The Reeducation of Cherry Truong

Jun 23, 2012 Kim Fay rated it 5 of 5 stars

As I read this lovely novel, I thought often of "Sacred Willow," by Duong Van Mai Elliott. There are so many incredible books about Vietnam, but very few deal with the issue of the generational differences that erupted over the course of the 20th century. As well, there are numerous books that deal with first-generation immigrant experiences, but having a parent raised in a different culture is very different from having a parent raised in a different culture that has always known war. The gener...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Nicola rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reason for Reading: I love Asian historical family generational dramas!

This was an immensely satisfying read and will appeal to readers of Lisa See and more so Amy Tan. Dealing with a South Vietnamese family who escapes after the Americans leave and they've had enough of Communist rule. The refugee family ends up in Malaysia and then is split when the patriarch and entire family but one son and his expectant wife emigrate to Paris. The other goes to America. The book moves from past to present a...more Reason for Reading: I love Asian historical family generational dramas!

This was an immensely satisfying read and will appeal to readers of Lisa See and more so Amy Tan. Dealing with a South Vietnamese family who escapes after the Americans leave and they've had enough of Communist rule. The refugee family ends up in Malaysia and then is split when the patriarch and entire family but one son and his expectant wife emigrate to Paris. The other goes to America. The book moves from past to present as it examines how this one episode had lasting effects on the family down to the third generation. As the granddaughter, Cherry, of the patriarch discovers deep hidden secrets about individual family members the whole truth of that one incident becomes revealed. The story focuses on family relationships between various members (brother/sister, cousins, grandmother/granddaughter, parents/eldest son, etc), generational relationships, cultural differences between the generations and the immigrant experience. The story is not American centric either which makes it unique for this type of story. Yes, one family experiences life in the US, but we also see the perspective of the Vietnamese immigrant in Paris at the same time.

There are many characters to keep track of and they are all intriguing in their own way. I didn't really find many of them lovable as they, mostly, all, at some point show character flaws, some quite terrific, that made them hard, for me, to really like as people, but I was extremely invested in them and how their lives would work out in the end. I love how the choices of the first generation end up affecting the third in ways that are traced back to those choices. Could whole lives have been lived differently if selfish decisions had been set aside many years ago?

This was a quick read for me. It took a little bit to get going as the story does switch back and forth through time, telling one person's story, then another's but once I got used to this I was turning the pages as fast as I could read. Though the book is named after the American granddaughter, Cherry, it was the French grandmother, Hoa, who was the most intriguing character to me and I enjoyed her storyline the most. The abrupt ending startled me, but otherwise I very much enjoyed this sometimes dark and always unforgettable story of familial ties, love and betrayal. Aimee Phan is an author to watch for in the future. (less)

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Apr 15, 2012 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was hard to put down. It was very well-written, heartfelt, imaginative, and moving. The characters are interesting, well-developed, and complex. I learned a lot about Vietnamese history and culture, but mostly I was compelled by the story. I thought the first and last third of the book were the strongest, and the writing got a little lost, or tedious, in the middle. My main critique is that there were too many characters, and even halfway through the book, I found myself looking and re...more

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May 09, 2012 Diane S. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Two Vietnamese families, escaping Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, some go to France and some go to the United States after there stay in a relocation zone. What do they bring with them and how it affects their future is the basis for this wonderful novel by Phan. Immensely readable and addictive we follow the family as they attempt to acclimate to their new homes and way of life. Yet secrets and things they have done will follow them always and effect them and their children in negative ways t...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Shana rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel tells the story of two Vietnamese families linked by marriage and the events and choices that led them in different paths. At the center is American-born Cherry who lives with her parents and brother in Little Saigon, surrounded by her maternal grandmother and extended family. Her father's side lives in Paris. The chapters alternate between various family members and go back and forth in time to tell the story of how they ended up where they did. Through them, you learn the circumstan...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Elizabeth Moeller rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel is a multi-generational and multi-point of view story of a family of Vietnamese immigrants, half of whom go to Paris and half of whom go to Orange County, California, after the fall of Saigon to the communist regime.
When I was in high school I went through a Vietnam war phase and so I have read a ton of stories about the war and the country from an American point of view, but less so from the view of the Vietnamese people. I really enjoyed this opportunity to see the other side.
I li...more

