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Summary: grasping for connections
Review: Danticat's novel on loss, memory and the kinship between women, is missing the thread connecting the reader to the page. I would have rated the book as a two star read, but, she does have a strength in her writing: there's an ability there to carry the reader along that I think might come out better in a more cohesive piece. A story mainly about displacement and pain, Danticat loses out by not establishing a richness in her characters. The book is filled with traumatic, painful moments, but it was difficult to churn up any feeling because I felt like I didn't really know the character's, nor did I care much about them.
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Summary: Tres Belle
Review: Beautiful, inspiring, and beautiful. Ms. Danticat wonderfully told the tale of a young woman locked between her culture, life as it was before her existance, and her present life. A magnificent novel for all women in the world, Ms. Danticat took you deep into the detailed voyage of Sophie and the women and man in her life. Read it... inhale, and love it!
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Summary: Breath, Eyes Memory
Review: This was my favorite book.This book deals with unforgiable secrets and regrets
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Summary: Haunting look into another culture
Review: Wow. A pause while I catch my breath...Edwidge Danticat has written an exceptional and beautifully crafted novel about a young Haitian girl and the family of women that surround her. A somber, spiritual story told with a feverish tenacity that will bewitch you and leave you aching for more from this talented and gifted writer. After twelve years of being raised in Haiti by her aunt Atie, young Sophie Caco has been summoned by her mother to join her in New York. Sophie is terrified and does not want to go, especially since she does not remember her mother, who left Haiti when Sophie was just a baby. What follows is a painful rendering of horrifying secrets and Haitian tradition that deeply affects Sophie and the way she lives her life. Finally, frantic for justification and healing, Sophie turns to her homeland for the answers and refuge she so desperately needs. The flow of the writing is smooth and lyrical, like music that rolls off the tongue. There is just enough description to make vivid pictures, but not too much to overwhelm. I do find it lacking in the development of the relationship between Sophie and her mother, although not enough to interrupt the beauty and quality of the story. Readers will be awed at the strong determination of the Caco women and the unbreakable bonds that hold them together. A very poetic and powerful novel that mixes a family, their culture, and a country in the midst of political upheaval. Breath, Eyes, Memory is extraordinary.
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Summary: A wonderful read
Review: I enjoyed the first part of the book. The author's depiction of Sophie and her life in Haiti brought brought everything to life. I got to know her, Tante Atie, Grandma Ife, Sophie's mother, Martine and the colorful Haitian culture. I admired the way Danticat accomplished this without the customary description of height, weight and eye color. It broke my heart when Sophie, then 12 years old, left her beloved Aunt for New York and came to live with her mother in a rundown apartment. The second part of the book dealt with the grown up Sophie. We were never told of any problems between Sophie and her mother throughout the adolescent years. It seemed they lived agreeably with each other during those years which I found quite extraordinary considering MY teenage years. The rift started when Sophie's mother began "testing" her. I cannot imagine going through that horrific experience on a regular basis! Later on, we find Sophie married to the only man she has ever known and has a 6 month old daughter. She developed bulimia and is also sexually dysfunctional. We were also informed that her mother had breast cancer. This is the part where everything got thrown in the mix. What was wrong with Atie? (Drinking problem, maybe?) She was much changed from the very wise woman of part one. The ending was sad but I hope Sophie found her peace. Ms. Danticat is a very good weaver of tales. I look forward to her next one.
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Summary: reflections of the real world
Review: This book is well written and lyrical. I wept and could not put it down. It delves into many different aspects of Hatian/ American culture and ultimately shows one woman's path to healing and forgiveness. A previous customer review slammed it for involving "taboo" subjects like abuse of women rooted in culture and also bulimia, but I felt the author tackled real life and made a very believable character. She didn't hide from what needs to be changed about our world . . . a very brave book.
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Summary: I found this subject so interesting
Review: I am a white women in my early 20's and even though I could not relate to the challenges these people went though I enjoyed it and though it was an excellent read and very eye-opening. The relationship between mother and daughter is one I believe most people will be able to relate to.
