Customer Reviews

Memoirs of a Brown-Skin Gyal: A Collection of Short Stories

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3 star:		(1)
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When I saw the cover of this book, I was immediately captured by the subject matter. The author's picture reminded of someone I knew who also grew up in Belize.
Sandra Crough felt the sting of rejection and pity because she had no mother. Her married mother conceived her with a man that was not her husband and then left her with his mother to raise the child. "Why she no want me?" is her constant question to her grandmother. She is a brown-skinned gyal, a combination of the blending of the Spanish, Indian and African blood of Cental America. British Honduras, renamed Belize, is the only English speaking country in Central America. Sandra was born in Catholic Spanish Honduras where her father works for an American firm. She is taken to Belize where her Anglican grandmother sends her to Catholic school. She sees her mother, who now has other children, periodically, and spends some holidays with her father. She never feels any familial bond with either of them; they are both cold to her.

Sandra completes school and is fortunate to escape a legacy of marrying young and gets the opportunity to go to London to study nursing where she meets students from other countries and fall in love with an English young man. She then comes to the conclusion that America is where she wants to go to pursue her dreams and here is where this novella abruptly ends. Crough paints the landscape of Central America with descriptive imagery and the innocent voice of a child growing into herself. I look forward to the sequel of this story.

This writer takes the reader into the heart of the events unfolding around her. Her descriptions of Hurricane Hattie are stunning. You are there with her. She interjects humor and wit into events unfolding around her and uses commonsense.

I thoroughly enjoyed the stories. Although she gives no specific physical description of her grandmother, you see her being feisty and defiant, and her granddaughter exhibits many of her traits.

Great stories that show no resentment towards her mother or father.

Let's hope she writes a sequel. What happened after she arrived in the USA.

I love this book...you can almost smell the sea and feel the sand and seashells under your feet as you read it. This is a bittersweet story of abandonment, family, culture and love. Sandra's characters will remind you of the many faces and voices in your own family. Even though the emotions underlying each story were often heartbreaking and real, the voices of Grandma and the Auntys burst through until you are laughing yourself off your seat! This is a wonderful collection of stories that weave together to create the life history of a little girl who searched for the answers to the questions we all struggle with in life!

Her stories are well told of a young girl's transition to adulthood. However, what happened to her after coming to the U.S. Let's hope we hear more from this author.

I loved this book so much. It is a little sad in the beginning but the characters including the Grandmother had me rolling off my seat laughing so hard. I really love it! And hopefully I'll be going to Belize soon!