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May 12, 2012 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: asian-american, fiction

It's not often I run across a book that I want to reread immediately after reading it the first time, but The Reeducation of Cherry Truong falls into this category. It's the story of two families, the Truongs and the Vos, who are related by the marriage of Sanh Truong and Tuyet Vo. Sanh and Tuyet have two children: Lum, who was born in Vietnam shortly before the end of the war, and Cherry, born in America.

As the novel opens, we know only two things, that Lum was responsible for an injury suffer...more It's not often I run across a book that I want to reread immediately after reading it the first time, but The Reeducation of Cherry Truong falls into this category. It's the story of two families, the Truongs and the Vos, who are related by the marriage of Sanh Truong and Tuyet Vo. Sanh and Tuyet have two children: Lum, who was born in Vietnam shortly before the end of the war, and Cherry, born in America.

As the novel opens, we know only two things, that Lum was responsible for an injury suffered by Cherry five years earlier and as a result was sent back to Vietnam by his parents, and that there has been deep animosity between the Truongs and the Vos ever since Sanh's father reneged on a promise to help the Vos flee Vietnam after the communists took Saigon in 1975. The story then unfolds episodically, each chapter beginning with an old letter and told from the point of view of one of the characters. The narrative jumps around in time and place, spanning events occurring in Vietnam, Malaysia, Paris, and Southern California, from 1972 to 2002.

Being told in a non-linear and incomplete fashion, the reader can never be sure of exactly the truth of any situation and is thus forced to suspend moral judgment. Characters that initially appear sympathetic are later seen to be monsters -- but even then there's more that's hinted at that might change how that character is viewed yet again. It's brilliant really, as this is exactly the situation Cherry is in; in the novel's present day, she's trying to unravel exactly what happened in her family, to understand, as she says, "why we keep hurting each other. Why none of us can stop." The reeducation of the book's title is an allusion to the reeducation camps of the Vietnamese government, with Cherry's family being its own kind of prison. It refers both to Cherry's search for understanding and to her forced role in her family's need to avenge past grudges both large and small.

This is one of the finest novels I've read in ages, and I want to read it again sooner rather than later. Highly recommended. (less)

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Apr 27, 2012 Bree T rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, historical-fiction, contemporary, cultural, south-east-asian-fiction, family-saga

Cherry Truong is a young woman living in California to Vietnamese parents who fled their home country in terrible circumstances. Cherry was born in America and has only ever known the freedom of living there. Recently been granted acceptance to medical school, Cherry finds herself wishing to see her brother, Lum. After getting himself into some trouble that culminated in a terrible event, impacting on Cherry, Lum was exiled back to the extended family in Vietnam, supposedly for six months but th...more Cherry Truong is a young woman living in California to Vietnamese parents who fled their home country in terrible circumstances. Cherry was born in America and has only ever known the freedom of living there. Recently been granted acceptance to medical school, Cherry finds herself wishing to see her brother, Lum. After getting himself into some trouble that culminated in a terrible event, impacting on Cherry, Lum was exiled back to the extended family in Vietnam, supposedly for six months but there he has stayed. Cherry wants to fly out and see Lum and bring him home.

Cherry’s parents Sanh and Tuyet fled Vietnam supposedly for France. Arranged by Sanh’s father, the passages on the boat took them to Indonesia where they were held in order for their applications to emigrate were processed. The entire family was supposed to go to France to join one of Sanh’s brothers, Yen, who was already living there, studying – Sahn’s parents Hung and Hoa and his other brother Phung and his wife Ngoan, their daughter Cam as well as Yen’s wife Trinh and their son Xuan. At his wife Tuyet’s preference, Sahn and Tuyet instead decided to move to America, where it would be easier to sponsor Tuyet’s family to also move over. Tuyet holds a grudge against Hung, who refused to purchase enough seats in order for her family to accompany them out of Vietnam.

