Rating: 
Summary: Very good book!
Review: Edwidge Danticat has written a very interesting story. The relationships between grandmother, mother, and daughter are well developed. I would recommend this book to anymore that likes to read about women and family relationships.
Rating: 
Summary: Exquisite !!!
Review: I found this book to be positively exquisite. With the recent proliferation of trash in the genre of popular African American fiction, it was heartwarming to read a piece like this. Popular fiction has its place but my true thirst is for literature by talented black writers.I am not sure if I was more mesmerized by the story or the skillful prose. It takes a REAL writer to create imagery. It takes skill, study and a very special gift. Though the subject matter was not what I expected, the mother/daughter/aunt/grandmother bond truly represented a family tree. If one had any empathy at all, they were able to see and feel each point of view. Sophie's painful acceptance of her mother as a person who did the very best she could with the cards she was dealt should be a lesson to all adult children to stop blaming and for parents to stop feeling guilty. I had to put down Krik-Krak because I found it too sad at the time. I will go back to finish it and anxiousl! y await the next novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Fabulously well written.
Review: I, too, found this book engaging. My only complaint is that the characters could have been better developed. It is important to remember that this book is written from the point of view of the girl and is limited to her perceptions and observations. We view Haiti through her eyes only. We know that from the beginning and should be careful when making assumptions that this book attempts to represent the entire nation. I don't think it claims to do that. It's just one girl's story. I thoroughly enjoyed this read and the musical language and cadence. Most books these days are stilted or juvenile, but this one did not disappoint me.
Rating:
Summary: captivating and informational
Review: In seach of finding a book for the Black Women's Literary Guild, my book discussion group, to discuss, I was "forced" to investigate "Breath, Eyes, Memory" because it was so highly acclaimed, and because finding a meaningful book written by a Black person was becomming difficult. I approached the book feeling that I did not really want to read it, that I was not going to enjoy it, but decided to persevere. After a few pages, and after I had become accustomed to the lyrical rhythmn of the sentences, I was magically drawn into the story--accent and all. Although I have, studied the history of, I have not visited Haiti, however,my vivid imagination allowed me to place myself in the most rural sections of those Caribbean Islands I've visited--this I imagined, to be my mind's picture of Haiti. By the end of the story, I was so taken by reading about the culture, the mores, and relationships, that I felt short-changed with what I considered an abrupt.! .and somewhat expected ending..I would have liked to have more to read. I did enjoy the book, am happy that I suggested it, look forward to our discussion of it, and regret that I am not the one who will be the facilitator.
Rating: 
Summary: FICTION OR FACT
Review: In spite of the fact that this is a good book to read, the only part that will be forever on each person's memory who reads the book is regarding the VIRGINITY ISSUE. I was totally shocked at the fact that the author suggested that it is typical in the Haitian Culture and/or family to physically administer a test to their female children to protect their virtue if you will. As a Haitian American woman this is the very first time that I am hearing such a thing. I understand that she means to have one think that it is just something that happened in A family but when you remember that all it takes is one person to start - STEREOTYPING usually comes from the very person or people who would otherwise be INSULTED if they were looked at a certain way. I do understand that it sells books and makes a lot of money but doing INJUSTICE to your culture by suggesting that this a norm of the people in Haiti is a very sad thing indeed. All the author needed to do was talk! with as many Haitians as possible both in the US and in Haiti and she might have been surprised at the responses. The author is obviously quite young and only experience can teach her that indeed "the pen is mightier than the sword". Did she do more harm than good only time will tell. New York reader
Rating:
Summary: GREAT READ, GREAT PACE, GREAT COUNTRY, GREAT WOMEN
Review: This book made me laugh and cry. It made me relive my life with my mother. It made me want to go to Haiti, sit under a tree and watch life go by. I always see Haiti on television and think what an unfortunate country. After reading this book and Ms. Danticat's short story collection Krik? Krak! I wanted to go there and see for myself. What a great place! What a brave people! What stayed with me after reading this book was not the petty gossipy-ness of sexual matters or what's true and what's not. The most important thing to me at the time I was reading was what was happening to Sophie. All human beings are unique. These people are unique and yet so much like the rest of us. Ms. Danticat, please please don't listen to anyone and take anything back. This book honors strength in all women. It honors my soul as a woman. It honors Sophie and all women who fear that they have no choice but silence. A Wonderful read!
