A review by heykellyjensen
Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nguyen

After reading the Little House books last summer, it really made me wonder if those books had meaning to girls who weren't middle class and white Americans. And that's sort of at the premise of this book, though this is about a woman who has just completed her PhD and begins to see the ways her life mirrors much of Rose Wilder, Laura's mother. Lee is Vietnamese American who finds herself back at home helping her mother and grandfather run the family restaurant. She dreams of finding her way out and making a claim of her own, and it's through a story she invents about Rose Wilder and a pin her family received from a traveler back in Vietnam that sets her off to establish her own.

What I loved most about this book is how much it read like a memoir. It was hard to remember it's fiction and not real, but Nguyen is a master of voice and perspective here. The parallels are well-drawn, and while I don't think this one has huge appeal for general teen YA readers, certainly those with a love for the Little House books or well-done, well-paced literary fiction that doesn't get self-indulgent will find a lot here to enjoy.

My first Nguyen read won't be my last.