Hoa is Sahn’s mother, a very traditional Vietnamese woman trapped in an unhappy marriage with the arrogant and sometimes abusive Hung. She is absolutely devoted to her sons and to preserving the family unit but she cannot help but be disappointed in some of her daughter-in-laws. Her oldest son’s marriage was arranged and Hoa considers this to have been a very good and beneficial match. Unfortunately her two younger sons chose their own partners – definitely not women that Hoa would’ve considered. And now her family is about to be split apart.

Spanning three generations, The Reeducation Of Cherry Truong is a story of family and what happens when that family is taken out of its familiar comfort zone and culture. Decisions will be made that will divide and adjustments will have to be made to fit in in their new worlds.

I was offered the chance to read and review The Reeducation Of Cherry Truong and was immediately intrigued. It was compared to Amy Tan and although it’s been a while since I’ve read an Amy Tan, I really enjoy her books. This also appealed to me because it embraces and displays a culture with which I am totally unfamiliar. I don’t know a lot about Vietnam and I especially don’t know a lot about the family dynamics. This book certainly helped to change that. Not only was it a wealth of information itself within the story line but I often found myself stopping reading it in order to look things up and read a little more online about the time periods in which the book was set, particularly when the family was fleeing Vietnam and being held for processing. The family escaped by boat, touching down on soil and claiming refugee status in an act that is still so relevant today, especially here in Australia where the boat people are such a contentious issue. Unlike Australia though, the processing situation appears quite different – the refugees chose a country and applied to be granted residency there. They met with workers from that country and waited until someone could sponsor their arrival. Hung and Hoa choose France where one of their sons is studying and after a while a Catholic family sponsored all of them and they get news that they will finally be leaving the camp and being reunited with their son. Unfortunately, one of their other sons, who is in the camp with them with his wife and young son Lum states that they will not be going to France. Instead they have applied -and been accepted- to go to the United States. Hung is a proud man and takes this as a sort of disobedience, or sign of disrespect. Although Sahn and his wife do seem to have good reasons for wanting to choose America (or possibly, not wanting to choose France just because everyone else is) Hung is a stiff and unyielding sort of father.

The novel begins in the present day, with Cherry going to Vietnam to visit her exiled brother Lum and then takes us back and forward in time between several different narrators – her paternal grandmother Hoa, her mother Tuyet and even her maternal grandmother Kim-Ly. The story gives such a brilliant portrayal of Vietnamese culture and how it differs to that of Western culture, especially in regards to the way the elder generations are treated. It is considered an honour to care for ones parents or even grandparents and the responsibility is absolute and generally not able to be refused – no one would think of refusing. The thoughts of the elderly Vietnamese on the American retirement homes and the way that Americans do not bother to care for the older family members are so well portrayed, likewise the younger generation, those born or raised almost entirely in America, can’t understand why their grandmother is a constant revolving presence in their houses. As a Westerner I found the family dynamics very interesting, particularly in the French branch where they all lived in the one house and Hoa cleaned the entire house, including going into everyone’s bedrooms! I could not imagine my mother-in-law living with me and intruding into the personal space that is my bedroom! Also it was easy to get somewhat frustrated with some of the characters due to the entirely different views they had, which were unyielding. There was no such thing as compromise.