Rating:
Summary: GREAT FICTION IS NOT SOCIOLOGY OR ANTHROPOLOGY
Review: This was a wonderful book for its own sake, as fiction not as sociology or anthropology. I enjoyed reading about the people and the story. I enjoyed the setting. All real fiction must be singular to the story itself and not to a whole culture. This book does that. One book can not represent a whole culture. Those of us who reduce this novel to representing a whole culture reduce that culture, mine too. When we look at a Haitian painting, do we say that it is all of Haiti? This was a wonderful story, well told with respect and love for Haiti as well as its people. Its singularity was that it may have been about a family that is different than all other Haitian families. I teach this book and find that it's harder for Haitian women who are writers to like it, perhaps becasue they feel like they could have written it better. However, I teach young Haitian girls who love it and they understand that it's about one SINGLE family in one SINGLE instance. Why can't the adults un! derstand that too? I read in the Randon House Q&A and the Oprah interview that the author has said that this is the story of one family. Only one family, greatly represented in all its weakness and frailties and dysfunction. That's the power of literature. And that's the power of this book. Open your hearts to this wonderful story and these wonderful people. OUR IMAGE AS A PEOPLE IS NOT THAT FRAGILE. We are complex like everyone else. Des the fact that Arundhati Roy write about incest mean that all Indians have sex with their brothers and sisters? If nothing else this book teaches us that we can tell our indivudual stories without shame.
Rating:
Summary: Sure to become required reading in the coming of age genre.
Review: All women have coming of age stories that must be told. This is true whether we continue the cultural practice of oral storytelling ,or we pass our lives on to future generations in print. For the next generation to understand themselves, they must know something of the women who walked and rocked before them. With pure poetry we are enchanted by Danticat's tale of childless mothers and motherless children. Sophie's distance from herself and her mother is bigger than the bodies of water that separate them."As a child, the mother I had imagined for myself was like Erzulie,the lavish Virgin Mother. She was the healer of all women and the desire of all men.She had gorgeous dresses in satin,silk,and lace,necklaces,pendants,earrings,bracelets,anklets,and lots of French perfume.She never had to work for anything because the rainbow and the stars did her work for her.Even though she was far away,she was always with me.I could always count on her,like one counts on the s! ! un coming out at dawn."We are stricken by Tante Atie's two time loss-Monsieur Augustin and then Sophie. We wish for better outcomes for all parties involved but, this is not that kind of fairy tale.
Rating:
Summary: NOT ALL HAITIANS CHECK THEIR CHILDREN VIRGINITIES.
Review: I am from Haiti also, there is a lot of things about the book I did not like, but one of things we do have is a lot respect for our parents and elders. She is representing the Haitian culture, custom what have you. She should say it happenned to " her family". What was said about going so far to administer physical "test" is rediculous. When people read this, they will think that it is our custom to check our children that way. The Haitian people are very stricked with their children, yes! But to administer physical test on their children to make sure of their virginity is crazy. I think she should retract this particular paragraph of the book and make people know that it is not a Haitian thing. Just like the U.S. some children are very disrespectful to their parents, not all American children are that way. But you the Americans will defend themselves by saying "not all Americans", that is why I am defending Haitians. I ha! ! ve to make sure that people don't think all Haitians do this. My husband and I are stricked with my daughter, and my son. My parents raised all five of us, 4 daughters and 1 son, we never heard of something like that. If my daughter read this book she will think that it happens to all Haitians. MAMIKAROMA
Rating:
Summary: good book, not extraordinary
Review: I found the book to be an engaging, quick read.... however, I developed no empathy for the characters. Instead of understanding the suffering they had been through, I felt indifferent.
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