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abbeyp's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-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
evakuj's review against another edition
3.0
interesting topic, found it hard to read in places, but that just made it more interesting as you get an idea of the difficulty that the character has to live with.
femme4fleurs's review against another edition
3.0
I loved a lot about this book, but as many other reviewers have noted, the ending was oddly rushed.
jcruse's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
ac_rva's review against another edition
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
kelsalohop's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
wenwe's review against another edition
5.0
Wow! The way this author puts words together and flows from thought to thought is phenomenal. I found myself laughing at the meals and descriptions, tasting the words of conversations, and tangentially getting to the point as we do in conversations. I want to be friends with Linda and Kelly.
steveatwaywords's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
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
3.25
I want very much to like this book more than I did, because there is so much that Truong does which is powerful, original, necessary. Others have written that this is a book of immersion, that a reader has to settle into the world and move along with the characters, enjoying them and discovering the tensions (and scandals) along the way. True; and combined with an unreliable narrator (Truong says it's an unreliable reader, but see below) who works candidly and sincerely with a form of synesthesia, who grows up with a family largely distanced and ever antagonistic towards her in the small-town American South, we want to understand her better, to discover along with her the "story."
All of this, during exposition and development in the first half of the novel, is almost compelling. Some will then say that the plot has twists and surprises; the blurb on the book suggests a secret past. But there is a difference between a character or narrator who discovers something to which she was blind and a narrator (or in this case, author) who deliberately withholds information in order to shock the reader. Truong's "twists," I think, lean far too heavily--even awkwardly--in this latter area. No plot-level, character-level or even larger thematic level of reason exists for this withholding; we learn nothing meaningfully significant from the twist nor does the character, because she has always known this information. Truong became, I think, too enamored of the idea of "surprising the reader" to recognize that her character had no reason to do so. Truong speaks in interviews of creating an "unreliable reader" and narrative "blank spaces" for us to fill in: it's a curious idea, and one certainly worth investigating narratively. Unfortunately, at its worst, it feels more like a badly-written M. Night Shyamalan script. Surprise for the sake of surprise only pollutes the rest of the story, as it largely did for me in the second half of the novel. I no longer even liked the characters.
Enough on that. If you like big "twists" simply for the fun of them, you need not find any of this a bad thing. Fortunately, the second half of the novel works hard to enrich some of the characters and strengthen the links between protagonist and a number of historical and literary themes (Virginia Dare, Wright brothers, etc.) along the way.
Finally, however, the final "twist" or secret past is only just this: a story withheld from the protagonist that she learns. Okay. Good for her, she heard it. But once again, there is little for the characters to grow from or that feeds the earlier challenges faced. What we do get as readers, satisfying enough, is an understanding of family and the narratives we inexpertly craft for them. This alone is reason enough to recommend the book, but with the caveats above. Truong makes it difficult on herself, I think: she deliberately offers us Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as a model, but then falls far short of it herself.
All of this, during exposition and development in the first half of the novel, is almost compelling. Some will then say that the plot has twists and surprises; the blurb on the book suggests a secret past. But there is a difference between a character or narrator who discovers something to which she was blind and a narrator (or in this case, author) who deliberately withholds information in order to shock the reader. Truong's "twists," I think, lean far too heavily--even awkwardly--in this latter area. No plot-level, character-level or even larger thematic level of reason exists for this withholding; we learn nothing meaningfully significant from the twist nor does the character, because she has always known this information. Truong became, I think, too enamored of the idea of "surprising the reader" to recognize that her character had no reason to do so. Truong speaks in interviews of creating an "unreliable reader" and narrative "blank spaces" for us to fill in: it's a curious idea, and one certainly worth investigating narratively. Unfortunately, at its worst, it feels more like a badly-written M. Night Shyamalan script. Surprise for the sake of surprise only pollutes the rest of the story, as it largely did for me in the second half of the novel. I no longer even liked the characters.
Enough on that. If you like big "twists" simply for the fun of them, you need not find any of this a bad thing. Fortunately, the second half of the novel works hard to enrich some of the characters and strengthen the links between protagonist and a number of historical and literary themes (Virginia Dare, Wright brothers, etc.) along the way.
Finally, however, the final "twist" or secret past is only just this: a story withheld from the protagonist that she learns. Okay. Good for her, she heard it. But once again, there is little for the characters to grow from or that feeds the earlier challenges faced. What we do get as readers, satisfying enough, is an understanding of family and the narratives we inexpertly craft for them. This alone is reason enough to recommend the book, but with the caveats above. Truong makes it difficult on herself, I think: she deliberately offers us Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as a model, but then falls far short of it herself.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Racial slurs, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, and Bullying
kdhanda's review against another edition
3.0
I really wanted to like this book. It was funny, smart, derisive and wry. The writing, in parts, is excellent. However, it left me dizzy as the book went back and forth in time without a link. I was rattled by her usage of the food tastes in the middle of sentences. This really got on to my nerves until I was skipping sentences entirely. Good read about family dysfunction in the South but do not expect too much.