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4.46 AVERAGE
4.46 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
This book was so well-written. True poetry. I loved the flow of it, and I’m so glad I read it as a physical book. The kindle probably would have messed it up. The narrative was written in a way that you felt like you were talking to yourself. I really got to dive in and it made it easy to get into the perspective taking. I know I’m already gonna love memoirs and non-fiction, so of course I loved this book.
Like all of Viet’s work, he seeks to break barriers and mix up categories, all in search for a more profound, honest truth. At the same time deeply humble and sharply critical, he manages to integrate his subjective experience and the broad political forces that buffet a life. A book that should be read by anyone trying to understand our times, or to write a memoir, or to struggle for justice.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Nguyen hooks the reader quickly into this carefully structured cross between memoir and autobiography. Written in the second person, the voice serves to draw the reader deeper into empathy while also allowing Nguyen to create distance between his authorial and subject voices. But it is the musing, reflective, style - sweeping from his perspective to imagining others, and carefully trying to generalise from his own experiences to global ones, while always emphasising his own subjectivity, that makes this such a pleasure. In the end it reads like hanging with someone really interesting who has a lot to say, and that's worth listening to.
It took me awhile to read this book because so many of his stories brought up a lot of emotions. As touched upon in the book, Asian history and presence in America is often erased and I am so extremely appreciative of how this book makes it so you cannot forget or erase Asian Americans while reading it. I learned about things I never knew happened in the US and it was eye opening while also gut wrenching to learn. Overall a wonderful memoir that is eye opening, critical, self reflective and just refreshing to read. The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is because jumping perspectives can be difficult for me to follow but that is more on me than it is the author.
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
reflective
medium-paced
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced