Reviews with content warning for Death - The Mountains Sing

It hurt to read this book and it hurts like hell to put it down and it’s one of these books that gives me a massive book hangover, the kind where I look at all my other novels and feel defeated because right now I just need to stop feeling.

The Mountains Sing is a story told by two interwoven voices. There’s a young girl in the 1970s at the close of the Vietnam war, who sees the grownups coming back from the front diminished, both mentally and physically, and who wonders if her parents will ever be back. In the meantime, she lives with her grandmother. The second part of the novel is set in the 1950s, just after the First Indochina War, when it’s hard to figure out whether one should flee the French or the Communists more, because both want her dead. It’s told by the grandmother, who tells her granddaughter what happened to their family twenty years prior.

I think it might be the first time that every chapter has me excited (?) for the next chapter in this voice. Both storylines were equally compelling and worked so well together. It was so good to read a book that wasn’t just about the Americans, but also about resisting the French and about having the hardest time “choosing sides” in a war that nobody wants to wage.

You can also read this review on my personal blog.

Content Warnings

carlafiorenzo's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

nibs's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This is one of those books that will stick around in my memory (like Half of a Yellow Sun when I first read it years ago). One family, separated & reunited & separated again over decades of violence, political tensions and war. But they're still connected and are trying to find their way back to eachother, and have this shared history and story.
I was immersed in the Trần family's story and transported into their world, which tbh is all I really want in a book. I learnt a lot about the history of Việt Nam.

Content Warnings