Books and Sensibility

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Memoir

Fresh Off The Boat by Eddie Huang

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  • Release Date: January 29, 2013
  • Audiobook Hours: 7 hours and 55 minutes
  • Genre: Memoir
  • Publisher: Speigel & Grau (Random House)

I really wanted to start this review by saying something like ‘move over Anthony Bourdain, there’s a new bad boy chef on the market, but that doesn’t really fit what Huang is trying to do with this book. While Huang’s claim to fame is his restaurant, Baohaus, this book isn’t really a food memoir. It’s about Huang’s fraught relationship with his Asian identity while growing up around what he calls American Whiteness.

As he recounts growing up in suburban Orlando Huang dismantles the idea of the model minority. Fear of assimilation is a point of tension for him. There is a long history of America being the worst to Asian immigrants and then erasing them from history. His story is a story we don’t hear and I think Huang put together a biting and honest memoir that was also entertaining.

Most people are probably familiar with the ABC show based on this book and while I enjoy the show Iknew Huang publicly expresseda lot of dislike for it and after reading his memoir I get it. ABC bowdlerized the crap out of his story, but kept his family’s names are all over it. I think when Huang sold the rights for a show he wanted something like Aziz Ansaris’s show Master of None where they tackle issues of racism with more dark humor and edge that doesn’t care about offending the audience.

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Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorius

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  • U.S. Release Date: November 12, 2013
  • Page Number: 304
  • Genre: Nonfiction
  • U.S. Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishing (Harper Collins)

I’ve recently become an NPR podcast junkie and I’m really loving their new podcast Invisibilia, about “the intangible things that shape human behavior.” Each week the hosts tell stories of people who have rare psychological or neurological experiences–on of their first stories is of Martin Pistorius, a South African man who spent six years trapped in his own body. After I heard this story, I had to know more and was happy to see his memoir was on Scribd.

When Pistorius (who as far as I can tell is not related to the convicted South African athlete Oscar Pistorius) is 12-years-old he develops a degenerative brain condition that leaves him mute and unable to move. Doctors couldn’t diagnose him and his parents were told he had the mind of a 3 month old and to take him home to wait for him to die. Only Martin doesn’t die and a few year later his mind comes back, but not his motor skills or speech. He can’t tell anyone he’s back and he lives like a ghost boy as the people around him assume he isn’t comprehending what he sees.  It takes six years for his parents to finally  figure out he was aware and the book is his reflections on his time as a ghost boy and  his journey learning how to communicate using technology.

This book tells a really incredible story. Martin becomes well known in the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) community and it’s interesting to see all the people he meets as he goes to conference. It can be a little nightmare inducing too. One of his friends was paralyzed from the eyes down from a stroke at the age of twenty-five.But it’s amazing the amount of technology and work being done so everyone has a voice.

The parts I found most interesting are the parts where he tells the things he sees people do when they think no one is looking. He observes many of his caregivers mostly at their worse, but also some at their best.

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This Star Won’t Go Out by Esther Earl with Lori and Wayne Earl

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  • Release Date: January 28th 2014
  • Genre: YA Nonfiction / Memoir
  • Pages: 428
  • Publisher: Dutton (Penguin)

Synopsis: In full color and illustrated with art and photographs, this is a collection of the journals, fiction, letters, and sketches of the late Esther Grace Earl, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 16. Essays by family and friends help to tell Esther’s story along with an introduction by award-winning author John Green who dedicated his #1 bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars to her.

This book debuted around the time I finished Fault in Our Stars (I know… super late to the party) but I had no intention of reading it. Then  I saw it on the shelf at the library and decided why not? I had seen some of Esther’s videos on YouTube, visited her family’s foundation website when she first passed, and I thought I knew most of  Esther Earl’s story. 



Well, that turned out to be completely wrong.…

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Book Review : Orange is The New Black by Piper Kerman

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  • Release Date : April 6th 2010
  • Genre : Nonfiction/Memoir
  • Publisher : Random House (Spiegel & Grau)
  • Pages : 298

 

 

 

Synopsis :With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424

I finally made the leap into nonfiction with my first adult memoir ! Chances are you’ve heard of this title as the book has recently been adapted into hit Netflix television show (or is it web series ?)  I started watching the show while reading the book and it gave me a really interesting look into adaptations.

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