Given to me by Kathleen at the post office. How sweet she is, definately will read after When the Soul Mends
What a wonderful story of a Japanese girl growing up in America. So many wonderful food stories and recipes, i crave Japanese food!! Highly recommend !

I must admit that I liked this adult memoir more than I thought I would. I won't be giving away copies of it for Christmas or anything, but I read in a few days. Linda Furiya is Japanese American and grew up in a small town in Indiana. This food memoir (tons of yummy Japanese recipes are included) describes her experiences growing up and how she had to adjust to being Asian in a small Midwestern town. Food is very important to her family, and so food is discussed in detail. But so is her mother's depression, internment during WWII, driving hours to find fresh fish, and the troubles she has pretending to be white as a child.

I liked this so much better than Hapa Girl. Maybe I shouldn't compare the two, but I do in my mind. In Hapa Girl, the author is 1/2 Chinese and 1/2 white and complains about the struggle she had growing up in America. I believe that Bento Box covers the same type of struggle so much better. Less whining. And I actually grew to care for the author of Bento Box. ( )

I'm a sucker for a food memoir, so I snatched this off the library's "New" shelf on a whim. It was both better and not as good as I was hoping.

The good:
This didn't need to be a food memoir, though the food was a powerful symbol of the author's "otherness" within the community, while underscoring the unity of her family. (This look at otherness reminded me a bit of Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America, about a Lubavitcher community in Iowa.
I come from a fairly liberal community, and didn't discover that people actually said racist things in real life (as opposed to in after-school specials) until I was an adult. This book, therefore, was a real eye-opener for me. The author didn't make melodrama out of her encounters with prejudice, but told them plainly, adding to the emotional impact.

The not-so: While the food aspect was an interesting facet of the struggles of growing up Japanese in small-town Indiana, the conceit of making every chapter figure food prominently and the inclusion of recipes often felt forced, as if she were struggling to make the narrative work within that frame. The writing, at times, also bordered on overly flowery and descriptive. ( )

What a wonderful book told by Linda Furiya and her story as a Japenese american growing up in rural Versailles, Indianna. She put recipes throughout the book and called it a food memoir. It was not a quick read but good. ( )

http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.co... ( )