winyeemichelle's review against another edition
4.0
Thank you to Penguin Books and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This gorgeous memoir felt like far more than a memoir. Born in, and named after, Thailand's Khao-I-Dang refugee camp, Y-Dang Troeung was just one when she fled her homeland and was admitted to Canada. There, she became the poster child for the Canadian refugee project and the horrors of Pol Pot’s brutal, senseless brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
Admittedly, I didn’t know a whole lot about this part of history, which made this book all the more special to read. It’s written in a beautifully lyrical way that transcends prose, dialogue and memory. The chapters are fairly short, which moves the memoir quickly and simultaneously absorbs you into the ‘story’, and some of them are letters from Troeung to her son, offering a scrapbook effect. A truly beautiful read.
This gorgeous memoir felt like far more than a memoir. Born in, and named after, Thailand's Khao-I-Dang refugee camp, Y-Dang Troeung was just one when she fled her homeland and was admitted to Canada. There, she became the poster child for the Canadian refugee project and the horrors of Pol Pot’s brutal, senseless brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
Admittedly, I didn’t know a whole lot about this part of history, which made this book all the more special to read. It’s written in a beautifully lyrical way that transcends prose, dialogue and memory. The chapters are fairly short, which moves the memoir quickly and simultaneously absorbs you into the ‘story’, and some of them are letters from Troeung to her son, offering a scrapbook effect. A truly beautiful read.
saestrah's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
A free advanced reading copy of this title was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review:
Firstly, I loved the formatting of this book. Interspaced with artwork, photography and letters from the author to her son, the narrative of the author's life is captured in very short chapters, segmenting the reflections on her life into brief snapshots. It's an incredibly tragic book, that leaves you with an ache in your chest, but it's an enjoyable read.
Firstly, I loved the formatting of this book. Interspaced with artwork, photography and letters from the author to her son, the narrative of the author's life is captured in very short chapters, segmenting the reflections on her life into brief snapshots. It's an incredibly tragic book, that leaves you with an ache in your chest, but it's an enjoyable read.
uroobaa's review
5.0
heartbreakingly powerful & hauntingly relevant. Y-Dang, you were gone too soon.
karissaang's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
An eerie but incredibly moving experience to read a posthumous memoir. I loved how the chapters are written in brief bursts - indeed, “life in fragments”. I also learned a lot that I hadn’t known about with the Cambodian war and how that impacted the Teochew Chinese community (from which my family is also a part of and didn’t know made up the majority of ethnic Chinese living in Cambodia)! Sad and heart aching and resilient all in one.
caelysium's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Genocide, War, Violence, Death, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Colonisation
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
introvertsbookclub's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
When writing about war it is so easy to get it wrong, and end up with something that feels overly sentimental in a cheap way, or as though experiences of war are being mined for story and used to draw out a reflection on the present day that somehow makes the past all worth it. But Y-Dang Troeung's writing is that rare example of someone who can investigate and reflect on war, trace its impact to the present and highlight the strength and resilience (but also luck) that was needed to survive, while still condemning the trauma that continues to reverberate from it.
Her writing is fractured into small pieces, moving between various points in the past and the present, and allows for the failure of memory and record-keeping to always provide dates and times and numbers of people, instead relying on lived experiences and the conflicting memories that do remain to tell a story that feels more human and more realistic. The Cambodian Genocide is not a part of history I was familiar with, but she was able to convey nuances of politics, contradict accepted retellings of the Genocide with more honest ones and share intimate stories from the time that were far more impactful and informative than a textbook ever could be. Her meditations on refugees and the performance of gratitude that is expected of them in host countries that are less than welcoming, was another strand of her writing that moved beyond the expected and the presumed to pose questions about the greatest crisis of our generation and ask why we still aren't treating immigrants and refugees as real people.
This was both a larger story of the Genocide, and the story of one family's survival of it. Her family carried a burden of pain that was still harming their lives decades later, both emotional and physical. Her love for her son and her imagining of his future was filled with the hope of freedom from historical and familial trauma, but when we as societies are so bad at reckoning with history and taking responsibility for it, is liberation for those who are considered collateral damage ever possible?
'Landbridge' is such as incredible piece of writing, born from a lifetime of questioning and thoughtfulness. It is another book that I think everyone should read, or at the very least anyone working in our governments.
Her writing is fractured into small pieces, moving between various points in the past and the present, and allows for the failure of memory and record-keeping to always provide dates and times and numbers of people, instead relying on lived experiences and the conflicting memories that do remain to tell a story that feels more human and more realistic. The Cambodian Genocide is not a part of history I was familiar with, but she was able to convey nuances of politics, contradict accepted retellings of the Genocide with more honest ones and share intimate stories from the time that were far more impactful and informative than a textbook ever could be. Her meditations on refugees and the performance of gratitude that is expected of them in host countries that are less than welcoming, was another strand of her writing that moved beyond the expected and the presumed to pose questions about the greatest crisis of our generation and ask why we still aren't treating immigrants and refugees as real people.
This was both a larger story of the Genocide, and the story of one family's survival of it. Her family carried a burden of pain that was still harming their lives decades later, both emotional and physical. Her love for her son and her imagining of his future was filled with the hope of freedom from historical and familial trauma, but when we as societies are so bad at reckoning with history and taking responsibility for it, is liberation for those who are considered collateral damage ever possible?
'Landbridge' is such as incredible piece of writing, born from a lifetime of questioning and thoughtfulness. It is another book that I think everyone should read, or at the very least anyone working in our governments.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Racism, and War