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Summary and Reviews of America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

America Is Not the Heart

by Elaine Castillo
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (9):
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  • First Published:
  • Apr 3, 2018, 416 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2019, 416 pages
  • Reviewed by BookBrowse Book Reviewed by:
    Dean Muscat
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About This Book

Book Summary

With exuberance, grit, and sly tenderness, here is a family saga; an origin story; a romance; a narrative of two nations and the people who leave one home to grasp at another.

How many lives fit in a lifetime?

When Hero De Vera arrives in America - haunted by the political upheaval in the Philippines and disowned by her parents - she's already on her third. Her uncle gives her a fresh start in the Bay Area, and he doesn't ask about her past. His younger wife knows enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. But their daughter - the first American-born daughter in the family - can't resist asking Hero about her damaged hands.

An increasingly relevant story told with startling lucidity, humor, and an uncanny ear for the intimacies and shorthand of family ritual, America Is Not the Heart is a sprawling, soulful debut about three generations of women in one family struggling to balance the promise of the American dream and the unshakeable grip of history.

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Reviews

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Attempting to distill Elaine Castillo's debut novel America is Not the Heart into a neat synopsis is a little like trying to explain the plots of several books all at the same time. Yes, this is first and foremost a tale of new beginnings in a foreign land. But it is also a document of a nation's political upheaval that spans several decades. America is Not the Heart is a bisexual romance, a story of survival, a celebration of Filipino culture, and more besides. Thankfully Castillo has expertly managed to tie these disparate threads into a cohesive, compelling whole anchored by protagonist Geronima de Vera, a twenty-something-year-old woman escaping a traumatic adolescence in the Philippines...continued

Full Review (707 words)

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(Reviewed by Dean Muscat).

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Beyond the Book



A Brief History of The New People's Army

A large part of protagonist Geronima de Vera's backstory in Elaine Castillo's novel, America is Not the Heart, is entwined with the communist rebellion group, The New People's Army, a real-life collective that continues to forcefully oppose elected Philippine governments. The New People's Army (NPA) is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which was founded in 1968 by student activist Jose Maria Sison. The two entities are often referred to under the collective acronym CPP-NPA since from the very start they worked closely together. The group's primary objectives are to establish a new political state led by the working class as well as to expel U.S. influence from the Philippines.

The current flag of the NPA As a rebellious force, ...

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Read-Alikes

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