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Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'
Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes by Chantha Nguon
2 reviews
piecesofamber's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Physical abuse, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Death of parent, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal death, Cancer, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Rape, Sexual assault, Excrement, Alcohol, Deportation, and Pandemic/Epidemic
bibliomich's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Out of respect for authors' personal stories, I prefer not to provide star ratings for memoirs.
“I will tell you my story, but I insist on telling it with hands busy and the kitchen full of enticing aromas. I’ll cook for you throughout the telling. You’ll see for yourself that the past cannot be erased so easily. You’ll taste for yourself the way that history can be carried forward, borne on the smoke from a long-gone mother’s charcoal fire.”
Chantha Nguon's emotional memoir, Slow Noodles, tells the story of her coming of age in the time of the Khmer Rouge's totalitarian regime in Cambodia. Spanning multiple decades and traveling across Southeast Asia, from Cambodia to Vietnam to Thailand, the author frames her narrative using vignettes about food and family.
As one might expect given the setting and content, Nguon's narrative is devastating, and while it is rife with stories of violence, abuse, death, and grief, the author's story is, at its core, a tale about a girl growing up. While many of her life experiences are truly unfathomable to someone like myself who lives with such privilege, Nguon also told plenty of stories that felt deeply relatable--stories about growing up, rebelling, and questioning herself and the world around her. The ability to relate to and understand Nguon made the tragedy she experienced all the more heartbreaking.
Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced copy.
“I will tell you my story, but I insist on telling it with hands busy and the kitchen full of enticing aromas. I’ll cook for you throughout the telling. You’ll see for yourself that the past cannot be erased so easily. You’ll taste for yourself the way that history can be carried forward, borne on the smoke from a long-gone mother’s charcoal fire.”
Chantha Nguon's emotional memoir, Slow Noodles, tells the story of her coming of age in the time of the Khmer Rouge's totalitarian regime in Cambodia. Spanning multiple decades and traveling across Southeast Asia, from Cambodia to Vietnam to Thailand, the author frames her narrative using vignettes about food and family.
As one might expect given the setting and content, Nguon's narrative is devastating, and while it is rife with stories of violence, abuse, death, and grief, the author's story is, at its core, a tale about a girl growing up. While many of her life experiences are truly unfathomable to someone like myself who lives with such privilege, Nguon also told plenty of stories that felt deeply relatable--stories about growing up, rebelling, and questioning herself and the world around her. The ability to relate to and understand Nguon made the tragedy she experienced all the more heartbreaking.
Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced copy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism