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sdudek12's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
lalawoman416's review against another edition
3.0
Vietnamese refugees. NOLA. Wanted to love this book. But I didn't. The boys were self centered brats with limited empathy toward their mother who sacrificed everything for them. Still, the story was engaging. And the ending was fantastic. Saved the book actually.
skynet666's review against another edition
3.0
The second part of this book didn't seem to match the feeling of the first part. It starting moving too fast for me with and I quit caring about the characters.
tonyinco's review against another edition
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mnm1015's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
thereadingrunnner's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the immigrant story woven throughout this novel. I commend Nguyen on a solid debut - the tale of a young Vietnamese family as they migrate to New Orleans to escape their war torn home. The only problem, as they are boarding the boat for America, Huong loses grip of her husband's hand and only she (pregnant) and her boy make it onto the boat. When she arrives in America, she believes her husband will find another way there and reunite with them, yet is devastated when she finds out that he wishes for her to stop contacting him and to give up hope - he will never arrive and has no intentions of ever doing so.
This is the story of finding one's way and rebuilding a life in a foreign land. It is a dose of real life struggles, heartbreak, the challenges of parenting, coming of age and forging forward no matter the circumstances. I also loved the continual references to water and thought it was an extremely clever and well titled novel, with water taking it from beginning to end.
For all of it's wonderful qualities, there were also several things that brought this novel down to 3 stars (and at times, felt like I may only go with 2.5). There are so many characters, especially in the first half of the book, and many of them have very similar names that it was difficult to keep them straight. There is also A LOT of Vietnamese and French in the book. Sometimes with context you could get the general idea of what was being said, but oftentimes, there was no way to know. I found this extremely bothersome primarily due to how much writing was in a foreign language. There is some on nearly every page and while I got the general gist of the story, I felt like I was missing large chunks and losing the personality of many of the characters because I didn't know what they were saying. SPOILER ALERT AHEAD IN NEXT PARAGRAPH!!!!
Lastly, there is one point in the story that was so contradictory, it ruined the entire section for me. A story is told in which it explains that Cong, Huong's husband, is terrified of water. SPOILER ALERT!! It makes no sense whatsoever, that they would then think to scatter his ashes in the water. I felt like this was not well thought through at all and was an attempt at adding another water reference to the story, but in this situation, it was very ill fitted.
This is the story of finding one's way and rebuilding a life in a foreign land. It is a dose of real life struggles, heartbreak, the challenges of parenting, coming of age and forging forward no matter the circumstances. I also loved the continual references to water and thought it was an extremely clever and well titled novel, with water taking it from beginning to end.
For all of it's wonderful qualities, there were also several things that brought this novel down to 3 stars (and at times, felt like I may only go with 2.5). There are so many characters, especially in the first half of the book, and many of them have very similar names that it was difficult to keep them straight. There is also A LOT of Vietnamese and French in the book. Sometimes with context you could get the general idea of what was being said, but oftentimes, there was no way to know. I found this extremely bothersome primarily due to how much writing was in a foreign language. There is some on nearly every page and while I got the general gist of the story, I felt like I was missing large chunks and losing the personality of many of the characters because I didn't know what they were saying. SPOILER ALERT AHEAD IN NEXT PARAGRAPH!!!!
Lastly, there is one point in the story that was so contradictory, it ruined the entire section for me. A story is told in which it explains that Cong, Huong's husband, is terrified of water. SPOILER ALERT!! It makes no sense whatsoever, that they would then think to scatter his ashes in the water. I felt like this was not well thought through at all and was an attempt at adding another water reference to the story, but in this situation, it was very ill fitted.
litbrett's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
mckenzielowe's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.0
readingwithathena's review against another edition
3.0
3.5/5
This was a strong debut, filled with excellent writing and heart breaking characters. The reason I’m not rating this higher is that the timeline is stretched too thin. Had the book covered the same timespan in 400 pages instead of 280, I think we could have reached the same conclusion with better growth and understanding of the characters.
This was a strong debut, filled with excellent writing and heart breaking characters. The reason I’m not rating this higher is that the timeline is stretched too thin. Had the book covered the same timespan in 400 pages instead of 280, I think we could have reached the same conclusion with better growth and understanding of the characters.