This is a really great inspiring memoir. I really liked the writing style and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys memoirs! Special Thank You to Barbara Sommer Feigin, Girl Friday Productions and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy in exchange for a honest review.

Note: Ironically, LinkedIn will not link so I posted it there on its own.

Synopsis (from Netgalley, the provider of the book for me to review.)
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Included in the curriculum of the WF West High School in Chehalis, WA

On August 4, 1940, the Seattle Times featured a photo of a toddler sitting on a dock, surrounded by suitcases and looking dazed. After a harrowing journey with her parents, she’d just stepped off a boat and into her new life in America. Barbara Sommer Feigin was that little girl.

Over seventy years later, Feigin made a stunning discovery: her Jewish father had kept a detailed journal that chronicled their family’s escape from Nazi Germany. Her parents had never spoken of it, and she remembered nothing of their terrifying, death-defying passage three-quarters of the way around the world—from Berlin to Seattle by way of Lithuania, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan before crossing the Pacific.

Featuring three intertwining narratives, My American Dream is a memoir of resilience, grit, and grace. Feigin tells of her life as a young German-speaking refugee living in a small Washington town and yearning to become an “authentic” American. She details how she became a trailblazing executive in the advertising business in New York City—a completely male-dominated business in the 1960s—rising from the ranks and ultimately securing a seat in the executive boardroom. A devoted wife and mom of three sons (including one set of twins), she spent twenty-five years as a caregiver for her husband, who suffered two serious strokes and remained fiercely committed to building strong family bonds during turbulent times.

Despite overwhelming odds, her parents’ gruelling journey to America has fueled Feigin’s lifelong resolve to dream big, work hard, and never quit. My American Dream is an inspiring tale of love, dedication, and how uncovering the past and preserving history can inform your identity.

A great autobiography of a strong and competent woman who grabbed the American Dream and ran with it Well written and I love that it is required reading in her small town's highschool curriculum. Enjoyable by casual readers and book clubs - highly recommended. #shotrbutsweetreviews

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My maternal grandmother escaped Nazi Germany much the same way Barbara Feigin's family did, so I was interested to read this book. The first section is a journal kept by her German parents, replete with non-native English grammar and subtle anti-Asian sentiments. Our family has first-person narrative accounts like this too (although not racist) but we circulate them amongst the family as treasured heirlooms, instead of publishing them for public consumption. The rest of this book is written by Barbara herself and honestly I have to say it reads like the world's longest and most tedious of holiday letters. This family is industrious and achieves great success, so it is a lot to get through, and written in the first person (and annoyingly at times in the third) as this is, it comes across as very braggy.

The elements that I found most interesting, for example the discord between Barbara and her mother-in-law, or her own mother's deathbed confession that her sister (Barbara's aunt Kate) had given birth to a baby in Germany, disappointingly, never went anywhere. Young Barbara makes the case against her boyfriend's mom directly to his face:
"Your father sounds like he was such a soft-spoken, steady person and your mother is so volatile and so self-centered and difficult - even a little hysterical. How did they get along?" Jim really isn't able to answer.

So then her reaction to Jim's mom 5 pages later made me laugh out loud: "No one will ever come between a mother and her firstborn son." I am bowled over that she would make such a harsh comment to Jim's new fiancée.

I felt sorry for Jim choosing Barbara over his mom, leaving her all alone in the world. After Barbara's own saintly mother dies, she laments never having asked her specifics about her life, past and thoughts etc. But rather than directing that list of insightful questions to her remaining parent, or Aunt Kate either for that matter, when her father dies she ends up expressing the same remorse again about not having asked that same bunch of questions. Finally, I was so intrigued by the German baby mystery, but even though Aunt Kate marries Barbara's dad and they live together for 15 years, and despite Barbara painstakingly detailing positively every thing about all the generations of her family in Her American Dream, we never get to know a single thing about that fascinating baby.

A life well lived and a solid example of someone who attained the so-called American Dream.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I'm so glad that she wrote it for her children and grandchildren.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me a free eARC of this book to read in exchange for my review!