Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - The Sympathizer

I genuinely don't know how to rate this book because I am honestly shaking in my boots as I am writing this. The amount of times this book has horrified me is too many to count. But I will say that it suceeded in presenting me a new perspective on the events that happened in those times.

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective slow-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

4.5

Finally a book about the Vietnam War by a Vietnamese person. Took a while to finish this. Wanted to savor it but also, it was a lot to digest. Strongly recommend reading the op-ed and Q&A at the end too. Gives me a much greater in depth insight into the book by setting it from the author’s perspective.

PS, have a dictionary handy. There were a LOT of SAT words!

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bookishevy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I saw that the #HBO series based on this book is already streaming, so I had to push it up my TBR list.

Most of the story is told through the confession of a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain working as a communist double agent who comes to the U.S. after Saigon has fallen. The unnamed narrator settles in LA and rebuilds a life among other Vietnamese refugees while secretly gathering intelligence and reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam.

The narrator makes the perfect spy because he's steeped in dualities. Born and raised in Vietnam but educated in the US. From the north but fighting alongside the south. He serves the Viet Cong but also sympathizes with anti-communists. He struggles with his identity, hence why he doesn't have a name. He says he's "able to see any issue from both sides." Herein lies his conflict.

In his confession to the Commandant, the narrator shares his feelings on his father's identity and how it affected his and his mother's lives, his views on the French and American occupations of Vietnam, how Asians are viewed in America and their stereotypical portrayals on film, how him being part French and his unaccented English made him more palatable to white Americans. He even talks about his love interests. But is he telling everything?

With themes like friendship, loyalty, and betrayal, this part satire spy thriller explores the legacy of the Vietnam war. I didn't think I would laugh out loud while reading this novel, but I did so quite a few times. Funny observations aside, this story deals with heavy, real-life issues like separation from loved ones and other horrors that come with war. I was stunned at the end of chapter 19.

This would have been a 5/5 for me if it weren't for how the dialogue was written. I've read books that don't have quotation marks, but Nguyen also places entire conversations in one paragraph. It's a dense read.

TW: War, violence, murder, graphic rape, torture, grooming, antiasian, and antiblack sentiment

I hope the series does it justice.

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kisstheladder's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny reflective tense medium-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

4.5

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amandas_bookshelf's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective 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

4.0

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cassreading's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

This was wonderfully and thoughtfully written. It has so much to say about the Vietnam war, American imperialism, racism, the American Dream™, politics, language, representation. It's incredibly ambitious, and yet I think it manages to do what it wants well for the most part.

The ending was brutal to read (read TW). It definitely shows the brutality of war, the limits of sympathy, but I still feel unsure about it, and about the book's representation of women as a whole. Still working through that mentally.

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ceedy's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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anarmandameg's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.75

Just gonna recycle my review from The Hanging City and say 'Weirdly Horny'

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