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This Is Paradise: Stories
Elegant, brutal, and profound—this magnificent debut captures the grit and glory of modern Hawai'i with breathtaking force and accuracy.
In a stunning collection that announces the arrival of an incredible talent, Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai'i, making the fabled place her own. Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua'i and the Big Island.
In the gut-punch of “Wanle,” a beautiful and tough young woman wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps as a legendary cockfighter. With striking versatility, the title story employs a chorus of voices—the women of Waikiki—to tell the tale of a young tourist drawn to the darker side of the city’s nightlife. “The Old Paniolo Way” limns the difficult nature of legacy and inheritance when a patriarch tries to settle the affairs of his farm before his death.
Exquisitely written and bursting with sharply observed detail, Kahakauwila’s stories remind us of the powerful desire to belong, to put down roots, and to have a place to call home.
In a stunning collection that announces the arrival of an incredible talent, Kristiana Kahakauwila travels the islands of Hawai'i, making the fabled place her own. Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua'i and the Big Island.
In the gut-punch of “Wanle,” a beautiful and tough young woman wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps as a legendary cockfighter. With striking versatility, the title story employs a chorus of voices—the women of Waikiki—to tell the tale of a young tourist drawn to the darker side of the city’s nightlife. “The Old Paniolo Way” limns the difficult nature of legacy and inheritance when a patriarch tries to settle the affairs of his farm before his death.
Exquisitely written and bursting with sharply observed detail, Kahakauwila’s stories remind us of the powerful desire to belong, to put down roots, and to have a place to call home.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
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December 4, 2018
I read this in May but since it was part of a postal book swap I am just now posting a review. I lost the photo I took of the story by story review I wrote in a notebook, but I have a distinct memory of some of these stories so I'll do my best.
These are not tourist stories. Thank goodness. They are much more about the people of Hawaii in their many forms and in their own struggles. One very memorable story, I think the first one, juxtaposes older women with a tourist who dies on the beach. The one that is most standout to me, though, is an almost-married couple whose entire relationship changes in one car ride.
These are not tourist stories. Thank goodness. They are much more about the people of Hawaii in their many forms and in their own struggles. One very memorable story, I think the first one, juxtaposes older women with a tourist who dies on the beach. The one that is most standout to me, though, is an almost-married couple whose entire relationship changes in one car ride.
January 29, 2021
3.5 stars
This is quite a good short story collection, consisting of six stories mostly around 40 pages long, though the pages turn quickly. It’s set in Hawai’i and focuses on native Hawaiians in the modern day, with most of the characters either involved in keeping livestock or having lives split between Hawai’i and the mainland. The stories are well-written, diverse, flow smoothly and are generally a pleasure to read.
Notes on the individual stories:
“This is Paradise”: The first story is perhaps meant to draw non-Hawaiian readers in by being the only one to put tourism front and center. It features a young tourist who gets into deadly trouble, but it’s narrated in the collective “we” by three groups of local women: young surfers, cleaning ladies who have immigrated from other Pacific islands, and young professionals shaping up to be community leaders. A good story and makes the first-person-plural narration feel less gimmicky than usual.
“Wanle”: Probably my favorite of the collection, this story features a mixed-race woman trying to avenge her father’s death through cockfighting, which upsets her boyfriend greatly. I’d never read about cockfighting before so found that aspect of the story interesting, and the way the author gradually changes our perspectives of Wanle’s father and boyfriend is clever. I wasn’t entirely convinced, given her generally tough persona and surroundings, by Wanle’s feeling that was sufficient revenge.
“The Road to Hana”: A couple’s relationship is challenged when she insists on rescuing a flea-ridden dog by the side of the road. This is one of the shorter stories and interested me mostly for its examination of what it means to be “from” a place: the girlfriend, a native Hawaiian who grew up in Vegas, is quick to discount her white boyfriend’s claim to be “from” anywhere other than perhaps Germany, which his family left many generations before (he grew up in Hawai’i with parents who moved there from Minnesota), creating underlying tension.
“Thirty-Nine Rules for Making a Hawaiian Funeral Into a Drinking Game”: The shortest story and one of those second-person things, it generally works all right and is another crack at the story of a Hawaiian moving back to the islands from the mainland and rediscovering her place in her family.
“Portrait of a Good Father”: A sensitive portrayal of a family falling apart, told from the point-of-view of the young daughter who loses her brother, as well as the father cheating on his wife.
“The Old Paniolo Way”: The longest story in the collection and another sensitive story of family troubles. This one focuses on an adult gay son who’s made good in California but returns to the islands to be with his father and sister while the father is dying. Matters are complicated by his attraction to the male hospice nurse, and questions about what will happen to the ranch after the father’s death. Both family stories do a good job of picking out the details and small moments on which relationships turn.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this collection, though none of the stories blew me away. Once past the tourist story the collection is very focused on “real” island life, involving pickup trucks, beer and pidgin, in a way that doesn’t feel like catering to outsiders’ concepts of what Hawai’i must be. The stories are well-crafted and seem heartfelt. I would read more from this author.