All in all, this is a very enjoyable book but I did feel that the ending was a fraction abrupt and a little weak, compared to the relative strength of the narrative of the rest of the story. I did feel like I ‘missed something’ right at the end when I realised it was complete and there were some things that I would really have liked to have known about some characters at the end, or seen. Also, I read this as a PDF file, which made it difficult to keep the names straight as they are very similar: Hung, Phung, Hoa, Trinh, Tuyet, Thuan, Thang, Tri, Viet. This would be easy to combat in physical form as there are family trees at the beginning of the book for flipping to for easy reference. However in PDF it involved looking at the number of the page I was up to, going back to the beginning to look up the family tree and then returning to the page I was on. It did pull me out of the story a bit because for a little while at the beginning I was quite often checking who was who. But that’s quite a minor quibble really!(less)

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Feb 17, 2012 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: asian, contemporary, historical, trip-lit, first-reads

March is just around the corner and with it comes some exciting things like warmer weather (even though it’s been pretty warm here in the south all winter this year), longer days and less Seasonal Affective Disorder from never seeing the sunshine, my birthday and the Ides of March (same day), the local Battle of the Books competition, and perhaps best of all, the release of Aimee Phan’s debut novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong (Phan previously released a book of short stories, We Should Neve...more March is just around the corner and with it comes some exciting things like warmer weather (even though it’s been pretty warm here in the south all winter this year), longer days and less Seasonal Affective Disorder from never seeing the sunshine, my birthday and the Ides of March (same day), the local Battle of the Books competition, and perhaps best of all, the release of Aimee Phan’s debut novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong (Phan previously released a book of short stories, We Should Never Meet). St. Martin’s Press sent me an Advanced Reader Copy of this book last month and I devoured it. This is a beautiful story of family, tragedy, culture and Vietnamese history that sweeps four countries, two continents and three generations. Prior to reading this book, I have to admit that I had never heard of the reeducation camps that occurred in Vietnam after the war and a Google search revealed some pretty awful truths about North Vietnam’s history.
The story is told in flashbacks from the perspectives of members from two Vietnamese families, the Vos and the Truongs. After the Fall of Saigon in 1975 the two families split apart; the Vos head to American and the Truongs leave for France both via a refuge camp in Malaysia. Sahn Truong leaves behind a disappointed family to take his wife, Tuyet Vo, and her family to America while the rest of the Truongs make their way to France. Both family units struggle to maintain their culture and identity while integrating into their new societies and cultures. Heartbreak and corruption is experienced by all characters in the new worlds. Cherry, the only member of the families who was actually born in the United States, is desperate to reconnect to her roots and with her brother who has moved back to Vietnam following a tragedy.
Taking place from 1979 to 2002, with a dozen characters and three generations who all experience their own form of reeducation the book is a commentary on both the history of a country as well as what it means to be a family. The characters are all well developed and each has qualities that make them simultaneously loveable and loathed, in other words, human.
The book reads like a series of short stories that come together to paint a wonderful portrait of the immigrant experience.
(less)

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Jan 26, 2013 Gina rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, adult-fiction

Slow to start, I found this book to be very difficult to get immersed in. I was interested to see where the paths of this family went, from Vietnam to Malaysia and later France and America. The circumstances resulted in many characters’ unhappiness but I can’t help but feel like the abrupt, and choppy writing style added to my icky mood while reading. The overall tone of the novel was very stoic. Normally, I am a huge fan of multi-point of view stories, but here I felt the bouncing around didn’t...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Jillyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I received this book through Goodreads First Reads.

The Reeducation of Cherry Truong is a haunting, dark story of three generations of a Vietnamese family. Having split up after their time in a refugee camp, this story is spread across three countries; the United States, France, and Vietnam. There is always a sense of darkness and mystery within this novel, each word and action having significance to a broader story than what originally meets the eye. Cherry, the main character of sorts, returns...more I received this book through Goodreads First Reads.

The Reeducation of Cherry Truong is a haunting, dark story of three generations of a Vietnamese family. Having split up after their time in a refugee camp, this story is spread across three countries; the United States, France, and Vietnam. There is always a sense of darkness and mystery within this novel, each word and action having significance to a broader story than what originally meets the eye. Cherry, the main character of sorts, returns to her family's homeland of Vietnam, and it is only then that she can begin to piece together the shattered truths, delicately placed lies, and the true feelings and intentions of her severed, pained family.

