Daughter of Moloka'i

Publisher's Summary

The highly anticipated sequel to Alan Brennert’s acclaimed book club favorite, and national best seller, Moloka'i

Alan Brennert’s beloved novel Moloka'i, currently has over 600,000 copies in print. This companion tale tells the story of Ruth, the daughter that Rachel Kalama - quarantined for most of her life at the isolated leprosy settlement of Kalaupapa - was forced to give up at birth. 

The book follows young Ruth from her arrival at the Kapi'olani Home for Girls in Honolulu to her adoption by a Japanese couple who raise her on a strawberry and grape farm in California, her marriage and unjust internment at Manzanar Relocation Camp during World War II - and then, after the war, to the life-altering day when she receives a letter from a woman who says she is Ruth’s birth mother, Rachel. 

Daughter of Moloka'i expands upon Ruth and Rachel’s 22-year relationship, only hinted at in Moloka'i. It’s a richly emotional tale of two women - different in some ways, similar in others - who never expected to meet, much less come to love, one another. And for Ruth, it is a story of discovery, the unfolding of a past she knew nothing about. Told in vivid, evocative prose that conjures up the beauty and history of both Hawaiian and Japanese cultures, it’s the powerful and poignant tale that listeners of Moloka'i have been awaiting for 15 years.

©2019 Alan Brennert (P)2019 Recorded Books

So good

This book was so well read by Tamlyn Timor’s. I grew up in Hawaii and have been to Kalaupapa. I felt like I was there many times during the story. Bravo to the author and narrator!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

great story from Alan once again

loved it. Rich with history and tradition. But very sad too. I would definitely recommend.

Great read

Wonderful ... so enjoyed the follow up to Moloka’i... so interesting to see the perspective of another character

Another beautiful book by Alan Brennert

I loved absolutely everything about this sequel to Moloka’i. Narration could not have been better.

Good, but less so than the original

This is the sequel to Moloka'i, which I enjoyed. But this one seems to need a little editing. There are sometimes just too many details and too many people coming and going to have lunch with each other. It would have been great at about 2/3 the length. But with that said, it is interesting and captures a challenging period in US history. Narrator overdid the accents and some of the voices were a little strange.

A Remarkable Saga

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It's a story especially appreciated in audible format, because the narrator is so good at telling it! She has a lovely voice, with just the right tone, timbre, language and accent, to bring this remarkable family saga alive. What a time in American history.. quite apropos to read now, in light of the present turmoil over immigration. I couldn't put it down!

Might be a good story it the reader didn’t get in the way

I should have eye read this book rather than ear read (listen). I found the reader to be unbearable and found myself rolling my eyes, wincing and being downright frustrated with the performance. Usually I stop a book when the reader is horrible for me but I was on a long road trip and was super curious about the internet camp part of the book - a neglected area in American History. Perhaps the story was better than I am rating it but I could not get past the readers’ influence on the story with the weird voices, stuttering interpretations of conversations and imposed emotions. Ultimately I should have stopped listening and downloaded a different book because I am not leaving this book with the same good feeling I had after eye reading Moloka’i.
Book 2 focused on the family ‘s internment which despite the reader I found fascinating in that I don’t know a whole lot about that part of American History.

Didn't impress like the others

The performance was not all that great for an audible book. loads ofnwhispering and hard to hear.

It was a nice book but nothing like Molokai.

Wonderful Hawaiian stories & true history!!

This book brought me back to my roots, traditions and practices I forgot about after living in the Mainland so long. Descriptions offered beautiful pictures of Hawaii and bad scenes of WWII. Enjoy and have tissues in hand!