Kalliope

I didn't finish this. Similarly to The Road of Lost Innocence, I recognize that this is a good story. However, it was monotone and even and bereft of personality. If I cannot connect to the speaker as a person and not as words on a page, it is difficult for me to connect with the story. If nothing else, the book introduced me to the Hmong people and their strife during the late 1970s and 1980s in Laos.

I can see why this book is on so many favorites lists here on Goodreads! I really enjoyed this. Walls illustrates and expands her childhood world so broadly and fantastically that it indeed felt like fantasy. She wove the story of her childhood and adolescence like an adventure, when in reality it was stitched together with all the horrors of life–poverty, abuse, and unhealthy relationships. At times this book was very frustrating to read–not because of the writing style, but because of how horrific and sad the story was when it could have been anything else. Walls' parents were the most frustrating, yet fascinating, part of the story. They were larger-than-life in their selfish yet childlike and adventurous ways. They painted their experiences like a fairytale they were living in every moment, from petting a live cheetah to sitting hungry in a damp and freezing shack. Perhaps this is how they coped with the lives they led–making it a living story in the present. This is pretty much required reading for memoir lovers.