A visit to the Getty Center in Los Angeles gave Patricia Angeles pause for thought. How incredible it was that an individual could create such a lasting and inspirational legacy. Without a Getty sized fortune to bequeath her daughters, Angeles wondered what she could do to leave them something to inspire them. She could write. She’d been writing an almost daily journal since her childhood in the Philipines. This is the root of MIDPOINT, a memoir aimed at explaining and revealing Angeles’ life so far. The primary target audience is her daughters but there is much included within the pages of this bright, witty and well written autobiography to engage readers to whom Angeles is but a distant stranger.

Taking the form of a chronological collection of anecdotes and stories, MIDPOINT traces Angeles’ life–from her origins in Manila in the 1980s through her college years and her migration, with her whole family–to the USA in 2005. A product of a loving Catholic family, Angeles details her childhood with great fondness and humor, including recalling how her parents were so strict that they even booked a room in the same hotel as her high school prom so that they could keep an eye on her. After moving to America, Angeles worked her way through a series of casual jobs, including a stint at a bookshop where she became an emergency stand-in for Curious George and had to don an oversize costume. She writes, “I was sweating bullets underneath. In what would be the longest hour of my life, I survived unscathed and with a newfound respect for the people doing such jobs for a living. When I became a mom, I strictly cautioned my kids to be extra careful and gentle around costumed characters.” The book is filled with these sorts of stories. There is no great drama, no life-or-death scenarios, but it is filled with warmth and relatable tales of quite ordinary people doing the best they can for each other. In a Q and A that appears as an addendum to the memoir, Angeles is asked what she hopes readers can learn from the book. She replies that the one takeaway would be that they leave knowing the importance and power of stories, “because what are we but an accumulation of our experiences?” In MIDPOINT Angeles shares those experiences and tells plenty of stories along the way.

Honest and heartwarming, MIDPOINT (A Memoir) is a well-written collection of stories and anecdotes that build into an autobiography of Patricia Angeles’ life so far. Although there is nothing especially dramatic in this short book, the author’ simple prose makes it an enjoyable read.

~Kent Lane for IndieReader