melpomenestears's review
4.0
I laughed. I cried. I felt seen. Deborah Miranda is such a wonderfully powerful and poignant writer. It was such a unique read filled with poetry and photos. It focused on her own personal story as an Indigenous woman and discussed tribal histories and advocated for reflection. Such a powerful read.
dlberglund's review
4.0
I don't know that I've read a book like this before. Parts of it were personal memoir, letting us peer into her childhood full of addiction-soaked abuse and terror, and occasionally love and learning. Parts of it were poetry, both personal and with a bigger lens. Parts of it were history lessons, including scans and passages from historical documents from the California mission system and ethnographers’ attempts to catalog the stories of the indigenous people who had been colonized (tortured, enslaved) by the mission system. I learned so much about the author’s Chumash and Esselen history, knowing it still only scratches the surface. My favorite part was the language diary section toward the end, when Deborah enrolls in intensive summer language sessions, first to learn Spanish and then to learn how to learn her ancestors’ Native languages, using historical records and university collections. I certainly wouldn't recommend this book for everyone, but it was a perspective and a history I needed to read right now.
forestwith1r's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
eire2011's review
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
This was such a fascinating story mixed with heartache with generational trauma, loss of ancestral lands, loss of family, culture and yet a glimpse of hope and so very much strength and perseverance.
I highly recommend reading this.
Trigger warnings: death, rape, cultural appropriation, generational trauma, racial slurs, imprisonment, forced servitude, war
I highly recommend reading this.
Trigger warnings: death, rape, cultural appropriation, generational trauma, racial slurs, imprisonment, forced servitude, war
themaritimebookworm's review against another edition
4.75
“Sometimes something is so badly broken you cannot recreate its original shape at all. If you try, you create a deformed, imperfect image of what you’ve lost; you will always compare what your creation looks like with what it used to look like.”
Quick Summary
A memoir of the troubled history of the authors family.
Final Thoughts
This nonfiction is right up alley. The only thing stopping me from a 5 star review is I found myself being almost jumped around at times. I wanted to learn more about the author and about their family history but it wasn't organized in a way my brain could totally enjoy.
Quick Summary
A memoir of the troubled history of the authors family.
Final Thoughts
This nonfiction is right up alley. The only thing stopping me from a 5 star review is I found myself being almost jumped around at times. I wanted to learn more about the author and about their family history but it wasn't organized in a way my brain could totally enjoy.
miocyon's review
5.0
I loved this beautiful, tragic, elegiac, historical book. It’s the memoir of the author, but not just of her life, but the life of her ancestors - the native peoples of California. She goes all the way back to before the Missions, dispelling the myths about their founding and work, through the dispersal of her people, and up to her own life, including her personal histories, myths and tragedies, especially those relating to her father. It’s all presented in a way I don’t usually enjoy - with prose, poetry, transcriptions - but in this case it actually drew me in. I want to find more memoirs like this now.