A review by huerca_armada
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

5.0

An impressive first novel from Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen, and written in the lurid, acerbic style of something like Catch-22, The Sympathizer grips you from the very first pages. Varying wildly from exquisite comedy to horrifically depressing interludes, the struggles of the southern refugees to remake themselves in a country that finds its own moral creeds and enshrining words to be petty and hollowed out, while spasms of violence from their old lives re-emerge again and again. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, and can see myself returning later with a closer and more critical eye for the symbolism and themes represented here.