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anajoy's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
coming from someone who has read exactly one memoir in their life, this is the best memoir i’ve read.
i read this memoir for class and i have to say that i am very glad that i did. i feel like it’s objectively so weird to rate a memoir because it feels vaguely like i am putting a rating on this person’s life, so i am basing my rating on the writing alone. with that being said, the writing was absolutely beautiful; the way that yang manages to capture emotions in her writing is so masterfully done like omg girl you are a Genius.
allysonwbrunette's review against another edition
5.0
I don’t know that I would have been drawn specifically to this book on my own, but this is the 2020 Fox Cities Reads selection and I was able to borrow a community copy to read in advance of Kao Kalia Yang’s coming to the Fox Cities Book Festival this spring. The story line follows the multi-generational story of Kao’s grandmother, parents and siblings as they fleed from Vietnam, spent years in Thailand refugee camps and eventually resettled in California and Minnesota as refugees in the United States in the 1990s. Hmong culture is very present in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but I don’t know a great deal about it. This book presented a beautifully accessible narrative of Kao’s family history, Hmong folklore and a unique perspective on a displaced people seeking to find their new cultural and physical home in this world.
colleengeedrumm's review against another edition
5.0
I heard her heartbeat answer my hug.
Love, for me, is the reason why we remember our lives in stories, with characters and places, vivid and true. It is easy to talk of the contents of a book. It is far harder to forget the love on encounters between the pages of lives. - the author
Love, for me, is the reason why we remember our lives in stories, with characters and places, vivid and true. It is easy to talk of the contents of a book. It is far harder to forget the love on encounters between the pages of lives. - the author
anarchalmcdonalds's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.25
family memoir, starting with her parents in laos, their journey to vietnam refugee camps, her birth and early childhood in the camps, their migration to Minnesota, life in Minnesota, culminating with the death of her grandmother. beautiful prose, beautifully told. audiobook reading is full of raw emotion. heavy, moving, full of love. honestly it is embarrassing how little i knew about hmong history, growing up around a big hmong community. this book does an excellent job of telling that history, from the perspective of this family.
melissa_who_reads's review against another edition
5.0
Such a beautiful, well-written, engrossing book. I loved every word of it. I had not known much about the Hmong; it was a gentle way into their hardship fleeing the wars, in the refugee camps, and in their life in America. In every way, it is a celebration of family, and the survival of a family which stays together, in spirit and in living close together. Memorable and haunting.
kimberxensen's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75