This is quite a good short story collection, consisting of six stories mostly around 40 pages long, though the pages turn quickly. It’s set in Hawai’i and focuses on native Hawaiians in the modern day, with most of the characters either involved in keeping livestock or having lives split between Hawai’i and the mainland. The stories are well-written, diverse, flow smoothly and are generally a pleasure to read.
Notes on the individual stories:
“This is Paradise”: The first story is perhaps meant to draw non-Hawaiian readers in by being the only one to put tourism front and center. It features a young tourist who gets into deadly trouble, but it’s narrated in the collective “we” by three groups of local women: young surfers, cleaning ladies who have immigrated from other Pacific islands, and young professionals shaping up to be community leaders. A good story and makes the first-person-plural narration feel less gimmicky than usual.
“Wanle”: Probably my favorite of the collection, this story features a mixed-race woman trying to avenge her father’s death through cockfighting, which upsets her boyfriend greatly. I’d never read about cockfighting before so found that aspect of the story interesting, and the way the author gradually changes our perspectives of Wanle’s father and boyfriend is clever. I wasn’t entirely convinced, given her generally tough persona and surroundings, by Wanle’s feeling that was sufficient revenge.
“The Road to Hana”: A couple’s relationship is challenged when she insists on rescuing a flea-ridden dog by the side of the road. This is one of the shorter stories and interested me mostly for its examination of what it means to be “from” a place: the girlfriend, a native Hawaiian who grew up in Vegas, is quick to discount her white boyfriend’s claim to be “from” anywhere other than perhaps Germany, which his family left many generations before (he grew up in Hawai’i with parents who moved there from Minnesota), creating underlying tension.
“Thirty-Nine Rules for Making a Hawaiian Funeral Into a Drinking Game”: The shortest story and one of those second-person things, it generally works all right and is another crack at the story of a Hawaiian moving back to the islands from the mainland and rediscovering her place in her family.
“Portrait of a Good Father”: A sensitive portrayal of a family falling apart, told from the point-of-view of the young daughter who loses her brother, as well as the father cheating on his wife.
“The Old Paniolo Way”: The longest story in the collection and another sensitive story of family troubles. This one focuses on an adult gay son who’s made good in California but returns to the islands to be with his father and sister while the father is dying. Matters are complicated by his attraction to the male hospice nurse, and questions about what will happen to the ranch after the father’s death. Both family stories do a good job of picking out the details and small moments on which relationships turn.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this collection, though none of the stories blew me away. Once past the tourist story the collection is very focused on “real” island life, involving pickup trucks, beer and pidgin, in a way that doesn’t feel like catering to outsiders’ concepts of what Hawai’i must be. The stories are well-crafted and seem heartfelt. I would read more from this author.
September 20, 2013
Kristiana Kahakauwila’s debut collection of stories is a beautifully expressed bundle of unexpected, original, authentic offerings. (Full disclosure: Tiana, as I then knew her, was my student as a high school junior in 1997-1998.)
All the stories are set in Hawaii and its essence deeply, almost religiously, binds and animates the literature she makes. If you’re white, like me, and grew up on the American mainland from the 1950s onward, you, along with about 230 million of your current co-Caucasians, have a fairytale-idyllic-hula-swaying-Mai-Tai-sippin’-Don Ho-doomed entirely clichéd vision of what Hawaii and its people are really like.
Though I lived in Honolulu for two years in the early 80s, the stories in this book still exploded many of my (mis)conceptions about the people, their islands, and the often tragic political/historical past Hawaii’s descendants still mourn. In “Requiem for A Nun” William Faulkner wrote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” That reality burns through this book like a terrible, if distant, blaze in the mind.
To be clear: Hawaii’s royal past, American takeover, and longing for cultural return are the background music, the melodies native Hawaiians hum in fragments even they can’t always recall the origin of. TK’s true, deep territory here is the human heart, what makes it, what breaks it. As Jack Kroll, a long-gone Newsweek critic once wrote in a line I’ve never forgotten: “The human heart is the only broken thing that still works.” TK grasps that idea to soul and bone – and it’s that grasp which pulses through these stories to give them such human weight and the density of real life as it is actually lived.
I loved all six of these stories, not least because they were each so different. But mainly because TK took me to places and times I’d never been, or even seen - and I don’t mean just geographically. She takes chances. She makes unpredictable moves, thematically, structurally, otherwise. She writes with an austere, graceful beauty, evoking the physical world in spare brushstrokes, and the inner world(s) with the same less-is-more psychological acuity.
