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What Members Thought
A memoir that will stay with me for years. The book is written in the form of a letter to his mother who is illiterate, and it chronicles his life, her abuse of him and her mental illness and a significant relationship as a gay teen. It’s both heartbreaking and poetic, and it brought to home for me how challenging the immigrant experience is. Coming to the US may be a good choice for a family, but it certainly isn’t easy for many.
The poet Ocean Voung's first novel (which seems to be a close reflection of his own life) is a deeply artistic and beautiful account of a Vietnamese immigrant growing up in Connecticut. If you are interested in reading an author who has mastered metaphor then this should be a top pick for you. The first section of the book recounts the narrator's experience growing up with a family suffering from PTSD. The second reveals his sexual awakening. This is a short book but the images leave a big impac
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Dec 16, 2019
Nadine
marked it as to-read
Sep 15, 2020
Kim Tyo-Dickerson
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Jan 04, 2021
Helle Kirstein
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Shelves:
lgbtq,
contemporary-fiction,
vietnam,
vietnam-war,
poetry,
asian-american,
debut,
literary-fiction
Jan 10, 2021
K
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Aug 23, 2021
Ian Marsh
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Dec 30, 2024
Elizabeth
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Aug 03, 2025
Megan Graff
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Sep 20, 2025
Brenda
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