What does it mean to lose your roots—within your culture, within your family—and what happens when you find them?Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From early childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting,…
Florence Grende’s memoir The Butcher’s Daughter is a family portrait drawn in lyrical style that examines the effects of war, and follows the narrator’s search for her parents survival story during WWII in Poland. The short narratives about growing up with parents who are World War II Holocaust survivors is by turns funny, sad, violent…
The New Old Me is a lusty, kickass post-divorce memoir, one woman’s story of starting over at 60 in youth-obsessed, beauty-obsessed Hollywood. After the death of her best friend, the loss of her life s savings, and the collapse of her once-happy marriage, Meredith Maran whom Anne Lamott calls insightful, funny, and human leaves her…
I received a courtesy ARC of My (Underground) American Dream through Netgalley and the publisher, Center Street, in exchange for an honest review. For an undocumented immigrant, what is the true cost of the American Dream? Julissa Arce shares her story in a riveting memoir. When she was 11 years old Julissa Arce left Mexico and…