencies---fury, cruelty, irrational financial habits, long running feuds, etc. And the kitchen is where many of these things are played out---from her mother's poor cooking to her step-grandmother's good but steep in unbreakable traditions cooking, to the cooking and eating of her ancestors in Southern Italy, or the NOT eating---for I finally understood what drove so many Italians to come to America. I had no idea how awful conditions were for the peasants of Italy. What they were subjected to honestly reminded me of accounts of places like Cambodia or China, during the Great Leap Forward.

   I learned a great deal about Southern Italian culture from this book, and found myself reading many passages to my husband, a first generation Italian-American who spent much of his youth in Sicily visiting, and who had parents who spoke only Italian, and even he was stunned to find out much of what I read. I now understand my late in-laws much better than I did before this reading.

   The writing style of this book took a bit to get used to, until I let myself fall into it. It's written like so many stories told by my in-laws---in a bit of a circular way---you find out a bit here, and a bit there, and it all adds up in the end.

   I want to thank Ms. Desalvo for this book. I look forward eagerly to reading the rest of her works.