While I know that its not necessarily academic to talk about if you liked or disliked a book but I was not the biggest fan of this novel and I think its mostly because the writing style was hard for me to understand as it jumped around a lot and I frequently was lost and unsure of what part of Lovey’s life we were witnessing. But that being said, that isn’t important in comparison to the ideas and themes brought up in this novel.

Like most of the other novels we’ve read, this one gave me a lot of insight into how life might be in a different geographical location as well as a different culture and even class system. I’ve been pretty sheltered living in Washington my whole life so these books have given me a lot of perspective of how my life compares to that of someone who is APIA. And with this novel, I got a look inside of what life can be like for many Hawaiians — a different look than the one I’ve seen firsthand as a white tourist.

This novel was very enlightening in that sense and allowed for me to gain a new perspective when it comes to Hawai’i and its peoples, as well as how those people often look up to or down at non-native whites, like myself. There are a lot of interest power structures and even a type of caste system within all cultures large or small like in Hawai’i and it is one of those things that is hard to recognize your own privilege in terms of how I am treated on those islands compared to someone who is not white, or even a non-Hawaiian native.