Silence. Shaking my head. Those are the two reactions I had when I finished reading Kristin Hannah’s new novel, The Women. I’m not sure the last time I read a book that brought me to tears so frequently and was also such a vivid reminder of a particular time in my adolescence, even if the subject was not one that impacted my life. Set during the Vietnam War it’s about one young ... Read More...
Dust Child
The Vietnam War has been written about from many points of view in fiction, but for the most part my reading has focused on the years of the war, rife as they are with the atrocities perpetuated on the Vietnamese, both by their own people (ARVN soldiers in the South, Viet Cong in the North) and then the Americans. Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai takes a longer view by ... Read More...
October Reading Wrap-Up
My October reading was as mercurial as the month itself. Here in Michigan we had high humidity, heat, and mosquitos right up until last week, meaning I was cranky and battling hair frizz that made me look like the bride of Frankenstein. Now, I’m bundled up in fleece and socks. In the same way that the weather was unpredictable my reading ping ponged between wonderful ... Read More...
The Mountains Sing
If our stories survive, we will not die, even when our bodies are no longer here on this earth. Hương and her grandmother live alone in Hanoi until they are told to evacuate and move to a remote mountain village for their safety. It’s the 1970s and the midst of the Vietnam War. Hương’s parents and her six aunts and uncles are fighting for North Vietnam. Her grandmother ... Read More...
The Given World
When Riley is thirteen her brother Mick is declared missing in Vietnam. This news kills what little desire she has to stay in their small town and by the time she is eighteen she is gone, making her way from Montana to San Francisco to see the ocean and to escape every facet of life that might remind her of her brother. She leaves behind her parents, a boyfriend and her newborn ... Read More...
The Sympathizer: A Novel
So it was that we soaped ourselves in sadness and we rinsed ourselves with hope, and for all that we believed almost every rumor we heard, almost all of us refused to believe that our nation was dead. It is only fitting that the narrator in The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel, is never named. He is a Communist spy, a man who has spent his entire life turned inside ... Read More...
