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lacywolfe's review against another edition
3.0
After reading Prairie Fires, I wanted to continue with my Laura Ingalls Wilder reading quest. This fictional book traces a brooch that Rose, Laura's daughter, left in Vietnam while on assignment for a newspaper. Lee's attempts to track down more information takes her to many of the places that both Laura and Rose lived.
Also provides a heartbreaking, at times, look into Lee's family dynamics (immigrant Vietnamese family).
Also provides a heartbreaking, at times, look into Lee's family dynamics (immigrant Vietnamese family).
in2reading's review against another edition
4.0
I liked the juxtaposition of the main character's life as an Asian-American woman with her keen interest in the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
katrinanguyen's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0
Nguyen’s writing is very clear and easy to understand. But overall, I found the storyline quite boring. The only reason I somewhat like the book (and initial reason I picked it up) is because it touches on the tensions of the mother-daughter relationship with an immigrant mother.
juliacsmith's review against another edition
3.0
This is kind of a quiet book – not much dialogue, a *lot* of detail about the Ingalls/Wilder/Lane authors, and (despite having read the Little House books a lot as a kid, or maybe because I had and because I feel so differently about them now) it took me awhile to get engrossed. But quiet is good sometimes, and the right-this-moment contemporary details—the banh mi place taking off in the Chicago suburb, the Vitaminwater in the fridge at the medical marijuana startup's office—helped keep me in it. Now that I think about it, that's kind of the way the descriptions of food used to hold my attention in the Little House books. [Spoiler alert] I'm also a sucker for things that seem like they're setting up for rom-com endings but then end with the lady-protagonist finding herself and paving her way without a makeout scene with her prince at the end.
mhall's review against another edition
3.0
I read 70 pages of this thinking it was a memoir! But then I figured it out, based on the COVER which CLEARLY STATES 'a novel.' My bad. A neat mixture of Little House on the Prairie and the story of Rose Wilder, and the story of a Vietnamese-American girl growing up in the Midwest, with a family who operate a string of Chinese buffet restaurants in small town strip malls.
mmichellemoore's review against another edition
5.0
Loved it- I really connected with the narrator and I loved the parallels she drew between her life and the lives of Laura and Rose. Just enough realistic disillusionment about the difference between reality and the stories we tell ourselves and others. The ending for perfectly as well, not happily ever after bit not bitter either
quietjenn's review against another edition
5.0
A literary fiction novel (and it is *really* out of the lit fic tradition, so if you've no tolerance or affection for that sort of thing, probably don't bother) that reads like a memoir, wherein the Little House books (and their authorship) are sort of a catalyst for a Vietnamese post-doc's journey to figuring her shit out. The language is lovely and lyrical and there are elements of Lee's journey which will ring true for those who came of age under very different circumstances. There's huge strands that all sort of coalesce around issues of identity and family, especially mother-daughter relationships. I liked it a lot.
andrealianne's review against another edition
pros: exploration of Vietnamese immigration, family history mystery, taking a famous person's life and running with it, all the commentary on "Chinese buffet" restaurants.
cons: IF YOU'RE GONNA WRITE ABOUT LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE YOU GOTTA CRITICIZE THE BLATANT SETTLER COLONIALIST ISSUES !!!! (there were like four sentences of this....)
cons: IF YOU'RE GONNA WRITE ABOUT LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE YOU GOTTA CRITICIZE THE BLATANT SETTLER COLONIALIST ISSUES !!!! (there were like four sentences of this....)
kmpeightel's review against another edition
4.0
Great book! Would have given it 5 stars but it didn't wrap up too much in the end.
heykellyjensen's review against another edition
After reading the Little House books last summer, it really made me wonder if those books had meaning to girls who weren't middle class and white Americans. And that's sort of at the premise of this book, though this is about a woman who has just completed her PhD and begins to see the ways her life mirrors much of Rose Wilder, Laura's mother. Lee is Vietnamese American who finds herself back at home helping her mother and grandfather run the family restaurant. She dreams of finding her way out and making a claim of her own, and it's through a story she invents about Rose Wilder and a pin her family received from a traveler back in Vietnam that sets her off to establish her own.
What I loved most about this book is how much it read like a memoir. It was hard to remember it's fiction and not real, but Nguyen is a master of voice and perspective here. The parallels are well-drawn, and while I don't think this one has huge appeal for general teen YA readers, certainly those with a love for the Little House books or well-done, well-paced literary fiction that doesn't get self-indulgent will find a lot here to enjoy.
My first Nguyen read won't be my last.
What I loved most about this book is how much it read like a memoir. It was hard to remember it's fiction and not real, but Nguyen is a master of voice and perspective here. The parallels are well-drawn, and while I don't think this one has huge appeal for general teen YA readers, certainly those with a love for the Little House books or well-done, well-paced literary fiction that doesn't get self-indulgent will find a lot here to enjoy.
My first Nguyen read won't be my last.