I’m a big fan of Barnes, and this has been my favourite of her works to date. These essays were intimate and nuanced and brought the reader into conversations and discussions around some really important issues. I particularly loved the insights into Barnes’ writing process and how it has become part of her life. Couldn’t recommend this enough! 🙏

Raw real honest an intimate look at the authors life her childhood her life as an undocumented woman in America her marriage.She shares her difficult relationships with her parents on to her marriage adjusting to living with her husband down South her life there and as a parent.A book full of so many difficult times the author is amazing I loved getting to know her story.#netgalley#littleA

Until very recently, “multicultural” literature out of the South has referred almost exclusively to novels depicting relations between African Americans (often the descendants of slaves), and Americans of European descent. Although Asian immigrants have lived in the South since before the Civil War, albeit in small numbers, few Asian American characters appear in literature out of this region. Previously, when Asians or Asian Americans did appear in Southern fiction, they were often portrayed as the inscrutable “other.” Even fewer Asian Americans from the South have put pen to paper themselves, although this is changing. In Malaya, for example, Cinelle Barnes writes about being a Filipina in the American South, a Brown woman in a region that doesn't quite know what to do with its nonbinary residents (in spite of having elected Nikki Haley, the first Indian-American woman governor). Barnes writes with honesty and nuance of her time as a victim of childhood trauma, an undocumented immigrant, and the wife of a White man with KKK ancestors.

Wowowow. THIS BOOK IS SO AMAZING I'm having trouble articulating my thoughts! If you loved MONSOON MANSION, you'll love MALAYA: ESSAYS ON FREEDOM as well. It truly is the perfect follow up to Cinelle Barnes' debut. I think context helped to make this book an even more enjoyable read because I was already invested in Barnes' story. Her time as an undocumented immigrant was by no means easy, but I was so glad for her to be away from her destructive life in the Philippines that each essay had a sort of hopeful quality to it.
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It's definitely not necessary to read MONSOON MANSION before reading this book; on its own, MALAYA is a thoughtful reflection on being undocumented, an immigrant, a person of colour. The essays were varied and diverse - her precarious work situations, her relationship with her husband's family in the American South, her daughter, her parents, the process of writing a book! Cinelle Barnes approached all of these topics in a beautifully poetic and descriptive way.
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Thank you to @netgalley for this ebook! MALAYA comes out in October but the hype better get started now because this book is really really good. Raise your hand if you're looking forward to reading MALAYA! 🙋

After reading Monsoon Mansion, I was left with wanting more. Here, I got that more. Oh, my dear author, how I want to commend you on your courage and tenacity in life. You are an amazing and strong individual.

This book shows the courage of every day life and the struggles of life as an immigrant. But also life with PTSD and what it means to be struggling with mental illnesses and such as an immigrant

I highly recommend this book.

***I was granted an ARC of this via Netgalley from the publisher.***

When I read Cinelle Barnes’ memoir Monsoon Mansion earlier this year, I knew she was a special writer. When I found out about Malaya: Essays on Freedom, I knew I had to get a copy and I can say Barnes did not disappoint with her second book. Malaya is a collection of essays in which Barnes relates her experiences and lessons learned as she has made her way as an immigrant in the US, to getting married and becoming a citizen and having a child and writing her first book. The reader will be moved by the crushing disappointments and amazing victories that Barnes has had in her life. But while this can be seen as a sequel to Monsoon Mansion, it is so much more. Barnes speaks directly to the reader asking them to consider what believes they may have and how they can be better to those society tends to want to ignore or vilify like immigrants and those with mental health issues. But she serves as an inspirational figure, someone who while they may still struggle with the traumas of the past can find strength in the everyday successes that they have. In my opinion, this is the best book that I have read so far this year. I would encourage everyone to read this book, and if you get a chance also read her first book Monsoon Mansion.

Rating: 5 stars. Would highly recommend to a friend.

Reflecting her journey from her childhood in the Philippines to her arrival in the U.S. Cinelle Barnes collection of essays surprised me. This is my first Barnes read and I am so happy I read this one first. Through vivid and insightful writing Barnes takes you through her challenges of being an undocumented immigrant, her biracial relationship and being a parent. Her story is truly something. Many thanks to Net Galley and Little A for gifting me this copy. This was a 3/5 for me.