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Summary: Images of Haitian life
Review: BREATH, EYES, MEMORY is the first novel by Edwidge Danticat who, like her protaganist, grew up in Haiti and was raised initially by someone other than her birth parents, and then moves to America to be reunited with her biological parents. In Danticat's novel, Sophie Caco lives in Haiti for the first twelve years of her life, and is raised by her Aunt Atie, the older sister of her mother. She knows no other life than what her Aunt had been able to give her. At age 12, Sophie's mother instructs that her daughter be returned to her to America. Sophie leaves her distraught Aunt, the only mother she has ever known, and travels to a far away land to live with a stranger. She knows her mother only through cassette tapes of her mother's voice, sent to the family in Tahiti periodically as one sends letters. But as far as she's concerned,her mother is Aunt Atie. When Sophie meets her mother, she finds that she is not what she had expected. Her mother looks tired. America was not the land of luxury and opportunity that her mother had thought it would be. She works two jobs to make ends meet. She lives in the poor part of town and drives a car that barely runs. She is terribly thin, too thin, and at night she screams at the demons that try to kill her. Her mother's emotional well-being is tested every day through nightmares and demons of a past that Sophie was never aware of, until slowly she learns of her mother's story: Sophie is the result of a rape, when her mother was a very young girl. Her mother's world is a world of sexual and mental abuse, and it is passed down to Sophie, through "tests" that leave an emotional scar on Sophie, to the point where she too begins to have recurring nightmares. Sophie learns to resent her mother. She falls in love with the neighbor, an older man who is a musician, and he returns her love. She finally leaves her mother by running away and eloping with Joseph. Her marraige is not easy, however. Sophie again runs away, this time to Haiti 6 months after the birth of their daugher Brigitte, seeking the only family she has known. Back home again, she is reunited with Tante Atie and her grandmother, who only talks of death. It has been 6 years since Sophie had left Haiti, and she returns as a grown woman and with her first child. BREATH,EYES, MEMORY is more than just a story of a Haitian girl being uprooted to America. It's a story of discovery of self, and about the recovery from childhood abuse and forgiveness. Young Sophie learns to deal with her past and her mother's history, and we see her grow as a character who eventually is able to break free of the cycle of abuse handed down from generation to generation. I highly recommend this book. I enjoyed reading about the life that Sophie lived in Haiti, a world totally foreign to me, but at the same time was brought closer to it with the imagery that Ms Danticat painted on these pages. The story of abuse and reconcillation was convincing and real to me. Am looking foward to reading her next novel.
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Summary: A simple narrative structure that evokes strong emotions
Review: "These people do not know who they are, but if you see a lot of trouble in your life, it is because you were chosen to carry part of the sky in your head" This is not the type of book which you will underline like crazy, but, even if you have never been to Haiti, nor have any links with the culture of the people of that country, you will relate to their sufferings and anxieties represented in the lifes of Sophie, her mother and Tante Atie. It dwells in the eternal theme of pain and healing, or departing and returning, those spirals around which the lives of everyone revolve in one way or another. It surprised me that eventhough all the characters are sad and somehow depressing they are likeable and is very hard to judge them for who they are and what they have done. But what makes this novel worth reading is how all the small stories that in principle do not concern the main characters are woven within the main drama to pinpoint the physiological background of the most important ones. Oh and something which is quite important, a smart and intense ending, somehow proves that the author knew where it was heading while writing its novel.
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Summary: Colorful images of Haiti but...
Review: This book deals with Haitian life, traditions and wisdom. The major theme is the mother/daughter relationship but there are other themes such as the nightmare of rape and child abuse. The novel is a series of events in Haiti and USA showing the relationship between Sophie and her mother Martine, Sophie and her Aunt who mothered her and also Aunt Atie and her mother Ife. Sophie the protagonist is a sad character who identifies with the pain and nightmare of her mother's rape. She grows into a fearful adult who suffers from bulimia and sexual phobias. She seeks help to break the cycle of abuse practised by Haitian mothers on their virginal daughters. The mothers in this novel are obsessed with keeping their daughters pure and chaste. The metaphors are colorful and the picture of Haiti seems authentic but this is not my kind of novel. The language seems stiff and unnatural like a translation from one language to another. This was probably deliberate but surely the dialog between the American schooled Sophie and her African American husband should have been more "natural".
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