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thedogmother's review
Powerful and lyrical, Hudes memoir is a beautiful song celebrating her family and culture. Ultimately, the writing was too literary and arty for me. Again, I find myself totally unable to get immersed in these heavily poetic texts that used to be my jam back in my English major days. The content was both interesting and important. I really enjoyed learning about her mother's spirituality, but the delivery of that great content just didn't capture me.
There's super relatable passage that I want to keep here: "Instead, did something at my core disappoint mom? Some ingrained selfhood guaranteeing her displeasure would stick forever? And I finally let loose the thought I hated thinking, tired and obvious as it was, and unresolved as it would remain. Was I not Puerto Rican enough? The next thought was new. Was mom not Puerto Rican enough? Had years in Philly resulted in her own selfhood slipping away, rendering my halfness an abrasion in her migrant wound?"
There's super relatable passage that I want to keep here: "Instead, did something at my core disappoint mom? Some ingrained selfhood guaranteeing her displeasure would stick forever? And I finally let loose the thought I hated thinking, tired and obvious as it was, and unresolved as it would remain. Was I not Puerto Rican enough? The next thought was new. Was mom not Puerto Rican enough? Had years in Philly resulted in her own selfhood slipping away, rendering my halfness an abrasion in her migrant wound?"
monalyisha's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
I was so enamored with this (audio)book that I put off reviewing it, convinced I’d never be able to do it justice. You know what never helps me write a better review? WAITING. 🙈
Seven months into the year, My Broken Language is tied (with Turtle Diary) for my favorite book thus far. It’s got everything I love: writing about writing, a complicated spirituality, the sacred mixed with the profane, a mother-daughter relationship, humor, earnestness, and utterly gorgeous prose.
I suppose it was a little long but honestly, I could have listened forever. It’s possible I should be taking off the merest quarter of a star; I would prefer not to.
Seven months into the year, My Broken Language is tied (with Turtle Diary) for my favorite book thus far. It’s got everything I love: writing about writing, a complicated spirituality, the sacred mixed with the profane, a mother-daughter relationship, humor, earnestness, and utterly gorgeous prose.
I suppose it was a little long but honestly, I could have listened forever. It’s possible I should be taking off the merest quarter of a star; I would prefer not to.
stanro's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
This starts as a simple tale of a growing child, whose Peurto Rican mother and Jewish father move from Philadelphia to a farm, and then back (without the father) when the marriage ends. Philadelphia is not a place that has appeared much in my reading, and I’m liking being there in this way.
The book is drifting by me pleasantly enough, though as a mainly “serious” reader I’m wondering how this so rapidly scaled the heights of my TBR, when I’m arrested by a tale of … I don’t want to spoil it … but it shocks and appals me and concerns the author’s Peurto Rican grandmother. This, together with the closely preceding references to the mother’s union and community building activity, means I’m getting hooked 😀.
Quiara’s mother goes through a spiritual transformation - really a return to roots. And Quiaria faces the question, to approach or retreat from her mother’s spiritual activities.
Quiaría also questions who she is, using facility in language, or lack of it, as a marker. At one point she places herself thus: “English, halting Spanish and advanced conversational Du Champs …”
This is the story in first person of the writer of the musical The Heights, performed in many countries, and how she was made into the person who could write it.
Despite her excited description of meeting Paula Vogel, a playwright enthusiastically and successfully running an academic postgraduate course at a significant US University, I found I lost interest in its following stages for a while.
But late in the book there is a joyous song to the variety of her female relatives’ naked bodies and then some critique of mainstream female idealisation. And through it all is the recurring losses amongst family that she so sadly experiences. Worth the ride! 4⭐️ #areadersjourney
itsmeamethyst's review
5.0
This beautiful memoir is about Quiara Alegría Hudes finding her voice and navigating her place in the world as a Philly native and daughter to a Puerto Rican feminist and White hippie. From her start in West Philly to attending Yale, it is her evolution of being ashamed of her broken Spanish to embracing language as fluid and writing in a way that was authentic for her and representative of the people around her.
One of my favorite parts in this book is her apology to her mother for correcting her English while she was growing up. She states, “As if the words I write are my language and not hers. The woman who taught me English…I eat my words. I eat my corrections como una comemierda. Mom, if you ever read this book (and make it this far without disowning me), I ask you one favor: break this English language today and tomorrow and the day after and bestow it new life with each breaking. Endow your fullness upon this cracked colonial tongue. You language genius. This is your English. You earned it. I am only a guest here.”
She shares three generations of family stories that ultimately shaped her into the woman she is. These are stories of home, relationships, family, self-discovery, loss, spirituality, community care and activism, passion and talent, and breaking silence. She tells these stories to capture them, so they would not be lost to history and because she felt an otherworldly drive to write them.
Grateful to Quiara Alegría Hudes, Penguin Random House, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I had not heard about this book or its author until discovering it on NetGalley, and My Broken Language is one of the best books I have read this year. I cannot wait to read Hudes’ prior work and see what she does next. She already has a Pulitzer Prize under her belt and has written the book for the Tony-winning Broadway musical, In the Heights then adapted it for the screen.
One of my favorite parts in this book is her apology to her mother for correcting her English while she was growing up. She states, “As if the words I write are my language and not hers. The woman who taught me English…I eat my words. I eat my corrections como una comemierda. Mom, if you ever read this book (and make it this far without disowning me), I ask you one favor: break this English language today and tomorrow and the day after and bestow it new life with each breaking. Endow your fullness upon this cracked colonial tongue. You language genius. This is your English. You earned it. I am only a guest here.”
She shares three generations of family stories that ultimately shaped her into the woman she is. These are stories of home, relationships, family, self-discovery, loss, spirituality, community care and activism, passion and talent, and breaking silence. She tells these stories to capture them, so they would not be lost to history and because she felt an otherworldly drive to write them.
Grateful to Quiara Alegría Hudes, Penguin Random House, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I had not heard about this book or its author until discovering it on NetGalley, and My Broken Language is one of the best books I have read this year. I cannot wait to read Hudes’ prior work and see what she does next. She already has a Pulitzer Prize under her belt and has written the book for the Tony-winning Broadway musical, In the Heights then adapted it for the screen.
hnfive's review
3.0
3.5 stars
Some absolutely beautiful language and ideas expressed. A love story to Philadelphia which I enjoyed. It took me a long time to get through the book and I think part of the storytelling was why. I know I shouldn't have this complaint because the book is called "my broken language" but there are parts I did not understand.
Some absolutely beautiful language and ideas expressed. A love story to Philadelphia which I enjoyed. It took me a long time to get through the book and I think part of the storytelling was why. I know I shouldn't have this complaint because the book is called "my broken language" but there are parts I did not understand.