A review by wanderlust_romance
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

What an amazing and moving memoir. Everything from the artwork to the deeply personal storytelling was engaging, thoughtful, and emotional. The art is a layering of ink and woodcut style drawings with undercurrents of brown and orange watercolors. It is a stark but not monochromatic depiction of scenes that aligns very well with the story being told. At its heart, The Best We Could Do is a story of parental and family relationships. The narrative’s opening scene depicting the authors traumatic birthing experience sets the tone for the rest of the book: this is not going to be a comfortable read. And indeed it is challenging. The birth scene brings the narrative full circle at the end, with deeply personal and resonating reflections by Bui on being a parent. The midsection of the memoir goes into depth on Bui’s parent’s experiences growing up in French colonial Vietnam and the ensuing geopolitical conflicts that ensued. Relaying the challenges experienced by their parents adds insight into their approach to parenting in the midst of the conflict and afterwards in their life as immigrants in the US. Through the gathering of this insight, it made me pause to consider how much one really knows their parents. Do I know who my parents are as people, in a vein outside of their relationship to me as a caretaker? Is it possible to separate what I know of them as parents to understand who they are in an independent context? While not explicitly noted in the text, these are also questions that Bui considers with depth in gathering their parents deeply personal and fraught histories. With this renewed insight into the Bui family’s history, Thi Bui reflects on their own journey as a parent. And at the end of such a deeply moving story, reminds readers of the refrain that many parents recognize in the challenges to raise humans. I did the best I could do.
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