First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers in Read a book from each country

Feb 21, 2011 Ira Bespalova rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, point-to-think, touchy, interesting-title, new-books, war, ordered-from-amazon, horrifying, all-time-fav

A terrifying story about a family trying to survive through the Cambodian Civil War. The book depicts the horrors of that time so vividly, that you literally painstakingly live the story and shudder from all the atrocities that were taking place during so many years.

After reading this book, the first urge was to visit Cambodia and learn more about its history and politics. This must say a LOT about a book.

Totally recommended.

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Sep 27, 2017 Chinook rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: asia

I bought a copy, an illegal photocopied one, of this book in Hanoi. I was sitting at a restaurant along the shores of the lake when a child bookseller came by. I had a ton of books already but I couldn't bring myself to say no. That copy is, I think, back in Canada, so I borrowed this from the library.

Cambodia was my first trip in Asia, outside of weekend trips in Korea. I went alone and almost completely unprepared. I hadn't pre-filled out my visa application like seemingly every other visitor ...more

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Mar 10, 2015 Felly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: environment-and-deep-issues, traveling-junkie, pick-it-somewhere-and-random, exchange-giveaway, 2015

Cambodia, Pol Pot, Genocide!

If you've read Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China you will have the same bitterness where kids would be war victims. Kids would be the one who will remember the greatest pain and suffer.

Found this book in a hostel in Yangon and cannot stop reading it afterward!

The fact that it is written in present tense made you think and feel what Loung Ung felt that time.

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