Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers

Hmmm,here is an awkward but charming story of an awkward but charming adolescent girl growing up as a Japanese-American in "Haole" culture. I quite enjoyed this book although its not for everyone; say, people who don't have patience to read continuous pidgen dialogue. However, Yamanaka is one of my favorite authors, and I must review her first work here as it is fantastic in my baised opinion. As I can relate, I sympathized with Lovey as she made the same assumptions, made the same awkward mistakes, and encountered the same misrepresentation and discrimination as I did growing up, only magnified by the 1970's time period to which the story is set. I like this story because of its authenticity, and how Yamanaka mixes an uncomfortable tension with nostalgic and humorous comfort throughout the book. I also love the way she brings a 1970's Hawaii to life (the food!). A very much appreciated read.

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.

I loved this book. I have read all of her books and this is by far my favorite book. In fact it is the only book of hers that I would recommend reading.. I moved away from hawaii in 1996 and am still regretting it. Not only did this book bring back lots of fun memories of mine from living there, it captures aspects of hawaiian culture beautifully. I read this book a couple times a year (thats more than I go to church) each time I have reread this book, I am amazed at the beauty, warmth, humor and pain that yamanaka captures through her words. In their own way, I think we can all relate to the characters in her book.. for anyone who has a soft spot in their heart for hawaii... I highly recommend this book!!!

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.

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