For a good portion of this memoir I was prepared to give it 2 or 3 stars. I believe I felt this way because for the most part, the book is written in a childish tone from a child's point of view and while at times I will admit I appreciated that, I believe it also elicited impatience. While I valued the unique story being told, I still struggled to see the bigger picture of where the overall piece was working toward. For me, it wasn't until the end that I decided to reward this book with a 4. This is for many reasons but mainly because I think the overall message and goal of this memoir comes off so strong that it can't and should not be ignored. Everything does come full circle. I also feel like I really learned a lot from Hamilton's personal struggles as well as more about the struggles of various people with the historical context of the World Wars still being largely relevant. In the beginning, I was fairly certain I would not be recommending this book to many however, now, I am happy to say that that opinion has changed.

"We are the German-Irish story. We are the English-Irish story, too. My father has one soft foot and one hard foot, one good ear and one bad ear, and we have one Irish foot and one German foot and a right arm in English. We are the brack children. Brack, homemade Irish bread with German raisins. We are the brack people and we don't have just one language and one history. We sleep in German and we dream in Irish. We laugh in Irish and we cry in German. We are silent in German and we speak in English. We are the speckled people." Hugo Hamilton