Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes

Truly an astounding piece of non fiction! Using a through-line of food in a memoir is a fairly common one that I often find to be just fine, but Nguon makes this approach fully her own. I loved that each recipe was both just a recipe and also deeply connected to her story and each chapter. Including instructions or descriptions for how to cook the food as it related to that moment in her life made each recipe and mention of food more interconnected to her life. Food also made the connectedness between her mother and her daughter more salient, I loved that this was a story about what we pass down (both the good and the bad) and what we must hold onto in the face of so much adversity. I also just learned a lot about Cambodia, its history and its food, and this book compels me to learn more. This was great throughout but really took my breath away in the last chapter that brought it all together, I feel so lucky to have found Nguon’s story!

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readingpicnic's review against another edition

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5.0

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Algonquin Books for a free digital ARC (or I guess a late reader copy since I requested this and was approved after it was already published) in exchange for an honest review. The recipes were tied into the story so well before they were reintroduced in recipe format, and it was such a wonderful enmeshing of genres that felt so natural. The ways that the recipes were altered in creative ways, such as with instructions to noisily prepare food to make the eater feel unwelcome eating it–so creative. The food descriptions were incredible and so meticulous, and you can tell the author’s passion for the food knowledge that she wrote this to preserve, keeping both her mother and culture’s recipes alive. The mission of this book and the execution were fairly flawless in my opinion, and even though readers should check the trigger warnings due to the traumas of the Cambodian genocide and living in communist North Vietnam with extremely rationed food, living in extreme poverty, as well as losing so many family members to illness, it is still definitely worth the read. The family dynamics were very interesting to read about, especially in the ways some of her siblings just stopped interacting with them after moving away from Cambodia and the normalcy of that (could just be my western perspective). I am truly not very educated on Cambodia’s history, so even though I learned some of that history from this book, this really emphasized for me how much more I have to learn (I think I’ll read Ma and Me by Putsata Reang soon). I think that ending the book with an epilogue from her daughter was a great way to round out the story and really emphasized the generations of women that are so prevalent in this story. The relationships between Chantha and her mom, her sister (who also took on a mothering role), and then between her and her daughter were the true through line of this book, and it just all came together so nicely and in such a lovely way. Anyways, 5 stars, and I’m glad I took my time reading this slowly.

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jordynkw's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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nad_books623's review

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

5.0

This was a beautiful and incredibly sad story. The book was raw and as an American it was good reading her story while, living during the Vietnam war.

This was the first time I've read a book that focused on food which, I believe made the book 5 stars. The way everything was connected was beautiful.

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sxndaze's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

2.75

it’s not an easy read, and it can definitely be triggering.

it’s an important story but definitely read it only if you’re in the right mind space for it.

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bibliomich's review against another edition

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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.

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