Rating: 
Summary: Unexpectedly powerful
Review: As you may have noted, the reviews on this book were very mixed. Nonetheless, I picked it up and was unable to put it down for days. The stories are engaging, and at times extremely graphic and disturbing... You will laugh and cry out loud, and ultimately care for and connect to the characters that are involved in desperate times that we can only hope we never have the opportunity to witness.
Rating: 
Summary: Folk tales in the context of Filipino Culture a la Amy Tan
Review: Found out about this book because of the writer who is from San Francisco and did a book signing at one of the local bookstores. The book is a story about the last days of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War 2. In it there are tales of the people in the culture that cover the span of three generations including the days of Spanish colonization. These stories are nice stories about the complex relationships of people that bear a burden of one sort of another. The stories range from tales of forbidden love, to unwarranted jealousy, to the anguish of letting go of a loved one. Her narrative style of writing in the first person brings alive the thoughts of the main character's thoughts and personality as they try to make sense of the world around them. The war serves as a backdrop of the book in a sense but yet serves as a good platform of bringing these diverse stories together. Holthe has a good sense of transitioning between stories to make the overall plot of the book stay together. She introduces the character in the background and slowly brings in the character. At first you'll think that the person is, for example, a old tight-fisted woman who wouldn't give a penny to a leper. But as she tells her story you are introduced to their life in vibrant detail and feel what's burning in her soul. When the reader is brought back into the main storyline you get a new perspective of the old woman and the story makes the reader more humble.
This book all in all is a great read for those who like folk tales. Perhaps some day there will be a movie in the works for this book.
Rating:
Summary: Folk tales in the context of Filipino Culture a la Amy Tan
Review: Found out about this book because of the writer who is from San Francisco and did a book signing at one of the local bookstores. The book is a story about the last days of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War 2. In it there are tales of the people in the culture that cover the span of three generations including the days of Spanish colonization. These stories are nice stories about the complex relationships of people that bear a burden of one sort of another. The stories range from tales of forbidden love, to unwarranted jealousy, to the anguish of letting go of a loved one. Her narrative style of writing in the first person brings alive the thoughts of the main character's thoughts and personality as they try to make sense of the world around them. The war serves as a backdrop of the book in a sense but yet serves as a good platform of bringing these diverse stories together. Holthe has a good sense of transitioning between stories to make the overall plot of the book stay together. She introduces the character in the background and slowly brings in the character. At first you'll think that the person is, for example, a old tight-fisted woman who wouldn't give a penny to a leper. But as she tells her story you are introduced to their life in vibrant detail and feel what's burning in her soul. When the reader is brought back into the main storyline you get a new perspective of the old woman and the story makes the reader more humble.
This book all in all is a great read for those who like folk tales. Perhaps some day there will be a movie in the works for this book.
Rating: 
Summary: It's not good enough...
Review: Good story line? Yes. Good novel? No. And don't even think of acquiring the book to read if you are a stickler to accuracy in details and conceptions. In this respect, the book is deeply irritating. For a novel that was set in a specific geographical area, forget about distances being measured in miles or kilometers as we know it. In this book, one can walk a hundred miles in just half a night. A character even rode a horse from Manila to climb the limestone cliffs of Coron in the same morning. Geographically, Coron is an island some 250 miles to the southwest across open seas. The author was not familiar with the fauna of the country. I believe she didn't know the distinction between a carabao and a caribou. She even had a young boy who had never been out of the islands comparing his prizefighter hero to a fierce mountain lion. There are no mountain lions over there. And how about local practices? She had a wedding rehearsal happening in a church on the night of Good Friday. That would never happen in Catholic Philippines. And how would you like to read about roasted pig leftovers that stayed steaming hot for hours or trying to shield oneself from flying dust right after a heavy rainstorm?In her notes, the author touched on why most of her characters had Spanish surnames. Well, she could have been more consistent by also sticking to the correct spelling of common Filipino names and had Tirso instead of Tearso, Lualhati for Lualhatte, and Celso for Selso. Okay, go read the book. Even just to see how a novel could have risen above the ordinary by a little more research and good editing.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating interweave of myth with reality
Review: Holthe tells a story of the last days of the Japanese occupation of the Phillipines, of one extended family in hiding in a basement, sending 2-3 at a time out to find food. They are caught, tortured, raped; they escape (or not)and return to leave yet again. And in between, they tell family history, stories, myths, and folk tales to help explain the milieu in which they are living and the motivations for their sometimes inexplicable behavior.
