Loving in the War Years by Cherríe L. Moraga

Loving in the War Years Reviews

• 
  Mehira

  Don't really know how to write a review. Forgive me if I do this wrong.
  
  All I can really say, as an American Asian-Chicana Latina who has questioned everything in her life...probably more than once, Cherrie Moraga validated me.
  
  
• 
  Corinne Blackmer

  A highly politicized and propagandistic novel that includes indifferent poetry. The quasi-surrealistic story line posits that life for a Mexican-American lesbian amounts to life during a war; a proposition that anyone who has ever been in a war will find highly questionable. Granted that she uses the word war metaphorically, it still seems a grandiosely self-inflated description of her conflict with a homophobic mother (and culture). The use of postmodern literary techniques is gimmicky, the characters are flat and created in service of ideology, and the tone angry and resentful in an unjustified and unexplained fashion. I would not recommend this puerile piece of fiction to anyone who wishes to enjoy or learn from fiction.
• 
  Andrea

  I wouldn't have re-read this if my co-teacher hadn't suggested we assign it in our experimental Queer Writing class, but you know what? It really holds up. And reading it on the heels of a bunch of New Narrative stuff made me think about how queer writers of color like Moraga have been fucking shit up for a LONG time--narrative, genre, gender etc etc--and not getting the cool points for it. What's that about?
• 
  D'Argo Agathon

  Lots of bad poetry; some really good poetry; lots of really interesting personal points, gender theory, and chicana theory, that are made far better -- and far more clearly -- than Anzaldua's Borderlands; and a few stories that seem like ramblings. This collection of ideas is certainly not "just okay", but I wouldn't call it great, either.
• 
  Mina

  This book is filled with highlighting and notes that I wrote to myself. It really hits hard. Moraga doesn't hold back. She writes intellectually but also emotionally. I feel that this is something unusual, this strong combination of the mind and heart.
• 
  Maggie

  so im still reading this and it is really intense and slightly frustrating because some of it is written in spanish and i dont know spanish but its a beautiful book with lots of really valuable and thoughtful and thought provoking (the best kind) of ideas and insights.
• 
  C

  I really wanted to love this book. I didn't hate it, but I didn't really like it either. She's smart and what she says make sense. It was just hard to get through. This was something I read for school and I'm stubborn and wanted to finish this book to meet my good reads goal.
• 
  Korri

  In this volume Moraga delves into personal experience, exploring her family's history, strengths and sadnesses in poetry and prose and in Spanish and English. Moraga writes about forging her identity from disparate pieces: she's a Chicana lesbian whose looks allowed her to pass for white and who is learning to speak Spanish later in life.
  
  Maybe I've been in the ivory tower for too long, but I liked her 'academic' essays, like 'La Güera' and 'Lo que nunca pasó por sus labios', more than her poetry, though both are intimately bound up with Moraga's life experiences. In 'La Güera' she writes about the specificity of different oppressions and the difficulty of creating alliances when we all carry so much internalized racism, classism, and sexism, which informs how we interact and relate to one another. Women are both the oppressor and the oppressed. In 'Lo que nunca pasó por sus labios' she tackles gender roles and male and heterosexual privilege. But as she critiques the academy and social power structures, the language and rhetoric of academia creep back into her writing, making the essays less accessible than the confusion and raw emotions expressed in her poetry.
  
  This is a dated personal account of grappling with identity politics and feminism but it is powerful reading nevertheless--we cannot move forward without knowing our past and acknowledging the struggles of articulation, consciousness raising and identity formation.
• 
  Jamie

  Moraga's "Loving in the War Years" is frequently a beautiful and moving experience-her writing is precise and engaging, her message is lucid, and you'll find yourself often wanting to highlight and re-read a passage.
  
  But. Keep in mind that much of her feminism is now considered outdated--and in spite of this, her essays are still far more powerful than her poems. It was fascinating to see the ways in which her political/theoretical thinking was influencing her creative writing--she often pairs the poems to their 'sources.' The poetry itself, however, is not really my style. It's conversational, super simple, with often cliched images or obvious 'uplifting' messages. So even though I recognized the limitations of the essays in the text, I still thought them far more emotionally resonant and haunting than the poetry. My other issue was with the fact that I felt as if I was reading the same general plot/thought/sentence over and over again. I feel as if she could have written all that was in this book in fifty pages--but it's thrice this long, and feels repetitive or 'beating-you-over-the-head' by the end.
  
