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lizzie24601's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
A really beautiful, reflective memoir written with a unpretentious and caring voice. I really only knew Hudes from her work on In the Heights, but now I'm so excited to read her other plays. Hudes tells the story of her family with grit, honesty, and immeasurable kindness. Also, it's an added treat if you're from the Philly area and can recognize the streets young Quiara walks down!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Racism
Minor: Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Police brutality
tilo's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
I was invited to a small group discussion about this book as part of the 20th anniversary of "One Book, One Philadelphia".
[I was gifted the book but also bought the audiobook read by the author. The last 200 pages I listened to the audio version while reading simulteanously (allowing a faster read due to double speed as I was behind on pages to finish on time for the discussion). That was a fun experience and the audiobook is great.]
Being one of the few memoirs that I have read, this one made me curious about the genre. However, I do feel that a downside of this genre seems to be all the loose ends that were left by creating so many backstories to so many characters.
Nonetheless, this memoir is a refreshing insight on what issues Latinas face but focusing more on problems often overseen by white feminism such as poverty and lack of education. Interestingly enough, this book does not focus on issues caused directly by men but rather other challenges of a Latinx upbringing such as language, spirituality, and above all the question of whether one is being - in this case - "enough" Puerto Rican.
The style is beautiful and the discussion on language is fascinating. Some of the challenges of becoming an artist/writer described in this memoir comforted me in a way I was not expecting.
Again, the only but slight downside was the hinting to so many interesting sidestories that the format did not allow to be explored and the - to quote one of the members of my discussion group - "what feels like the need to include an American dream success story" which the story did not thrive upon considering all the other positive reflections on language, body, education, spirituality, and identity.
[I was gifted the book but also bought the audiobook read by the author. The last 200 pages I listened to the audio version while reading simulteanously (allowing a faster read due to double speed as I was behind on pages to finish on time for the discussion). That was a fun experience and the audiobook is great.]
Being one of the few memoirs that I have read, this one made me curious about the genre. However, I do feel that a downside of this genre seems to be all the loose ends that were left by creating so many backstories to so many characters.
Nonetheless, this memoir is a refreshing insight on what issues Latinas face but focusing more on problems often overseen by white feminism such as poverty and lack of education. Interestingly enough, this book does not focus on issues caused directly by men but rather other challenges of a Latinx upbringing such as language, spirituality, and above all the question of whether one is being - in this case - "enough" Puerto Rican.
The style is beautiful and the discussion on language is fascinating. Some of the challenges of becoming an artist/writer described in this memoir comforted me in a way I was not expecting.
Again, the only but slight downside was the hinting to so many interesting sidestories that the format did not allow to be explored and the - to quote one of the members of my discussion group - "what feels like the need to include an American dream success story" which the story did not thrive upon considering all the other positive reflections on language, body, education, spirituality, and identity.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Racism, Terminal illness, and Death of parent
Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Colonisation
caseythereader's review
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Blood, Grief, and Colonisation
bookreviewswithkb's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
i…this book…i can’t… 🤯
5/5 🦋 and a favorite. superior quality. must read. don’t miss out on this one.
as much a memoir as an ode to the author’s family and an exploration of the impact of our societal injustices on individuals and family systems. “if Nuchi was public enemy number one, if our nation’s advancement depended upon stripping her bare - she, who had barely a thread to her name - then we were a soulless people, a cruel nation dancing upon its victims’ graves.” (on ‘welfare queens’)
Quiara Alegría Hudes’s writing is lyrical and beautiful; each sentence is a poem in and of itself to be read and reread and savored. i can’t imagine how much Quiara discovered about herself while writing this memoir, and am thankful for how open and honest and vulnerable she was in her writing. i wish i could meet her and her entire family - they seem like such magnificent human beings.
this quote made me feel so seen —> “someone needed to check them, turn on the houselights and stop the show. but i stayed quiet as a confidante, a nonconfrontational good girl, the dutiful eldest, cooperative and diplomatic, every unvoiced retort piling up and burning.” 😫♥️
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse and Drug abuse
hannahdotmay's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
A memoir to rival most, My broken language is Quiara Alegría Hudes chance to tell us of girlhood in Philadelphia, an adolescent at yale and a coming of age at Brown. She, like us all, has had many iterations, a daughter of immigrants, raised in a matriarchal community built on Puerto Rican spirituality and socialist values, a writer, a composer, a playwright. She has lived many lives and laid bare both her mistakes and accolades. Language is at the heart, expressions of Spanish and Spanglish fall in equal measure. She talks of an upbringing surrounded by a community language, one that united her family but separated her as she climbed the echelons of social mobility, joining her middle-class counterparts studying Bach and Mozart, in the hallowed halls of Yale. Background commentary on the AIDS epidemic, how it ravaged her specific community, how they lacked the words or desire to express the grief from a hideous disease, her phrasing is so poignant, she talks of hushed voices and gaunt cheeks, watching loved ones waste away and wondering in her childhood naivety, what she could have done differently. Poverty, neglect and gentrification are rife among her smart social commentary, houses that weren’t built to hold families, mothers who weren’t always equipped to raise sons. There is an absence of masculinity as Hudes attributes much of her selfhood to her mother, a community activist and spiritual leader, a woman among women who raised her and her cousins, and taught them lessons of self-love and respect. She talks of the legacy of a body, the curves that were passed down through generations, the love she had for families of thick thighs and luscious chests, she speaks only of skinny when it shows illness and hurt, ‘I didn’t learn about [it] until blood sickness rolled into town’ it compares to in the dream house, to how we fight for our lives, to hunger a memoir of my body. It is a memoir of self hood and belonging, a white America obsessed with assimilation and a thriving community who are competing to show them, western isn’t the only way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Grief, and Abortion