Customer Reviews

Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers (Harvest American Writing)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just bought this book in Hawaii yesterday and read it all the way back to Baltimore with Israel Kamakawiwo'le (Bradda IZ) live-in-concert CD playing on my portable CD player. The combination brought Yanamaka's beautiful, poignant and powerful dialogue alive for me. This book resonated for me in so many ways -- as an African American tourist in an island where there was complex commingling and separation of the ethnic groups as well as a heirarchical order to the society based on ethnic origin and appearance. I also identified with the book as a daughter of Jamaican immigrants who carefully spoke in "correct" English to their children but spoke Jamaican patois (the equivalent of Lovey's pidgin, Creole Hawaiian) with each other and with family members. I picked up early on that how you sound and how you look affects your standing in society and now speak perfect English but mourn my inability to speak patois. So I empathize with Lovey's despair of every being able to speak perfect haole English.

But what probably got me the most was Yanamaka's hauntingly detailed description of Lovey's rapture with Shirley Temple's Heidi. It resonated strongly with my childhood love of Shirley's perfect ringlets, cherubic smile, and her love for Grandpa and her finding her father in that hospital ward in London.

If you had an awkward adolescence (particularly in the 1970s) and struggled to fit in while struggling to be yourself, this is the book for you.

Lois Ann Yamanaka's voice is forceful, vibrant and original, and her female heroine, Lovey Nariyoski, a 12-year old with something to say, grabs our attention as well as our hearts, as she describes the details of her life and her working class family. She yearns to be a "Haole" (white) and live in a house that uses bendable straws for every drink. She is embarrassed when she first gets her period. She watches as her father kills animals for food or skins and her descriptions of the details of their slaughter are straightforward and unflinching.

All of the dialogue is in pidgin. I didn't understand every word, but the language was necessary to get the flavor of the islands. I suspect that many of the chapters were originally written as short pieces because then tend to be complete in themselves, and basically tell the story of growing up poor in Hawaii.

With very endearing characters, Lois-Ann Yamanaka has written an enjoyable, heartfelt coming of age story. This book is a wonderful way to pass a rainy (or snowy), cold weekend. However, I have to admit that I don't necessarily find 'Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers' a must-read, but it is perfect if you're looking for some 'light' reading.

This book is, as the title says, excellent. The hard times of Lovey, a young girl in a poor Hawaiian family, make up this novel which I couldn't put down. The Pidgen spoken in the book makes the feel of it authentic, aND that's only the language. the characters, Lovey, who has a hard time at school and is ashamed of the way she is, her little sister Calhoun, who inherits their father's "Ghost eye," Lovey's best friend Jerry, who is admirable in his persistance of some kind of happiness, Jerry's brother Larry, who takes pleasure in abusing everyonearound him, Larry's girlfriend Crystal, the perfect, sweet girl whom everyone loves, and qutie a few more, definetely bring this book to life. Honestly, the end is pretty sad, but I will choose to let you figure out by yourself how, despite the situation with her father, Lovey proves the size of her heart and family devotion.

Yamanaka's book was one of the truest books I've read in a long time. She was able to catch the true islander personality. Although I am not from Hawaii, I was able to relate to a lot of the reactions and actions of the characters. She was funny, sad, angry...alarming...she was everything! I suggest you take a read of this book. I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as I did! I look forward to her next book

I read a lot...and when I read Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, I was opened to a whole new kind of fiction. never before have I read any fiction on my life time where I actually understood the actions of many of the characters. The dress, the traits, the dialogue...everything...were things I actually could relate to. Perhaps it's because I'm from a Pacific Island...but it wasn't just the dialogue...it was also how the story was written. Rather than go by the basic past to present type of fiction...it was like I was reading parts of the speaker's diary. It was almost as if she was jotting down stuff as if they came to her mind just then.Very few writers have the ability to make the reader empathize with the characters. Lois-Ann Yamanaka did a wonderful job of making me more aware of my culture

Born and raised in Hilo myself (although a decade later than the book's setting), the story of Lovey Nariyoshi brought back both my own fond memories and reminded me of the struggles of growing up local in Hawaii. I find that movie makers often produce movies of being the "haole victim" in Hawaii (ie newcomers to the islands are bullied, treated unfairly, etc.). This book illustrates that the exact opposite is also very real in the islands (ie local people scrutinized for use of pidgin, lower social status than weathier white people, poverty, etc.). It is a book that I can finally truly say I can relate to. I highly recommend this book to anyone from or living in the islands!

I read this book on advice from a travel book while I was planning a trip to Honolulu. It's an unusual choice in that it covers a world that tourists most likely will never see. But it broadens our perspective and gives us a better understanding of a destination that isn't so much a mythical paradise as a real place with real people and an important history. If you aren't already familiar with Hawaiian history and how the current residents came to be there, I suggest you explore this area, too. It will help you love this book even more.

The "misfit coming of age" genre of novel has a long pedigree. This time, the story is of a girl from a working class Japanese family trying to navigate the race and class divisions of 1970's Hilo, Hawaii. This is not the happy Hawaii most tourists see. The story is by turns funny, poignant, cruel, and hopeful. Just what the genre calls for. The author's unique addition here is the use of the Hawaiian creole (often called, inaccurately, pidgin) in the dialogue, which gives the voices in this tale an authenticity that is very rich. If the story itself is not terribly original, it is still a lively and interesting read and illuminates aspects of Hawaiian life that are invisible to most Americans.

I really enjoyed Wild meat and bully burgers. It is real, it shows the cruelty and pains of growing up and the tension caused by unequal economic and social standing. It has humor and it captures the reality of growing up in a foreign place and what it means to be an outsider.