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-Maxine Hong Kingston
"Night after night my mother would talk-story until we fell asleep. I couldn't tell where the stories left off and the dreams began..."
A beautiful and complicated story. I've heard people say that they dislike the narrator, but I somehow find myself entranced by her, her story, how she tells her account of growing up in a strange place (amidst what it is to be American, Chinese, and Chinese-American) that can't be easily explained. It is a study of relationships, primarily between the narrator and her mother, but it contains so much more.
This is not an "easy" book, and I understand why some dislike it. For me, though, it pierced me, hitting some part of me that wouldn't stop bleeding once it had been touched. It made sense, although it was disturbing. Perhaps it is best described this way, from a New York Times reviewer: "it is dizzying, elemental, a poem turned into a sword."
It is tough for me to name favorites, but I would say that this is probably my favorite book. I don't love it for a warm fuzzy feeling or satisfying resolution. I love it for its confusion, beauty, and layers of depth.
"Be careful what you say. It comes true. It comes true."
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