She’s terrific at what I’d call human suspense – the rise, fall and minor shocks of daily life, of families, of people trying to figure each other out. The stories unfold with real narrative energy, their secrets, small and large, emerging as they often do in life, offhandedly, with the muffled echoes of hindsight reverberating. She knows how to be funny, and when not to be.
You can tell she’s trying (and, I think, succeeding) to be a real artist on every page. She’s trying to tell you something you don’t know, about people who have been or will be just like you, in ways that slide right through your defenses. She knows the profound, sometimes surreal, occasionally epic strangeness of life and people - and just what in the hell goes on with them. She shows how desperate our longings to be heard, touched, known, felt can be. She shows how desire connects to loss - and how even when we know that’s what’s going to happen (again), we can’t help it anyway.
She gets the high stakes and takes them on, open-hearted and ready for failure as the price youth pays for any ambition worth its name. She’s interested in the motives and meanings that drive people, what makes them move and act, decide to live or die, give up or give in. All the big questions. And even a few answers along the way.
What more do you want?
So read it.
All the stories are set in Hawaii and its essence deeply, almost religiously, binds and animates the literature she makes. If you’re white, like me, and grew up on the American mainland from the 1950s onward, you, along with about 230 million of your current co-Caucasians, have a fairytale-idyllic-hula-swaying-Mai-Tai-sippin’-Don Ho-doomed entirely clichéd vision of what Hawaii and its people are really like.
Though I lived in Honolulu for two years in the early 80s, the stories in this book still exploded many of my (mis)conceptions about the people, their islands, and the often tragic political/historical past Hawaii’s descendants still mourn. In “Requiem for A Nun” William Faulkner wrote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” That reality burns through this book like a terrible, if distant, blaze in the mind.
To be clear: Hawaii’s royal past, American takeover, and longing for cultural return are the background music, the melodies native Hawaiians hum in fragments even they can’t always recall the origin of. TK’s true, deep territory here is the human heart, what makes it, what breaks it. As Jack Kroll, a long-gone Newsweek critic once wrote in a line I’ve never forgotten: “The human heart is the only broken thing that still works.” TK grasps that idea to soul and bone – and it’s that grasp which pulses through these stories to give them such human weight and the density of real life as it is actually lived.
I loved all six of these stories, not least because they were each so different. But mainly because TK took me to places and times I’d never been, or even seen - and I don’t mean just geographically. She takes chances. She makes unpredictable moves, thematically, structurally, otherwise. She writes with an austere, graceful beauty, evoking the physical world in spare brushstrokes, and the inner world(s) with the same less-is-more psychological acuity.
She’s terrific at what I’d call human suspense – the rise, fall and minor shocks of daily life, of families, of people trying to figure each other out. The stories unfold with real narrative energy, their secrets, small and large, emerging as they often do in life, offhandedly, with the muffled echoes of hindsight reverberating. She knows how to be funny, and when not to be.
You can tell she’s trying (and, I think, succeeding) to be a real artist on every page. She’s trying to tell you something you don’t know, about people who have been or will be just like you, in ways that slide right through your defenses. She knows the profound, sometimes surreal, occasionally epic strangeness of life and people - and just what in the hell goes on with them. She shows how desperate our longings to be heard, touched, known, felt can be. She shows how desire connects to loss - and how even when we know that’s what’s going to happen (again), we can’t help it anyway.
She gets the high stakes and takes them on, open-hearted and ready for failure as the price youth pays for any ambition worth its name. She’s interested in the motives and meanings that drive people, what makes them move and act, decide to live or die, give up or give in. All the big questions. And even a few answers along the way.
What more do you want?
So read it.
August 31, 2013
Welcome to Hawaii, land of Talk-Story, pidgin English, native Hawaiians, and Haoles (whites). It is a place of great beauty where many of the native Hawaiians relish their silences and mourn family members who have abandoned them for the mainland. Elders are known as Auntie or Uncle and are treated with respect. These stories take the reader to Maui, the big island of Hawaii, and Oahu. Talk-stories are abundant and through them we learn of the wonderful oral narrative of the indigenous peoples who populate this great state.
The title story, This is Paradise, is told from the vantage point of three groups of women - a cleaning crew at a tourist hotel, surfers, and corporate women. They all observe a young woman who is destined for trouble and eventually is murdered. They mourn her in their own ways.
Wanle, one of my favorites in this collection is about a young woman who raises and trains roosters for cock-fighting. She is part Chinese, Filipino and native Hawaiian. Her boyfriend, Indian, is opposed to what she does with the roosters and dissension arises in their relationship. She is determined to continue with the cock-fighting until she rights some wrongs that she thinks were committed against her dead father. It is fascinating to see how she soothes her roosters - by humming, singing, cooing, or holding them up to her vocal cords. Despite the violent content of this story, it is beautiful and poetic.
