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How To Be An American Housewife (2010)

by Margaret Dilloway(Favorite Author)

3.61 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0399156372 (ISBN13: 9780399156373)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Putnam Adult

review 1: The novel has two narrators: Shoko and Sue. Shoko's voice and story is the dominate one and also the more interesting of the two. Her chapters all begin with advice from the How To pamphlet. Some of the advice is funny and some horrifyingly depressing in it's straight forward honesty about the prejudices the wives can expect and have to accept. Even with all her hardships and loss, Shoko's life comes across as exotic. Sue's story is harder to soften towards because it is contemporary and not as uncommon. However both women are carefully drawn and fully realized characters--as are the other characters in the book. My favorite character was Shoko, the mother. She was tough and hard yes, but I liked who she was, and the challenges she faced in the book and life long ones to... moreo.Margaret Dilloway is a first time novelist and has used her own Mother's life as a starting point for How To Be An American Housewife. Her writing is not the strongest I've read of first time writers, but her use of such strong, individual voices is impressive. As is her ability to take the story back and forth and time and from narrator to narrator without losing little momentum in the storyline. This book was well done overall, but it still could have been a little stronger.
review 2: This was a good story about family. The first part of the book is a first person narrative of a Japanese woman, who married an American soldier at the end of WWII, as her father wished. She is now an older woman with a heart condition. She is afraid that she might die without making amends with her estranged brother back in Japan. She has saved money for years, so she could travel to Japan one time to see her family, but now she is too sick to go. She talks her daughter into making the journey in her place and to take the narrator's granddaughter, as well. The remainder of the book is told from the daughter's point-of-view.Family relationships are the centerpiece of this novel. Relationships among family members in Japan and America are compared and contrasted. Mother-daughter relationships obviously play a big part, but many relationships and cultural expectations are explored. If you like Amy Tan, then you will probably also like Margaret Dilloway. less

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