Book Reviews
When the Hibiscus Falls
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. These stories are written with passionate prose, addressing sensitive topics such as suicide, diaspora and xenophobia. Because her Filipino heritage is important to her, Ms. Galang ensures that it is interwoven throughout the book. The driving force behind the stories, however, are the women’s resolution and devotion to family.
Kirkus
”A portrait of how complicated it is to face the history you inherit.”
Publishers Weekly *
”What makes these stories so powerful and poignant are the inner lives of the characters, a complex blend of nostalgia, desire for assimilation, and defiance. This is a winner.”
The Halo Halo Review
”Psychic strength was clearly required to write these stories revolving around generations of Filipino women in the U.S. and the Philippines, and the roles they play: daughters, sisters, mothers, aunties, cousins, lolas, and friends.”
West Trade Review
”The stories speak to one another as a record of generations of women and their inherent strength.”
Electric Literature
”Galang gives the Filipina/Filipina American reader the greatest gift of all: the chance to see oneself in a text not because her likeness has been stripped of all complexity, but because her complexity has been revered—held up to the light and turned slowly, with each shifting hue captured with delicate, lucid prose.”
lolas’ house
Rebellious, Magazine for Women
‘Lolas’ House’ Tells Untold Stories of Filipino Comfort Women
During World War II, an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 women across Asia were kidnapped by Japanese soldiers and kept as sex slaves.
December 2017
Miami Rail
The Lolas Speak and Testify: Lolas’ House by M. Evelina Galang
In M. Evelina Galang’s Lolas’ House, sixteen Filipino comfort women recount their experiences of kidnapping, torture, and sexual slavery during World War II by the Imperial Japanese Army.
Galatea Resurrects
To my surprise actually, Lolas’ House is not just the stories of the Filipino "comfort women" Galang researched during visits to the Philippines. It’s also the 18-year story of how Galang conducted the research, as well as the effects of the research on her.
November 21, 2017
HYPHEN: Asian America Unabridged
Huwes de Kutsililyo—The Stories Have Entered their Bodies: On M. Evelina Galang’s Lolas’ House: Filipino Women Living with War, October 25, 2017
Angel de la Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery
Live Journal
M. Evelina Galang’s Angel de La Luna and the Fifth Glorious Mystery (after Her Wild American Self and One Tribe) provides a refreshing change of pace in the field with its focus on its young, rebellious, and spirited titular protagonist.
December 8, 2013
Kirkus
Adolescence, family issues, music and revolutionary politics all sink sharp hooks into a Filipino teenager at the beginning of the 21st century.
November 1, 2013
Publisher’s Weekly
It’s the year 2000 in Manila, and 14-year-old Angel is grieving the sudden death of her papang (father).
October 31, 2013
Em’s Bookshelves
Angel de la Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery, by M. Evelina Galang, is a beautifully unique young adult novel, set in the Philippines.
September 25, 2013
SCREAMING MONKEYS
Asian Reporter
It’s amazing what one bad review can do. When a 1998 Milwaukee Magazine write-up of a Filipino restaurant described the owner’s child as a "rambunctious little monkey," an avalanche of opinions fell on the magazine.
June 2004
Asian American Book Review
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Screaming Monkeys enacts one of the most challenging, yet culturally rewarding, subversions of prevailing stereotypes of Asian Americans in contemporary mass media.
2004
Iowa State Daily
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M. Evelina Galang explained Monday why "monkey" has more meaning than you might think it does.
April 2004
Susan Lee
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Screaming Monkeys began life as response to a review of a Filipino restaurant in Milwaukee magazine by a not-very-astute writer who called the restaurant owner’s son a “rambunctious little monkey.”
HER WILD AMERICAN SELF
New York Times Book Review
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”Where are you from?” is a question too often asked of the young American-born Filipino women who populate M. Evelina Galang’s stirring collection of stories, Her Wild American Self (Coffee House Press).
May 1996
MS. Magazine
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The debut collection of short stories by M. Evelina Galang, Her Wild American Self, delivers an honest and insightful look at the expriences of Filipina American women who “grew up hearing two languages.”
May/June 1996
MELUS Review
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A century after 1898, as the public and academy turn their eyes to the Philippines and to Filipino American lives, this slim volume of short stories requires attention. December 1999
The Virginia Pilot
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M. Evelina Galang's voice is emerging. It is a young and forceful voice, one defined by ``differentness.''
April 1996
The Review of Contemporary Fiction
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In the afterword to this absorbing first collection of short stories, Galang writes that all of her women characters are, "working to figure out who to be and how to do it."
September 1996
Filipino American Literature
M. Evelina Galang’s book Her Wild American Self is a compilation of short stories of young women struggling with the identity of being a Filipina in America.
December 2010