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Reviews by Vicky S. (Torrance, CA)

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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
by Amy Chua

Keeping An Open Mind (11/15/2010)

I was at times fascinated and appalled by Amy's recounting or her parenting wondering at times if she suffered from OCD. I also had to constantly keep an open mind and not condemn her culturally different parenting. Book clubs could feast on this book with rich discussions …more

Your Republic Is Calling You
by Young-ha Kim

The Choices We Make (7/13/2010)

The plot centers around a North Korean spy called home from South Korea, and his wife and daughter, but the story is really about what we think we know about people close to us and how this knowledge, or lack thereof, effects the choices we make in life. If you knew the man …more

Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture
by Thomas Chatterton Williams

Questioning values (4/14/2010)

I enjoyed the questioning of values that the author experiences as he encounters a variety of other blacks or African-Americans, and non-blacks that he initially dismisses when he goes from high school to Georgetown University. The text would make for interesting book club …more

The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight
by Gina Ochsner

At Times Bizarre, Thought Provoking and Tedious (12/7/2009)

Reading this book is like listening to someone else's dreams - at times very strange with what the characters choose to do, to how they interact with each other or interesting when characters are faced with difficult circumstances without good options. But is also like …more

Night Navigation
by Ginnah Howard

Interesting Portrayal of Addiction (3/22/2009)

I really enjoyed the dual perspectives from mother and son on the son's addiction as well as mom's response to the addiction. I found that I wanted to keep picking the book up and read it later into the night than I should have. Even the peripheral characters had depth - …more

The Crow Road
by Iain Banks

Death & Confusion (9/9/2008)

This book contains mystery, drunkenness, Scottish customs and dialects – sometimes difficult to follow - family secrets and romance. I really enjoyed the book and found myself wondering what the characters were doing even a day after finishing the book. I liked that the …more

A Case of Exploding Mangoes
by Mohammed Hanif

Uneven (4/6/2008)

I laughed at parts of this book but I also considered not finishing it. I did enjoy it at the end although I did find it confusing at times - possibly because I wasn't paying as much attention in the middle. I did like the variety of characters and would have liked to have …more

A Golden Age
by Tahmima Anam

A Golden Age (1/26/2008)

While reading A Golden Age I kept making mental comparisons to what I read in the newspapers about the current war in Iraq - religious intolerance, cultural misunderstanding and families damaged by violence. I was very unfamiliar with any history of Bangladesh so I enjoyed …more

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