A brave and worthy first novel that gets better and better as it goes along. Organized in four 'books,' with each told in first person by 4 different people, including a guerrilla for the resistance. By the midpoint, the author has hit her stride.
A worthy read.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written...
Review: I am an American Born Filipina. I knew I had to buy this book the moment I saw Isabelle Allende's review in the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday Book section. I started this book on a Friday night and finished it Sunday afternoon. I couldn't put it down. I never knew the horrors of WWII in my ancestors country were to that extent. Knowing that this book was fiction based on someone's experience did not take away the impact it had on me. I had to close the book on my way home on the MUNI(subway system in San Francico) because I started to cry. Eveything that Tess Holthe wrote about I could see, feel and even smell. The stories that the villagers told reminded me of my own childhood and the stories we would make our grandmother tell. Reading this book taught me the importance of knowing your people's history. I highly recommend this book to everyone, especially American-born Filipinos, who may or may not know this piece of Philippine History.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but¿
Review: I am not bothered by the misspelled Tagalog phrases, and there are quite a few. Nor by the fact that Domingo Matapang's dog is named Pogi in World War II, when the word, a streetslang derivative of guwapo, which means handsome, came into use only in the 60's. I wouldn't call the melodrama melodramatic either; I'd call it simply being Filipino. I enjoyed the book, but would have preferred the stories within the main narrative told in a manner matching the escalation of war. The stories, while supposed to have been told by different people, sounded like they were coming from one source and all too uniform in style. I'm proud to be Filipino, am astounded by the recent emergence of Filipino-American literature in writers like Brian Ascalon Rowley (American Son), Peter Bacho (Cebu), Bino Realuyo (Umbrella Country), but I can't quite say this is magic realism along the lines of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (A Hundred Years of Solitude) and Louis de Bernieres (The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman). Just the same, kudos to Tess Uriza Holthe. I hope she keeps on writing.
Rating:
Summary: Touching and Revealing...
Review: I am very fortunate to be able to read a book that describe the lives of Filipinos during WWII, Spiritual beliefs, and family culture. It is a novel that not only touches our culture but reveals the true meaning of being a Filipino. I will definitely share this book to all my friends.
Rating:
Summary: Great stories marred by poor editing and research
Review: I enjoyed the stories immensely. It reminded me of the stories that my parents and grandparents told me when I was growing up in the Philippines. It also captured the fatalism that is common with Filipinos, largely because of 350 years of Spanish rule and a Roman Catholic culture. However, the book did not live up to the hype. First, I found the Tagalog sentences peppered all over the book to be distracting and dilettante-like. Being fluent in Tagalog, I was turned off by the inaccuracies in the language. The author would have done better to skip half of her attempts at demonstrating her apparently rudimentary knowlege of Tagalog. Second, the author's editor seems to have fallen asleep while reviewing this book. There were typographical errors, in addition to the inaccuracies in the Tagalog language, that were prevalent and could have been corrected easily. Additionally, there were instances where the English seemed like it was written by someone who speaks English as a second language, when it was apparent that the situation did not call for this nuance, because the majority of the book has the characters speaking in Tagalog, translated to English. Third, a few of the items presented as historical facts did not make sense, for example, when a famous Tagalog song was written. Again the editing and research seem to have been sacrificed for high drama.
Rating:
Summary: Difficult, but satisfying, book
Review: I found this book difficult to read because of the historical accuracy of the story. The writing was incredibly vivid, often causing the disturbing images to literally come to life and spring off the pages. None the less, the writing's intense and accurate retelling of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II, was well served by this vivid and detailed style of writing. Within the book are woven first person narratives from different characters - each telling the current circumstances of war through their own eyes, and giving a bit of their personal history as well. Uriza Holthe imbues this personal history with realism, retelling actual Filipino folk tales and archetypal lore. The books ending is tragic but realistic and expected; the author braces the reader, throughout the book, to take the difficult and non-storybook ending. 'When Elephants Dance' is a worthwhile and ultimately, satisfying book.
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