A review by nataliecoyne
The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I really enjoyed this book, though, reflecting on reading Dust Child earlier this year versus reading The Mountains Sing now, I do have to say that I enjoyed Dust Child more, which appears to be an unpopular opinion. Maybe it's because I read Dust Child first, but I felt like The Mountains Sing was a bit more slow paced, and I think that is where the major difference came in for me.

Still, though, I really did enjoy this. As another reviewer pointed out, I think it's good for Americans to read more historical fiction about the impacts of the Vietnam War by Vietnamese authors. Something that I really appreciated in Dust Child and appreciate here as well is the sprinkling of Vietnamese phrases/proverbs throughout in Vietnamese (then followed by the English translation), as well as the fact that names of characters, names of locations, etc. aren't Anglicized (so "Hà Nội," not "Hanoi," and "Trần," not "Tran"). Though it does also make me think I probably should've listened to this as an audiobook instead of reading it physically. Since I don't know Vietnamese, the pronunciations in my head were probably off.

To the actual content of the book, it was really a beautiful tale, both heartbreaking and heartwarming at times. And although I did like Dust Child better overall, this was still fantastic, and I would still absolutely recommend it to others.
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