The Road to Hana is about two lovers, Becky and Cameron, who are driving to Haleakala. On the way, Cameron has to brake for a dog in the middle of the road. The dog is a flea-ridden stray. Their different reactions to this dog change the dynamics of their relationship irrevocably.
Thirty-NIne Rules For Making a Hawaiian Funeral Into a Drinking Game is a tongue in cheek drinking guide to a funeral that is both a spoof of, and a poignant look at, the funeral of the narrator's grandmother. The narrator has moved from Los Angeles to Honolulu one year ago and she is finding her place in her Hawaiian family.
Portrait of a Good Father is a fascinating montage of a family in crisis. Sarah and her brother, John-boy, are walking home from school when John-boy gets killed in a hit and run accident. This is a family in deep despair. Not only have Sarah's mother and father lost a son but Sarah's father Keaku has been having an affair with Joon for thirteen years. The family is wrenched apart from all angles and Sarah tries to navigate her life in the wake of her brother's death and her father's disappearance.
The Old Paniolo Way is a brilliant short story. Pili returns to Hawaii as his father lies dying. He has been living as an out gay man in San Francisco and is the owner of a successful marketing firm. He left the island to attend college and except for semi-annual visits, has not returned home. He has never come out to his family and despite wanting to do so now, something holds him back. Family dynamics become more complex as Pili and his sister both develop feelings for Albert, the hospice nurse.
The stories tell the plight of the native Hawaiians as they are faced with the invasion of development and Haoles. "We look at each other, and we feel the heat rising in our faces. Our families are barely affording a life here, the land is being eaten away by developers, the old sugar companies still control water rights. Not only does paradise no longer belong to us, but we have to watch foreigners destroy it." These stories are the work of a writer of great talent and brilliance. I think that Kristiana Kahakauwila has portrayed Hawaii in the most honest way I've ever encountered. Her stories linger inside me.
The title story, This is Paradise, is told from the vantage point of three groups of women - a cleaning crew at a tourist hotel, surfers, and corporate women. They all observe a young woman who is destined for trouble and eventually is murdered. They mourn her in their own ways.
Wanle, one of my favorites in this collection is about a young woman who raises and trains roosters for cock-fighting. She is part Chinese, Filipino and native Hawaiian. Her boyfriend, Indian, is opposed to what she does with the roosters and dissension arises in their relationship. She is determined to continue with the cock-fighting until she rights some wrongs that she thinks were committed against her dead father. It is fascinating to see how she soothes her roosters - by humming, singing, cooing, or holding them up to her vocal cords. Despite the violent content of this story, it is beautiful and poetic.
The Road to Hana is about two lovers, Becky and Cameron, who are driving to Haleakala. On the way, Cameron has to brake for a dog in the middle of the road. The dog is a flea-ridden stray. Their different reactions to this dog change the dynamics of their relationship irrevocably.
Thirty-NIne Rules For Making a Hawaiian Funeral Into a Drinking Game is a tongue in cheek drinking guide to a funeral that is both a spoof of, and a poignant look at, the funeral of the narrator's grandmother. The narrator has moved from Los Angeles to Honolulu one year ago and she is finding her place in her Hawaiian family.
Portrait of a Good Father is a fascinating montage of a family in crisis. Sarah and her brother, John-boy, are walking home from school when John-boy gets killed in a hit and run accident. This is a family in deep despair. Not only have Sarah's mother and father lost a son but Sarah's father Keaku has been having an affair with Joon for thirteen years. The family is wrenched apart from all angles and Sarah tries to navigate her life in the wake of her brother's death and her father's disappearance.
The Old Paniolo Way is a brilliant short story. Pili returns to Hawaii as his father lies dying. He has been living as an out gay man in San Francisco and is the owner of a successful marketing firm. He left the island to attend college and except for semi-annual visits, has not returned home. He has never come out to his family and despite wanting to do so now, something holds him back. Family dynamics become more complex as Pili and his sister both develop feelings for Albert, the hospice nurse.
The stories tell the plight of the native Hawaiians as they are faced with the invasion of development and Haoles. "We look at each other, and we feel the heat rising in our faces. Our families are barely affording a life here, the land is being eaten away by developers, the old sugar companies still control water rights. Not only does paradise no longer belong to us, but we have to watch foreigners destroy it." These stories are the work of a writer of great talent and brilliance. I think that Kristiana Kahakauwila has portrayed Hawaii in the most honest way I've ever encountered. Her stories linger inside me.
May 23, 2025
I really liked the idea of these stories, that Hawaii is a character and it’s “her” that takes a dominant role in the storytelling. Unfortunately, the character development suffered because of that. The characters were one dimensional. I felt nothing for them as a reader.
Read
July 10, 2025A few of the short stories in this collection were assigned for a class I took last semester. I decided to finish the collection over the summer and read the ones I had missed.
