So I finished reading Edwidge Danticat’s first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, about a week or so ago and just realized that I have yet to write anything about it. Published in 1994, when the author was just 25, it is a rather short and easy to read book, but clearly not as well done as her later endeavors. Of course, all the magical Danticat imagery was still there, but I just felt rather spoiled as a reader having read her other works before this. If you don’t know, the book is about a young Haitian girl, Sophie, who, having been raised for most of her young life by her aunt in Haiti, is sent to live with her mother in New York. I don’t want to give away the whole plot, so I’ll leave it at that. I loved the childhood bits, the yellow colors and the smells, and that simply innocent yet terribly observant voice of the little girl, which young Danticat pulls off well. The seams of novice, however, were also noticeable at times. There was a bit about daffodils, that made it seem like Danticat had read Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy just the day before. Also, some of the imagery was repetitive without cause and the end was kind of convoluted and forced. But hey, still not bad for a first book. Having read her others, I just wish Oprah had waited for one of those…Krik? Krak! was published only two years later, but was immensely better– “Children of the Sea” is the bomb! Anyway, before wrapping up, I wanted to share a line that is surely my favorite in the whole novel. I think you’ll see why: “The woman continued attacking him, shouting that she was tired of cowardly men speaking against women who were proving themselves, women as brave as stars out at dawn,” (55.) When I saw that, I smiled.