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49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Quest For A Better Life, March 15, 2009
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Born in Korea in 1897, only daughter Regret learns from an early age what she can expect from life: servitude, enforced submission, and being "sold" to the highest bidder so she can move on to yet another household where the same existence will continue. Feeling certain there must be more to life than these grim prospects, Regret seeks an education and is aided in her quest by a kindly aunt. But a little education only makes Regret seek more, and when her father denies her any opportunity to become more than chattel, teenaged Regret decides to become a "picture bride" for a Korean man living in Hawai'i. Instantly shunned by her father, she boards a ship along with other young Korean women searching for more than what life in their native land will offer.
Honolulu weaves the true tales of life on Oahu in the early part of the twentieth century with Regret's new life as an unfortunately abused young bride. Regret (who renames herself Jin) is a fiercely independent, strong young woman who constantly strives to better her circumstances; she leaves her abusive husband, despite her careful Korean training to always submit, and uses her seamstress skills to earn some money. As with all lives, Jin's has its moments of love and loss; Brennert allows Jin to tell us of her woes, dreams, triumphs, and ideas herself, and he does an excellent job of using her voice to show how oppressed the working poor actually were on this island paradise. Brennert also peoples this novel with colorful characters as well as real people, and Jin often finds herself at or near the center of some of the gravest situations of the times.
Brennert's research is impeccable and this is a book that will pull you in from the first. The story of Jin is genuine and her voice is real, and I found myself cheering her on in her relentless pursuit of a better life for herself and her loved ones. The plot did tend to drag a bit towards the end, however; I would have liked to have read more of Jin's experiences on Oahu during World War II instead of focusing on the discrimination the Asian and local communities felt at the hands of the white government. Still, Brennert has a way of making you feel and see what his characters are experiencing, and Honolulu is a rich tale of survival and triumph against the odds. Truly deserving of 4.5 stars out of five. Recommended.
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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A terrific read, February 17, 2009
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I can sum it up very quickly: This is a great book.
I am always impressed when a male writer tells a story from a female point of view and makes it work. In "Honolulu", Alan Brennart has done his considerable research proud, and woven a fictional story in with historical events to create a seamless, very readable tale of a Korean woman of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and her many family connections, both by blood and friendship.
Jin is a dutiful child of an upper-middle-class Korean family in a small city, who enters the world as an unwanted daughter named "Regret" (because she wasn't a son). Bright and inquisitive by nature, she longs to go to school like her brothers, but to do so would bring shame on her family. By subterfuge and her sympathizing aunt's aid, she finds someone who teaches her how to read; but when her father learns of it, the result is not what Jin had hoped for. She languishes, frustrated, within the confines of her family's home, with only a young sister-in-law-in-training for company.
Her bid to break free comes when she learns of the "picture brides", essentially mail-order brides for Korean men in Hawaii. She overcomes her family's strenuous objections to her desire to become a "picture bride", and embarks upon her greatest adventure, in the company of four other Korean girls.
This is a book that was difficult to put down, as I travelled with Jin through the Hawaii of early non-Hawaiian occupation. The governing of the Hawaiian nation had been connived away from the Hawaiian royal family not many years before; the power was in the hands of a handful of white overlords and the sugar- and pineapple-companies, the labour provided by immigrant, primarily Asian, laborers. Interwoven with the great story of Jin, and her personal struggle for betterment, Mr Brennert has delivered a history of Hawaii I never knew before, and shown it warts and all. Far from being the paradise it was rumored to be, it leaned heavily on the class system, the haves and the have-nots. The houses the laborers lived in, both on the plantations and the tenements in the towns, are shown in all the squalor the unfortunate "picture brides" had to deal with. And it also shows people determined to make their lives better, in the face of great adversity.
The chick-lit device of our "picture brides" - now four in number - eventually creating a partnership, when they have all reunited later in the book, is more than a device; it is, apparently, a recognized association of the time. The author is not only well versed in Hawaii and Hawaiian history, but in a good deal of the Asian cultures who made up the greater part of Hawaiian immigrants. I felt a lot more informed when I finished reading it.
And finishing reading it was the hard part. As I told a friend, it was a book that didn't go fast enough (makes you want to read ahead to find out what happens, but don't do it) while being a book I did not want to end. I was consumed by the story from the first pages, and kept it with me most of the time to snatch a few more minutes as I could. A great story, well told, with great characters and great history. Very recommended.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Struggle in Paradise, February 15, 2009
A Kid's Review
Alan Brennert's second novel, "Honolulu," continues to provide an entertaining history of the Hawaiian Islands, following his successful first novel, "Moloka'i." While "Moloka'i" had the entire plot line of the leper colony to fascinate readers, "Honolulu" surprises by focusing on the experiences of a Korean picture bride, named by her family, Regret.
Regret's childhood days in Korea and her relationship with a courtesan, who teaches her to read, are key to her character's desire to escape the drudgery of servitude expected of Korean girls.
Once she lands in Hawaii, she finds the streets are not paved with gold. She meets her new husband, endures horrors, and hardships, and continues undaunted to follow her dreams. She begins to use the name Jin.
Jin runs into a wide cast of real-life historical characters, but Brennert weaves them into his plot with emotion, and the reader comes away feeling enlightened as well as moved by the experiences. Hawaii, ever the land of immigrants, has not always been kind to newcomers. The strength of the locals, the growth of the "haole" thinking, and the ever-industrious spirit of the newcomers weave a charming, if sometimes overly expository, tale.
There are memorable lines throughout. My favorite is Jin's mother's explanation of grief: (Speaking of a quilt with black rectangles) "I added these on the day my mother died. . . There is no pattern to where I placed them, as there is no sense to be made of death. . .next to them the blues look bluer, the reds richer, the golds more brilliant. Withoutthem the cloth is pretty, but without character or contrast." Wisdom entwined in colorful language adds another reason to read this book.
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