“This Is Paradise” is a series of six short stories, all set in Hawaii. The title is the backbone of the collection. All the stories certainly center Hawaii’s beauty, with extensive descriptions of panoramic views, careful devotion to the changes in weather, and with much of each story taking place outside. At the same time though, the collection is by no means a beach read, with almost every story involving some element of darkness, if not explicit death, hence the irony of the title.
The first story, which shares the name of the collection, is the only one with an emphasis on tourism, with a chorus of different groups of Hawaiian women observing in piecemeal a white female tourist’s night out. The other stories are about family, identity, belonging; one character, who has spent the past 12 years on the mainland, returns home due to his father’s cancer, and struggles with whether to come out to him. Another concerns a young couple (she is Native Hawaiian but was born and raised in Las Vegas, he is ethnically German, with parents originally from Minnesota, but was born and raised on the islands) on the precipice of getting engaged, but with a relationship strained by misunderstanding.
Overall, I really enjoyed this collection. The stories that stuck out to me the most were definitely the ones we discussed in class. I felt I was able to understand and reflect on those most deeply, but I also was glad to have now read the collection as a whole. I would recommend this short story collection!
“This Is Paradise” is a series of six short stories, all set in Hawaii. The title is the backbone of the collection. All the stories certainly center Hawaii’s beauty, with extensive descriptions of panoramic views, careful devotion to the changes in weather, and with much of each story taking place outside. At the same time though, the collection is by no means a beach read, with almost every story involving some element of darkness, if not explicit death, hence the irony of the title.
The first story, which shares the name of the collection, is the only one with an emphasis on tourism, with a chorus of different groups of Hawaiian women observing in piecemeal a white female tourist’s night out. The other stories are about family, identity, belonging; one character, who has spent the past 12 years on the mainland, returns home due to his father’s cancer, and struggles with whether to come out to him. Another concerns a young couple (she is Native Hawaiian but was born and raised in Las Vegas, he is ethnically German, with parents originally from Minnesota, but was born and raised on the islands) on the precipice of getting engaged, but with a relationship strained by misunderstanding.
Overall, I really enjoyed this collection. The stories that stuck out to me the most were definitely the ones we discussed in class. I felt I was able to understand and reflect on those most deeply, but I also was glad to have now read the collection as a whole. I would recommend this short story collection!
August 14, 2013
What brilliant debut! Though the themes of the stories were not vastly different from one another, I quite enjoyed reading most of the stories. From the chilling 'This is Paradise' story about a young tourist who glimpses the shady and dangerous side of the Island to the complicated relationships between sibilings and their father in 'The old paniolo way' , Kristiana weaves magic with her words. I loved the fact that Pidgin is used liberally and many non-english words weren't italicized. The context in which they were used made the meaning of the words easy to comprehend. My favorite story was Wanle, which is about the bloody sport of cockfighting. Kristiana's protagonists are real and very believable.
I loved her writing style in the first story , where narration is done by a bunch of people together. A lilting melancholic feeling enveloped me as I finished each story , as every story has threads of sadness woven into them. But in a strange way the collection as a whole is rather satisfying , and one does wonder about 'what it means to belong to a place - a country or a state or a race'. Most of the protagonists wrestle with leaving Hawaii and going to live in the Mainland, but they feel like Hawaii will be home for them no matter where they live .Maybe some emotions will always be the same across nationalities and races.
I had this feeling that the author has drawn heavily from her life - especially the story of '39 rules for making a Hawaiian funeral into a drinking game' which has the protagonist narrating the events at her Grandma's funeral.
Overall , a satisfying read and a brilliant debut! Thanks to Random house for sending me this book to review.
May 17, 2022
3.5 stars on the blog.
At the three quarters point I was certain I was going to give this book three stars. In the first half sometimes I felt it was going to be 2.5 stars on the blog, but the last story in this anthology is brilliant, and a large percentage of the book at about ninety pages. No one has this shelved as LGBTQ, but the last story has a wonderful representation of gay characters. I liked the author's skill for description. If this story had been a standalone short story I would have given it five stars.
What I didn't like about this book? Too much graphic animal abuse, although in the last story the MC's family's horses were adored beyond measure. There was also cheesy sex scenes in a few of the other stories, scenes that didn't add anything to the story, but yet again the sex scenes in the last story were well written and well placed. This proves I'm not against sex scenes in Adult Lit, only badly written or unnecessary ones.
There were a couple of other stories I would have rated 3.5 stars, but the last one ultimately saved the anthology for me.
At the three quarters point I was certain I was going to give this book three stars. In the first half sometimes I felt it was going to be 2.5 stars on the blog, but the last story in this anthology is brilliant, and a large percentage of the book at about ninety pages. No one has this shelved as LGBTQ, but the last story has a wonderful representation of gay characters. I liked the author's skill for description. If this story had been a standalone short story I would have given it five stars.