Overall, I found this book to be alright. The detail was exquisite, and the plot was intriguing and dramatic, leaving me uncertain as to what would happen next. I was actually quite surprised that I found this book relatable- though my family has been in America for longer than the living remember, I understand the webs of deceit and the complex emotional relationships between characters, facades included. I am also very appreciative of the fact that there's a family tree included in the front of the novel. I found myself looking back at it quite often, and it made my reading experience easier.

That being said, there were certain aspects of this writing that I didn't enjoy so much. Before I could begin to comprehend my positive opinions of this book, I had to read 200 pages. Having finished the book, I understand why it drew out as it did, but it turned me off from wanting to complete the novel. Also, each chapter-like segment is told from a different perspective of the family, which helps the reader gain insight. These segments also jump in time, which I was okay with. But within each of these sections, I found that jumping between past and present with almost no transition made it hard for me to follow. In addition, I found it odd that Vietnamese words were italicized, but not defined. By drawing attention to these foreign words (foreign to me, at least) I expected there to be a glossary or footnotes, but there were none. I was able to figure out a rough idea using context clues, but detailed definitions would have been helpful and appreciated.

I think that this book is for sure worth reading once, but I won't be reading it again. It helps readers gain an insight into just how much a family can endure, or at least, how each family member copes with it, but ultimately it just didn't hold my attention the way I thought it would. (less)

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Jan 20, 2013 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Communist countries “reeducation” is a euphemism for prison camp, forced labor, deprivation, and sometimes, torture. In Aimee Phan’s new book The Reeducation of Cherry Truong there is none of these but the end result is similar: a stripping away of old beliefs and breakdown of long held truths.

Cherry is the American-born daughter of Sanh Truong and Tuyet Vo. In the late 1970s they managed to flee Vietnam as some of the hundreds of thousands of boat people but are unable to keep their family...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Jaime Boler rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Forgotten Country, first-time novelist Chung skillfully weaves together memory, history, and Korean folk tales to tell us the beautiful story of a family who left Korea for the United States 20 years ago. The father is dying of cancer, while the younger sister has cut off all ties to her family. Seeking cutting-edge cancer treatment, what is left of the family goes back to Korea. In the country they left behind all those years ago, the whole family finally reconnects and slowly learns to forg...more

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May 15, 2012 Jael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Are we a reflection of our parents? Are we destined to be like them? What does our future hold? Tough questions for anyone, but those are the questions I came away with after reading The Reeducation of Cherry Truong by Aimee Phan. Two immigrant families, spanning from California to Vietnam to Paris struggle to make their path in life.

Cherry Truong has always followed the right path, obeying her parents and getting good grades. Being born in America, Cherry was raised to believe in the American D...more
Are we a reflection of our parents? Are we destined to be like them? What does our future hold? Tough questions for anyone, but those are the questions I came away with after reading The Reeducation of Cherry Truong by Aimee Phan. Two immigrant families, spanning from California to Vietnam to Paris struggle to make their path in life.

Cherry Truong has always followed the right path, obeying her parents and getting good grades. Being born in America, Cherry was raised to believe in the American Dream. Her parents constantly drove home the point that education is the only way to success. When we first meet Cherry she is a woman in transition. She has delayed going to medical school, choosing instead to visit her exiled older brother Lum, who is living in Vietnam. Lum followed his own path. What led him to return to his birth place? It takes a while before we get there. But in a nutshell Lum was an embarrassment to his family. It reached a level to where Cherry was seriously injured.

Lum was supposed to return to California after six months, but chose to find his own life instead. A life where is father, Sanh, mother, Tuyet, and Grandmother Vo aren't constantly reminding him what a disappointment he was. He seemed to be the only character who fought for some individuality, albeit he did it in a bad way. Instead of getting into a top college Lum went to a community college. Instead of getting a good job, he was in a dead-end position at a flower shop. He gets sucked into gambling. He loses more than he wins. But I wondered if he were a "successful" gambler (if there is such a term), would his family be so disapproving? Before coming to America, Grandma Vo became wealthy by selling opium. She was essentially a small-time drug dealer, but because she was more discreet in her practices everyone else turns a blind eye. She provided for her daughters after her husband's death, so it's ok. Shhhhh!!! The family matriarch was a drug dealer, but it's ok because you have to respect your elders. When Lum calls her out, Grandma Vo is determined to bring down her grandson.

