An intensely reflective tale of a family uprooted by war, cast adrift onto a sea of uncertainty.
In this memoir, a young Chinese boy in exile faces a difficult adolescence in Hong Kong and Malaysia.
In the spring of 1949, as the Communists under Mao Zedong were consolidating their victory over Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang government for control over China, the Hung family made the difficult decision to leave the country and live in exile in Hong Kong. The father had worked for the Kuomintang and feared reprisal from the Communists. Along with Mother and Father Hung and their five children was their youngest child, Yum Tuen (later James). However, life in Hong Kong and, subsequently, in Malaysia was much different than the prosperous existence they had known in China. Short on money and unable to find employment, the family crumbled. Constantly stalked by hunger and living in grinding poverty, they bounced from one wretched dwelling to another, as the depressed father and overwhelmed mother ceded control of the family to a psychotic “Big Sister,” who thought nothing of fighting her siblings with a razor blade concealed in her fist. Things eventually improved, however, and the book ends with the author as a young man—now a doctor—going to school in Hawaii; a second book detailing the author’s later life is planned. Though a bit long, Hung’s book is a harrowing example of a historically familiar event: people on the losing side of war being forced to leave behind their lives for an uncertain existence elsewhere. The author draws a vivid picture of how miserable life often was, sparing no one from scrutiny, especially his parents, who can’t seem to understand the concept of saving for a rainy day despite how often it storms. Fortunately, Hung’s memoir isn’t just a list of events. In despair, he frequently questions the role of God, essentially asking the age-old question: Why do bad things happen to good people? There’s also humor, as in the title, which amusingly refers to the author’s attempts to learn English.
An intensely reflective tale of a family uprooted by war, cast adrift onto a sea of uncertainty.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0615758190
Page Count: 390
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A short, simple, and sweet tale about two friends and a horse.
A novel tells the story of two spirited girls who set out to save a lame foal in 1952.
Mary, age 12, lacks muscle control of her legs and must use a wheelchair. Her life is constantly interrupted by trips with her widower father to assorted doctors, all of whom have failed to help her. Mary tolerates the treatments, hoping to one day walk unassisted, but her true passion involves horses. Possessing a library filled with horse books, she loves watching and drawing the animals at a neighboring farm. She longs to own one herself. But her father, overprotective due to her disability and his own lingering grief over Mary’s dead mother, makes her keep her distance. Mary befriends Laura, the emotionally neglected daughter of the wealthy neighboring farm owners, and the two share secret buggy rides. Both girls are attracted to Illusion, a beautiful red bay filly on the farm. Mary learns that Illusion is to be put down by a veterinarian because of a lame leg. Horrified, she decides to talk to the barn manager about the horse (“Isn’t it okay for her to live even if she’s not perfect? I think she deserves a chance”). Soon, Mary and Laura attempt to raise money to save Illusion. At the same time, Mary begins to gain control of her legs thanks to water therapy and secret therapeutic riding with Laura. There is indeed a great deal of poignancy in a story of a girl with a disability fighting to defend the intrinsic value of a lame animal. But this book, the first installment of the Dream Horse Adventure Series, would be twice as touching if Mary interacted with Illusion more. In the tale’s opening, she watches the foal from afar, but she actually spends very little time with the filly she tries so hard to protect. This turns out to be a strange development given the degree to which the narrative relies on her devotion. Count (Selah’s Sweet Dream, 2015) draws Mary and Laura in broad but believable strokes, defined mainly by their unrelenting pluckiness in the face of adversity. While the work tackles disability, death, and grief, Mary’s and Laura’s environments are so idyllic and their optimism and perseverance so remarkable that the story retains an aura of uncomplicated gentleness throughout.
A short, simple, and sweet tale about two friends and a horse.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Hastings Creations Group
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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