I am so glad Cinelle Barnes wrote this book. It is current, relevant and timely in its subjects of immigration, illegal status, loss of culture and marriage. But more than that, it is full of small, explosive ways that immigrants fear and suffer in ways that residents do not. Her every day life, and the tragic technicalities that forced her into living as an illegal alien in New York, show how complicated immigration is. There are no black and white circumstances for immigrants. They suffer indignities, trauma and fear. And compassion should be the first thing we show them, as Barnes so beautifully shows in this fabulous book.

This set of essays by Cinelle Barnes reflects her journey from her childhood in the Philippines to her arrival in the U.S. and the subsequent challenges she faced navigating life as an undocumented teenager and adult. Life was difficult as she struggled to find work, make a living, and survive. Her story is emotional, painfully so, and the ghosts of her experiences I expect will never leave her and won’t set her free. It’s difficult to articulate, but at times I felt she almost drowned in herself and through her therapy was able to come out on the other side - thankfully. Having read Sonia Sotomayor’s My Beloved World immediately before this book, I was struck by the different approach each woman takes to handling issues of race. Not taking anything away from this author's lived experience, I was not wowed but the writing style - its basic and sometimes mundane language was a surprise. To enjoy a book means to savor the texture of language through which a riveting and absorbing story is told and, unfortunately, this did not happen here - I had hoped for so much more. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Having loved Cinelle Barnes’s first book, Monsoon Mansion, I may have had too high of expectations with this one. Some sections and chapters flowed effortlessly and some felt halting. Broken up. Some of the sections just get really forced or haphazard to me. I get that a lot of this may be due to it being nonfiction like Monsoon mansion but about Cinelle’s time here in America. If someone enjoyed Monsoon, they should read this to learn more about the author however it doesn’t feel as cohesive as her other work.

Cinelle Barnes crafts a beautiful collection of essays on personal and national freedom in this stunning collection. A Filipina immigrant who was adopted by an American family as an early teen, Barnes has an interesting and unconventional history - for more on that, see her debut memoir Monsoon Mansion. These essays capture many notions of freedom in all the ways we can be free and unfree. She discusses the precarious and under-the-radar life of living undocumented in this country; the jobs she worked as a house cleaner, a clothes washer, and a nanny with her family and other Filipina immigrants, who she felt put their hopes of an American dream on her shoulders. She speaks of how dance and its deep, physical, emotional, tribal feeling freed her body. Barnes has a gorgeous writing style and blends elements of psychology and sociology in her essays, adding another level of the study of what it means to be free.

Thanks to NetGalley and Little A for providing my review copy. Also, can we appreciate that beautiful cover??

Hot on the heels of Cinelle Barnes' well-received memoir, Monsoon Mansion, Barnes has released Malaya, an essay collection on the pursuits of freedom. Barnes shares creative essays about those that have oppressed her, those that she has enabled, and stepped on. If you haven't read Barnes' memoir, Malaya shares enough of the pieces of Barnes' life story that you can follow along.

Some of my favourite essays concern Barnes navigating interracial relationships, whether romantic or platonic and dealing with family trauma. "Careful White Girls, Careful Brown Girls" is simply one of the best essays in the collection, detailing a friendship Barnes seeks out with a surfer mom who she seems to idealize for her freedom and spirit, only to find herself disillusioned and angry at "white women everywhere who could fluidly slip in and out of spaces, toy with danger, even give danger a name, call it a gig, a job, a lifestyle." Danger is not something that Barnes never dared to flirt with, as an undocumented immigrant. "Genealogy" is a multi-faceted look into Southern families, a conflicting portrayal of silence and suffocation. "Cafe Culture" and "To Care, To Care Too Much" tell tales of modern employment - maids, hostesses, Etsy entrepreneurs - with the minefields of working with people with their own life stories. And of course, there are essays about writing essays. These were enjoyable if simply to hear about a craftswoman talk passionately about her trade.

Malaya reminded me of why I read, to learn about lives different from us and to remember we don't know what people are going through. Malaya is a thought-provoking and fast-paced read.