What I didn't like about this book? Too much graphic animal abuse, although in the last story the MC's family's horses were adored beyond measure. There was also cheesy sex scenes in a few of the other stories, scenes that didn't add anything to the story, but yet again the sex scenes in the last story were well written and well placed. This proves I'm not against sex scenes in Adult Lit, only badly written or unnecessary ones.
There were a couple of other stories I would have rated 3.5 stars, but the last one ultimately saved the anthology for me.
July 13, 2013
I just reviewed this one and I loved it. Another fave book of the year!
Check out the review here:
http://guiltlessreading.blogspot.ca/2013/07/this-is-paradise-stories-by-kristiana.html
Check out the review here:
http://guiltlessreading.blogspot.ca/2013/07/this-is-paradise-stories-by-kristiana.html
December 10, 2025
The fact that, as a citizen of the USA, I do not need a passport to fly to Hawaii is only one of a litany of imperial abuses perpetuated by the colonizing settler state I call my birthplace. It was sheer luck that I recognized such rather early on, pruning a peer pressured Moloka'i from the TBR and taking on Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen instead, something I advise any and all to do if you are also keen on disentangling the murder mystery of the modern day. Despite this effort on my part, I will admit to not having been the most assiduous at tracking Hawaii specific narratives, for when it comes to indigenous/aboriginal matters, the field is vast and my energy is lacking. This is my excuse for why I have Kahakauwila's work and little else, but at least I can say that these short stories went well for me, some extremely so. In terms of ranking, "Thirty-Nine Rules for Making Hawaiian Funeral into a Drinking Game" is top for me, followed by "Wanle" and then by "The Old Paniolo Way" (the queer that I imagine initially drew me in alongside all other motivations). I understand why "This is Paradise" received top tier titular billing, but it's not what I personally look for in a story, so I am content to leave it to its prime first page real estate and advocate for the more distant pastures. All in all, if you're in the mood for Hawaiian literature that actually knows what it's talking about, this is a solid collection that is recognizable without being disrespectful and accurate without making a no-nothing reader like myself work too hard. Now I just need to find the next work that will keep me informed without tempting me to violate the sovereignty of the last royal palace left standing on (proclaimed) US territory.
My cousin can chant back twenty-five generations. That's what it means to be from a place. And yet, you're from Minnesota, and I'm from Vegas. How can that be?
November 5, 2023
A beautiful, at times haunting collection of stories about Hawaii and the people who live there. A perfect companion to the non-fiction Unfamiliar Fishes (thanks, Mom!) that made for great reading before and during my recent trip to Hawaii. This Is Paradise is a gorgeously written reminder that Hawaii is - and always has been - so much more than your tourist destination.
September 12, 2013
I read an interview with this author where she says the recurring character in all of her stories is Hawaii. Indeed, she does an excellent job of developing "her." From the shape of boulders in upcountry Maui, to the smell of the air when it rains, to the delicious sourness of pickled vegetables, to the curve of a paddling surfer's back ("like a smile"--I loved this), it was clear that the stories were written by someone with a visceral connection to the islands. Her descriptions of place are loving and spirited, attributable to the fact that the author was raised both in Hawaii and on the mainland and spent much of her life pining for the former. But while I appreciated the author's wonderful descriptive powers, I was not really drawn into any of the stories. The attention that she lavishes on Hawaii as a character is often lost on the rest of the cast. The people in the stories read like stock characters, their dialogue feels stiff and each seems to be written as a representative of a particular subset of local culture. The characters may come off that way to me because I am from Hawaii, and readers raised elsewhere may not sense the "sameness" among them. However, it seemed that the author was sacrificing depth for an exploration of identity that at times veered toward pedagogy. That being said, I found myself enjoying the stories despite their flaws because they were so tenderly written. I was moved by the family dynamics in many of the stories and related to the characters' interactions on matters of familial love, silences and distance. I think the family threads of each story lent them a fullness that was missing in the individual characters. By the end, this collection left me with an ache of nostalgia for home and is certainly a book that would make someone want to visit Hawaii. Overall, the author does a great job of touching upon the complexities of local culture, but I only wished she had done so more tangentially through whole, developed characters, defined by more than where they were born.
July 25, 2013
A gorgeous, satisfying short story collection about Hawaii like you’ve never seen it before! I am amazed by Kahakauwila’s literary prowess—her ability to empathetically depict complex relationships between locals and tourists, boyfriends and girlfriends, children and parents; her elegant yet gritty prose; her adeptness capturing pidgin English in dialogue; and her unique points of view (first person plural in “This is Paradise” and second person in “Thirty-Nine Rules for Making a Hawaiian Funeral into a Drinking Game”).
