Reviews

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

nabbott's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

ayeo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

dcunitz's review against another edition

4.0

“One must be grateful for one’s education no matter how it arrives. So I was grateful, and in a way, for my aunt and my cousin, whose lessons I remember much more than many nobler things that passed before me in school.”

mschweiger13's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

carrotkate's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A tense but important story to read. Could’ve done without some of the more graphic scenes,  but I’m sure many of them did happen at the time. 

klingcooper's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

jacquesdevilliers's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

pjcsantana's review against another edition

dark informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

ritaralha's review against another edition

1.0

DNF - página 51

Não consegui entrar na história, e as personagens não ajudaram nada.


24/198 - Vietname

kaz9's review against another edition

4.0

I closed the book and thought, "Wow! That was impressive and deserving of a Pulitzer." This is a book about the Vietnam War and its aftermath from the perspective of a Vietnamese man - a perspective we certainly haven't had enough of in the media in general. The narrator is "a man of two minds." He is half Vietnamese and half French, so he has never felt truly at home, even in the country of his birth. He is a sympathizer - in the political sense - with the Communist cause, and he's being run as a double agent and therefore living in close relationship with members of the South Vietnamese resistance who have fled to the US after the fall of Saigon. So he lives a double life on the outside, and because of his relationships with the South Vietnamese and his experience of life in the U.S., he is also a man of divided sympathies on the inside. So it is a novel about a spy with action, murder, and intrigue; it is a novel about a refugee's experience in a new land; it is a satire of Hollywood - because the narrator spends time advising a famous director on the set of a film about Vietnam; it has echoes of Catch 22 in its funny, irreverent tone and its sense of futility of societal systems; and finally, it is a book about all of our attempts to become whole - our attempts to know ourselves and know our own minds.