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jazzsonnet's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Grief
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
hanhantap's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Racism, Terminal illness, and Xenophobia
Minor: Sexual content and Sexual harassment
strange's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Racism, Grief, Medical trauma, Colonisation, and Classism
Moderate: Addiction, Chronic illness, Death, Fatphobia, Infertility, and Racial slurs
Minor: Bullying, Genocide, Homophobia, Infidelity, and Police brutality
tctimlin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I am partial to this coming of age story in part because the author grew up in Philadelphia, negotiating between her white Jewish father’s suburban life with his second family and her Puerto Rican mother’s extended family in the Latinx neighborhood of north Philadelphia. She is honest about the crises within her community (including crack epidemic and AIDS) and about her ability to navigate her way out (she went to a public academic magnet high school and then Ivy League universities). A successful lyricist for Broadway musicals, she also writes with a lyrical touch.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Drug use, Racism, Religious bigotry, Cultural appropriation, and Classism
koreanlinda's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
The book presented itself to me while roaming in a local library. I was in the middle of running a project with my writing class students on language use. My students, already multilingual in their home countries, were learning American English as community college students. I wanted to offer an opportunity for them to know that there is a variety of Englishes spoken in the United States, and all the languages they speak share equal values. It was my attempt to shatter the internalized misconception of some students who say, “I speak broken English” or “My English is bad.”
Quiara Alegria Hudes turned out to be a friend of my partner who grew up in Philadelphia. His family still lived in the vicinity of Philadelphia, and through yearly visits, I got to know about the region’s racial and ethnic diversity as well as its segregation. Hudes told me much more about it through her personal stories. But I got more than mere information about Philly’s populations; I got affirmed for what I had been doing myself—telling my story. Hudes talks about the Perez women from her Puerto Rican mother’s side, and I talk about my people, Korean women. “By naming our pain and voicing our imperfections, we declare our tremendous survivals.”
Hudes also talks about the disparity between life with her family in North Philly and one at her elite schools, Yale and then Brown. While studying “white” music—Western classical—at Yale, Hudes missed her hometown music: at funerals, at graveside visits, at praise ceremonies, at after-work hangs, during morning showers, or from cars rolling by. In contrast to her classmates who grew up with English-speaking parents and grandparents with advanced degrees, Hudes’ elders were educated in various languages, inconsistently. Instead of verbal communication, other means took the main stage in her family’s connection: dancing, ass-slapping, cooking, eating, hair-dressing, and banging a pot to beats.
At the end of the book, Hudes brings back the significance of the Perez women’s bodies. Although White society deems them fat, they celebrated their bodies as living proof of their survival. Despite their disconnection from the homeland and earth, they carried all their spirits in “one human-size patch of the earth”: their bodies.
Review by Linda (she/they) in January 2023
Twitter @KoreanLindaPark
Essay writer at DefinitelyNotOkay.com
Podcaster at AmericanKsisters.com
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism
hollyd19's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This memoir is a masterpiece.
Quiara Algería Hudes uses every inch of this book to embrace her wholeness in a world hostile to her nuances. When discussing this read with my book club, someone described Hudes as a stained glass window and I cannot imagine a more apt comparison.
Recounting her childhood, Hudes invites the readers alongside her journey to find language to encapsulate the many dimensions of her identity: Puerto Rican, daughter, Jewish, white-passing, English-Spanglish-Spanish speaking, cousin, North Philly resident, pianist, big sister, activist, Quaker, academic… Her deeply bonded maternal family grounds her and empowers her search for her truth. Her mother, a practitioner of Santería, fosters Quiara’s curiosity, self-confidence, and ambition. Her tias and cousins expand her world and provide ballast when seas are rocky. Her neighborhood offers community, connection, and courage.
Hudes is a gifted storyteller and I was struck by the richness of her language, especially in a book ostensibly dedicated to its “brokenness.” She seamlessly intertwines cultures, dialects, and slang across seemingly disparate groups — a skill honed as she grew into a Pulitzer-winning composer and playwright. I alternated the physical book with the audiobook which added verisimilitude to the reading experience (Hudes narrates herself). Additionally, Hudes commits to telling her story honestly but not tragically. She doesn’t dwell on the hardest parts of her life. Instead, she acknowledges them plainly but spends much more energy celebrating the Perez women in all their diverse, indefatigable glory.
I turned the last page with enlivened understanding and fresh hope. I so deeply recommend this read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Grief
Moderate: Addiction, Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Infidelity, Racism, and Colonisation
Minor: Child death, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy
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
martachbc's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, but I absolutely loved it. Hudes has such a way with words (if you didn’t know from her book work for In the Heights and Vivo). She expressed a uniquely American experience, but also one that’s unique to her and her Puerto Rican family, while finding that commonality of the human experience we can all connect. I’m not sure how much more talented this woman could be! My only complaint is I prefer a more linear narrative (it’s a mixture). Come for the beautiful storytelling, stay for the learning experience.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, and Racism
Moderate: Grief
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