There is so much good stuff with Cherry's side of the family alone, it was a little hard to get into some of the other subplots. We go back and forth between the present day in California and Paris, and post-war Vietnam. Points of view constantly shift between the past and the present. I don't normally have a problem with that but this book has so many characters. It's hard to connect with some characters when you're trying to remember what happened with the others.

I was intrigued the most by Cherry, Grandma Vo and Sanh's mother, Hoa. Cherry is caught between worlds. She loves her brother and she loves her parents, but she is constantly caught between them. She tries to understand her parents by delving into their past. Maybe if she understand what led them to America, maybe Cherry can truly understand herself. But by the end, which felt a little abrupt, you wonder if Cherry will truly get any satisfaction. In my opinion, Grandma Vo was nothing more than a hypocrite. I had to laugh every time she is asserting her moral authority over everyone, when all she really needed to do was look in the mirror. Hoa just wanted to keep her family together, but her rather surly husband, Hung, did every thing he could to suppress her voice. Whenever she wanted to express her opinion, Hung reminds her that wives are supposed to be seen and not heard. But no matter what he said, it seemed like she still loved him.

Aside from my issues with the book, I did like it. It's a different take on the immigrant experience and what it takes to find your path in life.

Rating: Superb

Note: I received an e-galley of the book from Wunderkind PR.(less)

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Aug 14, 2012 Patricia rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was a saga about three generations of two Vietnamese families. The title character is young woman who has just graduated from college when the novel opens in 2001. She plans to begin medical school in the fall, but has a change of heart. She defers her admission for a year so that she can reunite with her estranged brother in Vietnam and visit other relatives there. Naturally, her parents aren't pleased with her decision.

Much of the novel is told in the form of flashbacks. Letters are...more This book was a saga about three generations of two Vietnamese families. The title character is young woman who has just graduated from college when the novel opens in 2001. She plans to begin medical school in the fall, but has a change of heart. She defers her admission for a year so that she can reunite with her estranged brother in Vietnam and visit other relatives there. Naturally, her parents aren't pleased with her decision.

Much of the novel is told in the form of flashbacks. Letters are interspersed throughout the book to shed more insight on the character's private thoughts and motivations.

Hung and Hoa Truong, Cherry's paternal grandparents, left Vietnam with their family after the fall of Saigon and spent about a year in a refugee camp in Malaysia after they left Vietnam. When the Truongs finally were able to leave the refugee camp, the family split up. Most of them emigrated to France, where they lived in an apartment house in Paris. But Cherry's parents, Sanh and Tuyet, decided to go to America with their young son instead. Their decision caused a lot of friction and was regarded as a betrayal, especially by Hung Truong. Tuyet was disappointed and angry when her father-in-law was unable to purchase enough seats on the boat for her mother and siblings. who had to stay behind in Vietnam and endure the hardships that followed the Vietnamese war. Tuyet and Sanh went to California, where they lived with their two children. Eventually Tuyet's mother, Kim-Ly Vo, and other family members emigrated to America and settled in a part of California known as Little Saigon, because of the large population of Vietnamese refugees.

The novel focuses on the difficulties that immigrants face when they adjust to a new country with an unfamiliar language and culture.It encompasses problems common to many families: infidelity, arguments, mental illness, and gambling addiction.

My major complaint is that the title character, Cherry Truong, seems more like an observer than an active participant during most of the novel. Many of the other characters, such as Hung and Hoa Truong, Kim-Ly and Cherry's parents and cousins seem much more vivid by comparison. In particular, Kim-Ly, Cherry's maternal grandmother, influences the family's fortunes through her manipulations. Although she hopes to improve her family's lot in life, some of her actions backfire. I kept expecting a major event or revelation to occur when Cherry got to Vietnam, but that didn't happen.

