Reviews

Maybe you'll be a girl and maybe your name will be Rose again, and you'll have a room full of books with parents who will read you bedtime stories in a country not touched by war. Maybe then, in that life and in this future, you'll find this book and you'll know what happened to us. And you'll remember me. Maybe.

beetlecomputer's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad tense

4.25

zoschox's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

frenchleigh's review against another edition

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4.0

Hot take but I don't know that I loved the way this concept (a long letter to the narrator/author's mother) was carried out --I think it weakened the plot. But maybe that's the point, or rather, pointlessness: a reflection shouldn't have to have the traditional sine curve (or cosine curve?) of tensions and resolutions, and the timeline being fluid added to that sense as well as to the theme of intergenerational trauma. This is, as a project of love, profound. The writing itself makes this book a worthy read, and Ocean Vuong has some sentences in here that I still think about two years later.

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