I would be hard pressed to choose just one favorite story, because every story in this collection is so strong and integral to the book as a whole. “Wanle” is the story of a tough young woman who raises fighting roosters to redeem her father’s reputation to the men who say he was a cheat, but she is torn by her lover’s insistence she give up all the violence. “The Old Paniolo Way” is the story of a gay son who returns to Hawaii when his father is on his deathbed and longs to unburden himself by coming out, but his relationship with his sister and his father’s nurse complicates things. “This is Paradise” is a haunting story about a female tourist flirting with danger, and the local women who try to warn her.
I would be hard pressed to choose just one favorite story, because every story in this collection is so strong and integral to the book as a whole. “Wanle” is the story of a tough young woman who raises fighting roosters to redeem her father’s reputation to the men who say he was a cheat, but she is torn by her lover’s insistence she give up all the violence. “The Old Paniolo Way” is the story of a gay son who returns to Hawaii when his father is on his deathbed and longs to unburden himself by coming out, but his relationship with his sister and his father’s nurse complicates things. “This is Paradise” is a haunting story about a female tourist flirting with danger, and the local women who try to warn her.
July 16, 2013
I was born and raised in Hawai'i, and always say that Hawai'i is my mother. I love her fiercely, and I am her sharpest critic (but God help the poor fool that disses Hawai'i in front of me). The stories in this collection are achingly human, Hawaiian or not. The most relatable were "This is Paradise" and "Thirty-Nine Rules..." All of them revolve around the all-too-familiar theme (especially for us mixed-plate specials :)...)of identity. Some of the pidgin is right on, and some of it seems awkward, which leads me to believe that the author was exposed to pidgin, but maybe didn't speak it growing up (not that it detracts from any of the stories, and of course, pidgin can vary from island to island)...All in all, it's exciting to see a representation of local Hawai'i (not just tropical fantasyland Hawai'i) in literature.
October 10, 2017
Hawai'i is a tropical paradise, but that's mainly true for tourists. In this briefish collection of stories, the author explores what it means to be an island native and it's not always paradise. The title story is harrowing and shows both the gritty reality of Hawaiian life for the locals, as well as the seedy dangers of travel. It was also my favorite, told from the alternating points of view of hotel housemaids, yuppy natives and locals. Most of the stories have a poignant or at least, not so happy ending, but the final one, "The Old Paniolo Way", ends on an uplifting note. The best part is that in her role as storyteller, Kahakauwila creates a backdrop of those beautiful islands that reminded me of my brief time spent there, making me wish I was back on the Hana Highway again.
September 22, 2013
I was anxiously awaiting to read this book of short stories, of life in Hawaii, written by a Native. Most are very depressing and oft times accentuate how non-natives are really not welcome and have little understanding of the "land". These aren't "touristy" stories, unless it was to debase tourists. One or two stories held my interest, but overall, the book was just average. A little disappointing.
July 11, 2014
Eh. Too moody. Hard to like.
May 24, 2023
Lyrical, gorgeous writing that bring Hawai’i alive in an amazing group of stories and make me homesick! Highly recommended.
March 14, 2021
This is Paradise is a collection of short stories that portrays Hawaiian culture, social issues, and family dynamics. Each story weighs an undeniably beautiful and epic backdrop against a gritty, complicated cultural landscape that explores racism, poverty, gentrification, and patriarchy. My favorite story explored the tradition of cock fighting on Maui as a young woman seeks vengeance against her father’s murder. Altogether, these stories peel off the protective film that pigeonholes (Pun intended! Yes, much of the dialogue is in native Pidgin) Hawaii as a perfect paradise.
May 21, 2020
These stories were gritty, sad, engaging, wistful, and full of life. Told from Hawaiian women’s POVs, these were like a woman’s counterpoint to the equally excellent collection Lucky Man. The author is skilled in describing a world and culture in unfamiliar with and letting me feel a part of it.
This is Paradise -The first story was powerful. IT was probably the best story in the collection.
Wanle- The second story is about cock fighting, and also about family, honor, love, revenge, peace, and loss. That’s a lot for one short story, but it’s all in there.
The Road to Hana was just depressing - I was hoping it was leading up to some big lay off, but it just stayed depressing.
Thirty Nine Rules for Making a Hawaiian Funeral into a Drinking Game - felt very autobiographical. As a mainlander and a haole who has never been to Hawaii, I didn’t identify much, but it was still good.
Portrait of a Good Father is very melancholy, one of those short stories that feels like a novel
The Old Paniolo Way describes the sorrow and turmoil of saying goodbye to a parent.
This is Paradise -The first story was powerful. IT was probably the best story in the collection.
Wanle- The second story is about cock fighting, and also about family, honor, love, revenge, peace, and loss. That’s a lot for one short story, but it’s all in there.
The Road to Hana was just depressing - I was hoping it was leading up to some big lay off, but it just stayed depressing.
