Quotes
"In return we have always tried to show our deepest respect. We went to your house. We brought you money. We sang your songs. You gave us more blessings. And now we have misplaced one of them. We were careless. This is true. We had so many good things, we couldn't keep them in our mind all the time.
"So maybe you hid him from us to teach us a lesson, to be more careful with your gifts in the future. I have learned this. I have put it in my memory.
Impressions
3.5/4. Rounded down to 3.
The book was quite a hard, emotional and complex read for me, but totally worth it. The overarching theme of immigrant children having a hard time communicating and understanding their Asian mothers is powerful and heartbreaking. As a reader, you just can't help but feel sadness, anger and sympathy for every character.
Personally, since I'm not a child of immigrant parents, I feel like it's not my place to speak about how well the book portrays that part. But I can relate to just how difficult it is trying to find a common ground with my own mother, despite us speaking the same language.
The reason why I gave the book 3.5 stars, instead of 4 or more, is that I think the book lacks something. The fact that the book is about four women and their four mothers, and their connections was initially unclear to me. I got quite far into the book before I realized that I wasn't reading about just one person. And I take full blame for that. It's truly my fault. I went into the book completely blind. I think this book will definitely work even better for me on my second read, but I just need to give the story some time to settle, before I read it again.
