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A review by michelleful
Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nguyen
3.0
A novel that reads more like a memoir, to the extent that I forgot this was fiction and was super cross with the author when she started stealing from libraries and museums, I mean seriously?! In other respects I identified a fair amount with the Vietnamese-American protagonist, especially in how grad school worked out for her (though she does wind up on academic 1-year contracts while I decided to bail for industry), how she finds a research project that really engrosses her only post-grad school (I had a very similar experience) and some aspects of her mother, though mine is a LOT nicer (thank goodness).
Overall it was a decent read paralleling the immigrant experience with the pioneer experience of the 1800s, and what happens to the generation after that. There were just a couple of things that weren't super pleasing in the book, one of which was why didn't she show her grandfather a picture of Rose, which would have been the most straightforward way of getting an answer on a crucial question of the novel (I see above that others have asked themselves the same question), plus the ending was just a bit muted for my tastes. 3* overall.
Overall it was a decent read paralleling the immigrant experience with the pioneer experience of the 1800s, and what happens to the generation after that. There were just a couple of things that weren't super pleasing in the book, one of which was why didn't she show her grandfather a picture of Rose, which would have been the most straightforward way of getting an answer on a crucial question of the novel (I see above that others have asked themselves the same question), plus the ending was just a bit muted for my tastes. 3* overall.