Thirty Nine Rules for Making a Hawaiian Funeral into a Drinking Game - felt very autobiographical. As a mainlander and a haole who has never been to Hawaii, I didn’t identify much, but it was still good.
Portrait of a Good Father is very melancholy, one of those short stories that feels like a novel
The Old Paniolo Way describes the sorrow and turmoil of saying goodbye to a parent.
February 23, 2021
5 stars. Each story drew me in more and more. I was pulled into the world of the story, and I adored how the author described the characters. Each story had so much sadness but so much... Finality. Leaving much to think about. These people were real and multifaceted in ways that made you both love and hate them. Her use of imagery was superb, and I really felt like I was there. The last story especially drew me in. I looked at the clock and when I looked up again, an hour later, I had literally experienced a different life in only 50 or so pages.
Besides the beauty of the stories themselves, this author did an amazing job of expressing the modern injustices and feelings of people of Hawai'i. To read the words I had never seen and read ideas I had never thought about felt important. But that's not all this book is about... It is about human passion and everyday life, some special to the islands, other universally experienced. This book was beautiful.
Besides the beauty of the stories themselves, this author did an amazing job of expressing the modern injustices and feelings of people of Hawai'i. To read the words I had never seen and read ideas I had never thought about felt important. But that's not all this book is about... It is about human passion and everyday life, some special to the islands, other universally experienced. This book was beautiful.
March 22, 2022
Kahakauwila’s Own Voice collection of short stories reflects the experiences and culture of native Hawaiians. As a haole who has visited there, it was neat to read about the places we visited, but also sobering to once again read about how negatively tourism may be viewed by natives, and why that is completely understandable. (Anyone can grasp tourism’s impact when one tries to swim at Waikiki in the late afternoon as you must first must wade your way through the scum-filled surf created by bathers’ sun lotions. As pictured in old photos, Waikiki looked very different less than 100 years ago as the one resort built amidst the jungle at that time has since morphed into miles of commercial development.) Other stories centered on family relationships, some touching, some hard to read, like in the one about a young woman trying to avenge her father’s death via cockfighting.
August 9, 2025
I loved this book. what a collection. it feels steeped in local culture and identities - it's complicated and heartbreaking, and the stories hold empathy and space for that complexity. the collection takes on difficult realities: what it means to be local and live away from home, what it means to be Hawaiian / diasporic Hawaiian, the way it is still hard to be openly queer in Hawai‘i... and it does so in very intimate ways: shown through romantic relationships, familial relationships, interactions between strangers (even those feel intimate!). these are questions I see and feel all around Hawai‘i
I'm amazed at how suspenseful these stories are - I think it's harder with short form writing to get a reader to be so invested in a story that they can't put it down, but that's what happened to me for every story in this book!
the attention to detail throughout the book is amazing, too. like when certain characters choose to speak pidgin or not, how they react in difficult times, what they think about, what they remember - it's all so thoughtful and careful
I'm amazed at how suspenseful these stories are - I think it's harder with short form writing to get a reader to be so invested in a story that they can't put it down, but that's what happened to me for every story in this book!
the attention to detail throughout the book is amazing, too. like when certain characters choose to speak pidgin or not, how they react in difficult times, what they think about, what they remember - it's all so thoughtful and careful
January 8, 2023
I started and finished this book on the same day. It’s a collection of short stories set in Hawaii and I just kept reading one more, one more till I suddenly found myself at the end. The stories are gritty, often tragic, and interesting looks at love, life, and the complexity of relationships. The heaviness of the content was an interesting juxtaposition to the lightness of what we think of when we think “Hawaii”. I’m going to Kauai soon and try to read books by local authors before I travel. I’m glad I chose this one. The author is a native Hawaiian and has insight and perspective into Hawaii I could never have as a visitor. I’m thankful she used her talents as a writer to share a piece of her culture.
July 29, 2022
What a beautiful piece of literature. It is masterfully written with many passages evoking vivid images and emotions. These stories are deep and tangible. Even after living here for almost 3 years, there is still lots I have to learn about the people and culture of Hawaii. This place is so so much more that a glamorous vacation spot. It is the home and treasure to many. I’m so glad I picked up this book.
September 8, 2018
I picked this up to read because of the setting, but was pleasantly surprised by the engaging writing style and varied characters and issues in these stories. Would recommend for own voices representation of Hawaiian culture and society.
October 4, 2023
DNF at 126 pages.
It's not that this book is bad but I'm in a reading slump right now and I'm not in the right mood to read it. The writing is great and some of the stories were super vivid. I might try and go back later when I'm not so slumpy.
It's not that this book is bad but I'm in a reading slump right now and I'm not in the right mood to read it. The writing is great and some of the stories were super vivid. I might try and go back later when I'm not so slumpy.
June 2, 2017
You'll really love it! :)
May 12, 2020
Interesting short story collection by a Hawaiian author.
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