Maisha's Mindscape

Breath, Eyes, Memory  by Edwidge Danticat Book Dedication: To the brave women of Haiti,  grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, daughters, and friends, on this shore and other shores. We have stumbled but we will not fall.   Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Everything I say about this book is my true feelings about it. This is the only book I am willing to read multiple times. Please enjoy my review. I hate this book with a passion that is unmatched. I first read this book when I was 14. It was our assigned prose textbook for my English lit class. I remember not wanting to read it at all. The only reason I came around to reading it was because, after Hurricane Maria, there was nothing to do. I had read every other book in my house twice and this was the last man standing. I finally decided to bite the bullet and give this a read knowing I would have to sooner or later. I hate that I read this book at 14 but it is the only book that has stuck with me in such a way. Breath, Eyes, Me...

My best friend and I always talk about how we're going to change the world. We joke about taking over and making it in our own image. But we know we can't do that no matter how many plans we make. It would just never be possible. So instead we talk about backpacking across Europe and Asia to learn new cultures and adopt new languages. We talk about going to Africa to reconnect with those ancestors who were stolen away so long ago. To connect with their blood spilled across the land into the seas. So we could listen to the songs the land would sing so we could feel some connection to those roots. We were uprooted and forced to adapt to a world that was unnecessarily cruel. Where we get called names and our cultures get torn from us and are ridiculed until we want nothing to do with it. And people may pretend like it is not cruel anymore and that we are accepted but that is false. Because there are always those who feel like we have no right to be among them. I tell my best frien...