The book is a multigenerational saga about an Asian-American family that was what I was hoping The Buddha in the Attic would be.

I didn't know much about Vietnamese culture what I started this book, but I learned a lot from it. (less)

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May 17, 2013 Lydia rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was enjoyable read most of the time but all the family strife really stressed me out. I didn't understand the spiteful dynamics and constant deceit and I couldn't tell if that's due to my ignorance of Vietnamese culture or just the nastiness of the characters themselves. Because the motivations were unclear, some of the action felt arbitrary. Some of the characters were very vivid but there very many of them and most of them are cousins and it this diluted their vividness. I was interested...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Even though I was sometimes confused when Phan jumped from decade to decade, I really liked her development of multi-generational Vietnamese families. I am really not very familiar with this culture. The author tied in history like the fall of Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, and the boat people, but she focused mainly on the relationships of the people, one family who escapes to Paris and the other to California. Expectations of parents and grandparents, rebellion of children, the ties to the home cou...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Lori marked it as on-hold

Shelves: opted-not-to-finish

I was halfway through this book before I realized how much it was taking out of me. I read quite a few books that people would consider depressing, but they don't have the same effect as this one. This one was frustrating because I couldn't understand why all the characters would choose to be so spiteful and mean to one another. They were a family. I felt like they should have been working together and looking out for one another instead of tearing each other down. I didn't like any of them. I i...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Sarah D rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love reading stories about immigrants. This one was challenging because I didn't have a high degree of familiarity with Vietnamese names, so keeping all the family members straight (in fact, even knowing if they were male or female!) took awhile. Fortunately there is family tree in the front of the book. Further complicating things is the multi-layered way the author reveals the families history, flashing back and then forward, and from the point of view of different characters. I enjoyed that...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Sally Barnett added it

Chery Truong's family were "boat people" escaping from Vietnam. Part of the family went to the United States and part to France. There were also family members left in Vietnam. Cherry Truong, American born, goes to Vietnam to learn of her family, especially the secrets that lie just below the surface of their lives. I was thoroughly caught up by this intriguing story. All I had ever know of that part of vietnam's history was from my American perspective. It reinforced my view that their is a uni...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really enjoyed. Hard to read at times because you have to pay attention to the names and the generations, but an interesting look at a first generation Vietnamese family as they leave the country and resettle in California and France. The book goes back and forth over the family's history and explores the dynamics of relationships and shows (over and over) that just because it seems that way ... it ain't necessarily so. I will come back to this book in a year or two ... I think it is a strong en...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Generational stories fans

Shelves: wow-book-club-reads

This was more of a 3.75 star rating. Between 3 and 4, I went for 4 because the story has stayed with me a bit after reading and it was a page-turner.

The book starts with introducing us to Cherry Truong who has been accepted to nursing school and it in the midst of a celebration. Her brother is not there - he's been sent away, to Vietnam - after an accident that we don't know about yet that involved Cherry being in a coma. Cherry ultimately decides she wants to see her brother in Vietnam. In thi...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Sam Sattler rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: coming-of-age

Generally speaking, the Vietnamese families who came to the United States at the close of the tragic war in that country have, as a group, done well here. Their work ethic and devotion to education meant that most of them and their children would achieve financial security in remarkably short order. Easily overlooked, however, is what it was like for whole families forced to leave behind everything but what they could carry with them. Aimee Phan’s The Reeducation of Cherry Truong tells exactly w...more Generally speaking, the Vietnamese families who came to the United States at the close of the tragic war in that country have, as a group, done well here. Their work ethic and devotion to education meant that most of them and their children would achieve financial security in remarkably short order. Easily overlooked, however, is what it was like for whole families forced to leave behind everything but what they could carry with them. Aimee Phan’s The Reeducation of Cherry Truong tells exactly what it was like for two of those families.

