First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent
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While I am usually a sucker for auto/biographical works fo...more
This book not only gives insight into Loung’s per...more
At the beginning of each chapter she gives the reader a date. April 1975. I couldn’t help but think what I was ...more
On Monday I finished reading First They Killed My Father which is the autobiographical story of a young girl's experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. I've read a lot of books like this and I usually find them uplifting but this book just made me sad. In Rwanda, you see people's incredible resilience and determination to overcome the prejudices of the past. When I read the story of the boy solider, A Long Way Gone, I was heartened by the knowledge that he had escaped that life
...moreThis book is a chilling, deeply touching, eye-opening and educational narrative of an American Cambodian woman who was a child during the Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot Regime).
In response to this book (one of the first recollectio...more
Great book. This is the first book I've read by Loung Ung and so far I'm not a big fan of her writing style (it seems predictable and borrowed). But.. the book is excellent, mostly because it is a five-year-old's perspective on living and dying during Pol Pot's cleansing project in Cambodia. It's an interesting perspective because it is based on a mix of innocence, confusion, blind trust, fear, an innate need for self-preservation and the amazing ability that children have to sense a...more
Under Pol Pot, people were forced to leave their homes in the cities and move into the countrysi...more
The theme of this book is survival and perseverance. The Ung family must find food and shelter while they travel from city to cit...more
What is so gripping and terrifying about this memoir is that not just the grim story, but that Ung is ...more
I must admit that this was not an easy read. No, in fact it took me a few days to read it rather than reading it in just one sitting. The story was horrible, and the fact that it is all true makes it so much worse. Probably the hardest thing about this book is th...more
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| A 2012 Challenge:...: Sho recommends: First They Killed My Father | 10 | 14 | Sep 06, 2011 01:22am |

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