Helpful Score: 3
This memoir reads like a novel and I had a difficult time setting it down. I grew up during the Vietnam war and find the comparisons between it and the wars in the Middle East of interest. Great insight into how they viewed their war.
It always amazes me how quickly people have a crowd mentality in order to save themselves. The way that communities fed on individuals to protect themselves. Also, how some are resilent and what causes one to survive and go forward, where others crumble. I did not view his mother harshly, but hope I never need to learn what I would do to protect my children; which is what she did, while many turned their "half-breeds" out to make the family's life easier.
It always amazes me how quickly people have a crowd mentality in order to save themselves. The way that communities fed on individuals to protect themselves. Also, how some are resilent and what causes one to survive and go forward, where others crumble. I did not view his mother harshly, but hope I never need to learn what I would do to protect my children; which is what she did, while many turned their "half-breeds" out to make the family's life easier.
Helpful Score: 1
I read this book for my freshman english class in college and I loved it. This has got to be one of the best books I've ever read and I would reccomend it to everyone. The one suggestion I have when reading this book is to keep a box of Kleenex nearby.
From Amazon:
"Book Description
Kien Nguyen grew up an outsider in his native land. His once prosperous family, thrust into poverty at the dawn of a new political regime, lived among neighbors who treated them as an unwelcome remnant of the colonialist past. Kien himself, a child of mixed race (his father was American), was among the most unwanted.
Told with a stark, poetic brilliance, Kien's account of his early years-from the fall of Saigon, when at age eight he watched the last U.S. Army helicopter leave without him and his family, to his eventual escape-is a work of profound emotional resonance, at once harrowing and inspiring. The Unwanted unforgettably records a universal human experience played out in extreme circumstances: the forging of an identity, a life."
From Amazon:
"Book Description
Kien Nguyen grew up an outsider in his native land. His once prosperous family, thrust into poverty at the dawn of a new political regime, lived among neighbors who treated them as an unwelcome remnant of the colonialist past. Kien himself, a child of mixed race (his father was American), was among the most unwanted.
Told with a stark, poetic brilliance, Kien's account of his early years-from the fall of Saigon, when at age eight he watched the last U.S. Army helicopter leave without him and his family, to his eventual escape-is a work of profound emotional resonance, at once harrowing and inspiring. The Unwanted unforgettably records a universal human experience played out in extreme circumstances: the forging of an identity, a life."
Helpful Score: 1
This book was so strong - I felt like I was right there with him. I wept at the sad life he lived and am so happy to see that he has done so well as an adult.
