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| Name : | Patricia C. |
My Reviews
This book is a commercial written to sell people on walking. There was no new information which made reading the book not worth the time it took to read.
Didn't want to put the book down until it was finished. With all the twists in the plot one would wonder who did it.
Would never have picked the book to ready myself, but once I got started I couldn\\\'t put it down! It was a quick read and a delightful trip down memory lane with Claire in the 60\\\'s.
The story is about lost love during the internment of the Japanese Americans. It is sad and at the same time a sweet story about young love, lost love, and found love. The story brings to light traditional old world beliefs and customs sometimes clashing with the new world full of promise in America between first generation Immigrants and second or third generation Japanese Americans. It highlights the clash between generations as well as races during the World War II years and the several decades that follow. A sad but poignant story of family loyalty to traditions that are held high above the desires of an individual. Very educational and interesting, but was a slow read because of the sadness of the situation.
While the book was quite lengthy, it was interesting and informative. At times it was very sad and other times it was depressing. Amazing how a leader can affect the lives of all the followers for good or bad. In this case mostly bad.
While it is a true account of what occurred in China during those three lives, the three generations as seen through the women's lives the book would have probably been better to have three books.
Written by a survivor of one of the biggest baby adoption scandals in US history. It was sad and thought providing at the same time to know a young child had been taken from his Mother and spend years of his adult life searching for his family. The search required many barriers to be overcome in the search for his family.
Necessary Kies was an easy read and didn't want to put it down. It was well written and easy to follow the character changing each chapter. Our club wasn't aware of the sterilizations of the poor, uneducated, ill, or mentally deficient. It was sad at times, yet very informative. The author did her research and delivered a poignant story!
Our book club members could\'t put the book down until they had finished reading it. There were some amazing twists in the plot and the book was well designed.
None of us knew that there were orphan trains. The author had done such good research. Loaded with the knowledge of the orphan trains, many of our club members did further study about the trains of orphans adopted out.
There was also some good advice given by Vivian that would work well for anyone.
The movie is so much to the book except the movie didn't build the family connection as well as Captain Phillips did. Read time was triple the movie time.
The fairy tale at the beginning told the whole story. Had we stopped there we wouldn\\\'t have gotten tangled in the loves and lives of so many more characters. Just when we got the characters down there were new ones that entered the story.
We felt the symbol of the feathers was beautiful.
The good and bad in people is defined by the light as in the llighthouse. Isabel entered Tom\\\'s life and lit it up with her understanding and love, it must have been horribly difficult to lose so many babies all alone on an island with only her husband to help her through the sadness. At the same time Tom wanted Isabel to have what she couldn\\\'t have more than anything else, a child. Going through all the emotions of having a child in their care that they didn\\\'t know if she had a mother or not must have been wrenching. Once they found out that the child had a mother they should have given her back, but didn\\\'t and Tom laid dearly for that decision. Our club would have wanted a happier ending though.
This is a book that has a feel good ending. Gretchen moves back into her parents home and has to face her Mothers drinking problem head on. With a bit of time she discovers something that her Mom can be passionate about and at the same time her Mom replaces that for her drinking.
Of course, the reason for Gretchen's move back to her home town of Singapore and her parents home is the result of her marriage gone bad. Seems that Gretchen married a womanizer who always had eyes for other women.
The most delightful part of the story is learning about how soy sauce made and aged in barrels like wine and how the family soy sauce company closed a deal with a drink made of soy sauce and Sprite. I had to pick some up and try it and found it an interesting drink.
Our club members felt parts of this book were poorly written and boring. Some parts of the plot were overly developed while others would have been more interesting to the book had they been expanded on. Although one member felt what it was like to be a person of color during this time. Several thought the book timeline was earlier instead in the 80's.
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