Reviews with content warning for Death - First They Killed My Father: Film tie-in

I always struggle with rating memoirs because what business do I have judging how someone else captures their own story, especially one as traumatic as this one. That said, I usually end up rating memoirs based on how likely it is I’ll still think of the story in 5, 15, or 50 years. Using that metric, I’d give this book 6 stars if Goodreads would allow it. This book is not very long, but it manages to say so much about the human cost of ideological war. We look at genocide in terms of numbers, and this book shows how much humanity and devastation accompanies each single death that contributes to those large numbers. I think it should be required reading for anyone who hasn’t had to live through this kind of instability and violence.

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abbie_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.0

Heartbreaking portrayal of the brutality of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, as seen through the eyes of a child. It’s occasionally repetitive given the author was a child at the time, so some of her memories likely lack the depth those an adult might have, but seeing the violence through the eyes of such a young girl also serves to amplify. Honestly devastating

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whatannikareads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

a very important, hard read. definite warnings if you can't read about blood, genocide, murder, but i'm grateful that she didn't sugarcoat the atrocities committed on the cambodian people. we all know genocide and war is bad, but it's books like these that humanize the victims and give us vivid insight into what happened to them. how the effects of war stay with you forever. i hope ung's family members who were murdered have found peace; a book like this is a blessing that exists.

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