Fine, but not fantastic.įor the record, I would have summarized the book as follows: “Shoko, realizing that post-World War II Japan holds few prospects for her, marries an American and returns home with him, where they live in relative poverty and raise two unexceptional children, until her hearts starts to suffer from previous exposure to the atom bomb. It was a squarely three-star book for me.
Unfortunately, while it was a quick and entertaining-enough read, I didn’t particularly love it or have any desire to bore Bart with long detailed descriptions of it. To me, it felt more like it was a disconnect between the two of them.Īctually, reading that summary makes me wish the book had more closely followed what the summary suggests the book is about. Also, when the secret is finally resolved, it happens so fast that, even without remembering that it was supposed to a main plot point, I noted how brief and swift it felt.Īs for the American daughter trying to live up to her mother’s standards, I didn’t see that at all. It came up a few times, but one of the defining parts of the book – I do not think so. The closely guarded secret? I didn’t feel like that was the crux of the story. I reread that after finishing How to Be an American Housewife and was surprised at how off-base that summary felt to me. It says (thank you, Goodreads): A lively and surprising novel about a Japanese woman with a closely guarded secret, the American daughter who strives to live up to her mother’s standards, and the rejuvenating power of forgiveness. how to be an american housewife by margaret dilloway How to Be an American Housewife is one of those books where I thought the summary was quite a bit off base. Sometimes I feel quite certain the person writing the summary didn’t actually read the book at all.
Sometimes it makes the story appear to be about something it’s not really about at all.
One of the reasons I like to write my own is that I often feel that the publisher’s summary slants the book in a way that I feel is not really very accurate. Our panel was about critical reviewing (“critical” meaning “thoughtful and analytical,” not “only negative”) and one of the things we talked briefly about was whether to write your own summaries of a book or to use the publisher’s copy. Two of us couldn’t be there in person and participated on our panel via Google Hangout. A couple of weeks ago, I presented at KidLitCon with three other librarians.
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