Hello! Karen Stokes here. As a bibliophile and a new addition to the Times. I am excited to offer my opinion and review of books I have read. While I am not an English major or literary juggernaut, I will review books by discussing plot, characters and writing.
For example, does the plot move forward smoothly or was it riddled with plot holes and tangents? I’m looking for characters who are believable, who grow when needed and who seem true throughout. Is the writing challenging, good, simple, beautiful or just plain bad?
Agree or agree to disagree, that’s what makes reviews fun. Books get us talking about something we have shared in common. We need that more than ever these days.
For my first review, I recommend Feeding Ghosts, a Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls. This non-fiction work of art earlier this year became the first-ever graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize for memoirs. It uses illustrations and sequential art combined with words to tell a deeply-moving story.
I must confess that I am not a fan of graphic novels. I often find the artwork too stark and harsh, the writing a bit cryptic. But while I started this book with reservations, I soon became hooked!
The story is about three generations of Chinese and Chinese-American women, their complicatedly intertwined lives and the trauma that is passed down amongst them.
Sun Yi, the author’s grandmother, was a Shanghai journalist who spent eight years caught in China’s political upheaval, which lead to the 1949 Communist victory. She eventually flees to Hong Kong with her daughter, Rose, (Tessa’s mother) to forge a life there.
Rose is sent to a boarding school in Hong Kong. Sun Yi suffers a mental breakdown while Rose is away and is committed to a mental institution. Rose eventually travels to the United States on a scholarship and brings her mother to live with her.
Tessa is Rose’s daughter and the author of the novel. She grows up under the weight of Sun Yi’s unexamined trauma and mental illness and her mother’s fears about life. In an effort to escape the emotional trauma, Tessa travels the world but comes to realize her freedom is more about avoidance than adventure, so she returns to spend a decade researching and writing her book.
The author offers a wonderful interplay of history with a beautiful collective of voices in her narration. She relays her matriarchs’ heart-wrenching stories in a measured and objective perspective, all the while demonstrating vulnerability and honesty when working through the emotional traumas from her family’s past. Tessa does an amazing job of living in her history.
The book’s storyline moves seamlessly between the different characters’ timelines and the author’s commentary, keeping events well connected. The author’s goal of self-examination and unraveling of her family dynamics is surprisingly relatable. While not everyone shares Chinese genealogy, we can all understand family trauma.
The characters are incredibly well developed. I did not feel any gaps or thinness in how Ms. Hull presented her family. Most importantly, I could sense the love and respect she has for her mother and grandmother, even as she wrote about their complicated relationships.
The history of China in her family’s timeline also read for me as a character. I have never studied China’s history and, frankly, it is brutal. As I read about the fall of a dynasty and the rise of a new, vicious government, an eerie recognition of a country’s ideological shifts could not be shaken.
It was emotionally challenging to read about both the horrors of the political upheaval in China and Hong Kong at that time in history and about her grandmother’s experiences. It all made for a heavy read. The text blocks were dense at times, yet very concise and well written. Sometimes, I had to put the book down and take a mental break. However, I could not resist picking it up again.
In summary, I highly recommend this book for its captivating plot, gripping characters and excellent writing.