  All in all, I think 3 stars is pretty accurate. The essays would be 4 stars, the poems 2, and the unevenness of the text as a whole falls around a 3. Still worth a read if you've got the time, though.
• 
  Virgowriter (Brad Windhauser)

  A lot of interesting and important theory about culture and the intersection of gender and sexuality with that (at times). Often the focus is culture. Lot poetry, some of which accomplishes what it aims to, some falls flat. Some essays feel forced.
• 
  Yooperprof

  Just a note to say that the edition I read contained about 150 pages, while another widely reviewed edition of this work - with the same title - contains 264 pages. I don't know if the additional material would have made this a more satisfying reading experience, but the edition I read presented Moraga's work in a disjointed, fragmentary manner. Also, I have to say that I was largely indifferent to Moraga's poetry, which comprises more than half of the edition I read. Many of her poems are "politically" committed, but seem to lack "finish." That said, several of Moraga's essays are important and compelling historical documents in their own right.
• 
  Lisa

  Chicana, lesbian, woman, American, feminist, mixed race, Mexican. Cherríe Moraga writes on all of these identities in this collection of poems and essays that tell her life story (thematically, not chronologically). This collection is really hit and miss for me. I enjoy and get a lot out of some of her essays and I love how fluidly she moves between English and Spanish. She doesn't care to be understood, just to tell her story (in regard to language and content). I really like that approach in some of her pieces. At the same time though some of her poems and essays fall flat for me.
• 
  Ruthie Jones

  While I get the general point the author is trying to make, and I admire her courage and ability to express her sexual discovery and her struggles to identify, accept, and defend her identity as a chicana lesbian feminist, my initial impression of this writing is that it is a giant rant against all whites, all heterosexuals, and all men.
• 
  S-Haq

  Nationless
  I take you in my arms
  in the ordinary bed of a california
  valley roadside motel
  unwind the crimsoncotton
  wrapped 'round your hips
  and I enter you as deep and as hard as we want
  because you were there too dying
  in the midday sun
  singing to the same god
  and we want to touch it somehow
  because our bodies are remembering
  we want to gather all the touch we can
  before we go back!
• 
  Bia

  I tried so hard to like this book and some parts and poems are awesome. The one which the title comes from is my favorite. BUT it's just so hard to get through. It's not difficult, but kind of uninteresting. The style of writing, I am not sure what, just didn't keep my attention. I had to force myself to read this book, and being a lesbian Latina I felt I should.
• 
  Mert

  2/5 Stars (%36/100)
  
  Not a huge favourite. It was okay and meh sometimes. I read many books, articles, and poems about the feminist movement, women's rights, gender, and sexuality. I don't particularly enjoy them anymore. This was assigned to me so yeah. I found it uninteresting and sometimes very boring. I don't have many things to say.
• 
  Andrea Garcia

  I read this for my ethnic/gender literature course. I loved the poetic elements in her writing, great metaphors.. I did struggle with the Spanglish context I had to look up many words in English. This piece combined Chicana feminism and sexual identity. If you take anything discussing intersectionality this is a great piece to reference.
• 
  Michelle

  Yikes! I finished this book back in January but forgot to write a review back then. Let's see… I enjoyed the essay portions, particularly the final essay on identity. I love Cherrie so pretty much anything she writes, I'm going to love.
• 
  Elena Astilleros

  Cherrie was the first leftist Latina writer that I read, understood, and could grapple with. Grateful for that. We need more writers like her.
  
  Her lyrical poetry still sits on my tongue, appearing my language daily.
• 
  Rochelle

  A mix of short stories and prose, spanish and english, gay and chicana. The text was an interesting exploration of the author's identity, but it was not everything I'd hoped for.
  
  
• 
  Patty

  this is a really really really good book
• 
  Patricia

  Moraga's writing style is amazingly vivid - she just sucks you in.
• 
  kate

  dang.
  
  
• 
  Joseramirez Ramirez

  A really awesome mix of poetry, autobiography, and feminist theory by Cherrie Moraga (who writes about the intersctiong of her chicana, feminist, queer, etc identities).