School for Hawaiian Girls

Rating:
Summary: You must read School for Hawaiian Girls
Review: I found this book impossible to put down once I started reading. I do not read a lot but thought this subject looked interesting to me. The book gives us a glimpse into the culture and lives of the Hawaiian people. Coming from the midwest I found this story very interesting. This is NOT your usual read. M's McMillen did a thorough job of catching my interest throughout the entire book. I hope there is a second book in the coming.

After reading this book I found a renewed interest in searching out new authors to read.

I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: "Concise and Engrossing"
Review: Lydia attends the School for Hawaiian Girls on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1922. When she becomes pregnant, her mother ships her off to Maui, forcing her to give up her illegitimate child. A year later, on her way to find her daughter, Lydia's body is found in the cane field. Raped and her throat slashed, she is soon forgotten by everyone but her family.

Moani owns a kayaking business in Honolulu in 1985. Taking care of her mentally disabled sister, Pua, she dreams of buying the School for Hawaiian Girls and turning it into a hotel. In her attempt to purchase the land, she uncovers information about her family, and Lydia's death, and discovers that the past is never completely buried.

"School for Hawaiian Girls" spans several generations, tying together Lydia's murder with Moani's mundane life. Despite the grisly death, the novel is less a "whodunit" than a tale about the mysteries of family. Several plots are interwoven by the use of various narrators, giving the reader a broader perspective. The different voices can be a bit redundant at times, but the threads of the story twine together well overall.

Georgia Ka'apuni McMillen gives each character/narrator a strong and distinct voice. While not always likable, Sam sheds light on his sister's murder and the factors behind it. Moani, his great-niece, possesses an equally strong presence as she attempts to succeed without her family's dubious assistance.

Supported by a number of secondary characters, several of whom get a chance to tell their story, these protagonists all breathe on the page. The advantage of the multiple points of view is that no one comes across as perfect -- rather, only human. The complexity of the characters keeps you reading even once the murderer is uncovered.

McMillen's writing style is concise and engrossing, steeped in the distinct dialect of the Hawaiian islands. For those not familiar with the Hawaiian pidgin dialect, certain phrases might seem confusing, but it allows for an authenticity of place and person. The ending feels abrupt and leaves several small threads dangling, but compared to the overall story, this flaw is minor.

"School for Hawaiian Girls" is not a murder mystery, but a complex story of generations and the "sins of the fathers" visited on the descendants. It's also a carefully woven tale of the conflict between the missionary influence and the native Hawaiian culture, and the resulting problems and prejudices that arose between the two. Most of all, however, it's a story of the interconnectedness of the islands and its families. If you think that Hawaii is simply palm trees and paradise, you'll learn a valuable lesson from "School for Hawaiian Girls."

Rating:
Summary: An engaging and deftly written novel
Review: Set in Hawaii in the early 20th century, School For Hawaiian Girls by Georgia Ka'apuni McMillen is an engaging and deftly written novel about the family of a murdered Hawaiian schoolgirl. The murder investigation is fraught with errors and sloppy policework, so the family copes by not speaking of the murder, or of the daughter they lost. But their silence and denial takes a toll on them, and they must grapple with the price of forgetting and what it means to remember, in this charged and emotional tale of the human psyche.