Spanning three generations and three countries (Vietnam, France, and the United States), The Reeducation of Cherry Truong is the story of interrelated families forever split because of a decision made by one man. Cherry (pronounced like the fruit) Truong, having grown up in Little Saigon, California, does not know what happened all those years ago, but her efforts to convince her brother to return to California will finally expose her family’s secrets. Under the leadership of Cherry’s maternal grandmother, Cherry and her cousins are living quite comfortably in California and have promising futures. Now, however, her grandmother worries that some of her weaker grandchildren are looking for shortcuts to the easy life.

Things have not gone quite as well in Paris for Cherry’s paternal grandparents and her uncles but, there too, her cousins are preparing themselves for what they hope will be brighter futures. Sadly, her grandfather is suffering from Alzheimer’s now, one of her aunts is unstable, and her grandmother has discovered a family secret on her own. After visits to Paris and Vietnam, Cherry Truong’s reeducation will be done and she will understand the full impact of the choice her grandfather made all those years ago.

The Reeducation of Cherry Truong is about secrets and the destruction they can cause, but along the way, it offers genuine insights into family life in Vietnam both during and after the war. Too, despite the fact that few of the book’s characters are especially likable, it is difficult not to admire what the two families achieve for their children. Particularly touching is the ever-widening generational gap that becomes obvious as the first generation immigrants struggle to maintain the old ways that seem less and less important to each succeeding generation.

Readers should, from the beginning, refer to the two family trees offered at the beginning of the book. Ms. Phan uses a series of old letters and flashbacks to several different points in time (and to all three countries mentioned earlier) to tell her story. Paying attention up front to the various relationships will make it all much easier to keep track of - and will provide the reader with a much more rewarding experience.(less)

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Aug 27, 2012 Ming rated it 2 of 5 stars

The story is compelling (it's a myriad of stories pieced together)--I wanted to know what were the secrets and precursors. At many points, the writing is fluid and beautiful in a clause or in a sentence. But I found the tone and style of writing to be choppy; the movement jerks along. I couldn't pinpoint any technical reasons for this but it has something to do with how writing, rhythm and tone/mood occur and work together. The flashbacks and shifts in perspectives (or characters) were not the r...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Lynda rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a most excellent book - among the best I've read thus far in 2012. This book is about two families entertwined through marriage. It spans the years from 1975, the fall of South Vietnam to about 1997. One family settles in Little Saigon, California and the other in Paris, France. The book details the betrayals, drama and adjustments which each family has to face in their lives and how they adapt to the immigration experience. Each chapter is told from the experience of a different family...more

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May 15, 2012 Esther Bradley-detally rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent, packed, generational points of view, transition from Vietnam culture, history, struggle to the United States and France, a study in family viewpoints. This is Aimee Phan's first novel, and she has short stories We Should Never Meet - I have not read. At times I had a hard time keeping track of who was who, but that is because I am a greedy reader and inhale too quickly stories, which means I kept those pages moving!

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Mar 18, 2013 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: about-asia, about-usa-canada, about-europe

This novel tells of two Vietnamese families who left Vietnam during and after the war. Some of them resettle in Paris, and the others in Orange county. The chronology skips around, so the exact sequence of events was difficult to follow. The heart of the story is inter-generatonal conflicts and the dangers of family secrets.

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Jun 13, 2012 April rated it 3 of 5 stars

Possibly a 4 star. Concerns the tensions between two diverse cultures, mixing in family histories and secrets. Story skips back and forth in time and from California to France, each time shedding some light on current events. I thought the end of the story was well-written.

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Aug 14, 2012 Kjersti Egerdahl rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this for the Elle Reader's Prize 2012 so I had to get through it pretty quick and move on. I liked the characters: they all seemed three-dimensional, and the consequences of their actions felt real even when things got dramatic. It lost stars because of the way it self-consciously played with the timeline: it never felt structured to any purpose.

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Apr 01, 2013 Ellen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

I agree with some of the other reviewers - hard to keep the characters straight, frustrating to jump back and forth in time and ...oh my,.....so many unhappy characters.Interesting andI'mglad that I read it.

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The Reeducation of Cherry Truong: A Novel

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