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From Horn Book

January 1, 2024
In this unflinching dual-perspective coming-of-age story, a California teen who at first loathes being Vietnamese gains pride in her heritage while also coming to terms with her emotionally distant, physically abusive refugee father. It's the summer of 1999, and Jane Vu, seventeen, is about to leave San Jose to attend UCLA. She is excited about college but worries about leaving her seven-year-old brother with their single father, Phuc. In lyrically written chapters that alternate with Jane's narrative, readers follow Phuc's traumatic youth in war-torn Vietnam, including acts of love and of violence within his family, and his harrowing escape by boat on the Pacific Ocean. He survives attacks by Thai pirates and starvation only to lose his final shred of innocence with the titular panda-killing. The twin tales of complicated family love come together when Jane gains sympathy for her father after she learns more about his experiences from cousins at a family reunion, and then later while visiting her grandparents in Da Nang. Hoang does a skillful job in capturing multigenerational trauma with Jane's teenage angst and Phuc's damaging voyage. Pair with the adult graphic memoirs Vietnamerica by G. B. Tran and The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (illustrator of A Different Pond, rev. 9/17).

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From School Library Journal

Starred review from November 10, 2023

Gr 9 Up-A dual-narrative, compelling read about family, intergenerational trauma, and immigration. The first voice is that of 17-year-old Jane, born in California to Vietnamese refugees who escaped the war. It's 1999, and her mom abandoned the family years ago. Jane is helping raise her younger brother, Paul, as well as working in the family business, a liquor store. Jane is hiding a secret: she was accepted to UCLA but worries about leaving her young brother with their unstable, often violent dad. The second voice belongs to Ph�c, who is 12 in 1975, and his small southern Vietnam village is experiencing the wrath of the Vietcong. When he manages to escape on a small vessel with other desperate people, the worst is yet to come. Ph�c is Jane and Paul's father, and each alternating chapter tells the story of the boy shaped by war who went on to become a parent while dealing with the trauma of war. Jane struggles with her Vietnamese identity, and often distances herself from whom she calls "fobs" or "fresh off the boat" new students in her school. As we learn more about Ph�c's upbringing, and Jane becomes aware of more pieces of her family history, the two start making sense of each other, and a shimmer of healing seems to be on the horizon. This novel tells the harrowing realities of war, and how the horrific things that people have had to endure present as poor mental health, displaced violence, and grief. There are also mentions of rape and physical abuse. VERDICT An important book, highly recommended for high school and public libraries.-Carol Youssif

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Horn Book

September 1, 2023
In this unflinching dual-perspective coming-of-age story, a California teen who at first loathes being Vietnamese gains pride in her heritage while also coming to terms with her emotionally distant, physically abusive refugee father. It's the summer of 1999, and Jane V, seventeen, is about to leave San Jose to attend UCLA. She is excited about college but worries about leaving her seven-year-old brother with their single father, Phuc. In lyrically written chapters that alternate with Jane's narrative, readers follow Phuc's traumatic youth in war-torn Vietnam, including acts of love and of violence within his family, and his harrowing escape by boat on the Pacific Ocean. He survives attacks by Thai pirates and starvation only to lose his final shred of innocence with the titular panda-killing. The twin tales of complicated family love come together when Jane gains sympathy for her father after she learns more about his experiences from cousins at a family reunion, and then later while visiting her grandparents in a Nng. Hoang does a skillful job in capturing multigenerational trauma with Jane's teenage angst and Phuc's damaging voyage. Pair with the adult graphic memoirs Vietnamerica by G. B. Tran and The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (illustrator of A Different Pond, rev. 9/17). Michelle Lee

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Publisher's Weekly

June 19, 2023
A Vietnamese American teenager in 1999 struggles to unpack her abusive father's traumatic upbringing in Hoang's dual-narrative, series-starting debut. Ever since their mother left three years prior, 17-year-old Jane Vũ has been the primary caretaker for her seven-year-old brother Paul. She often shields Paul from their father's physical abuse and reasons that his violent tendencies stem from his childhood in postwar Vietnam. As Jane readies to leave San Jose to attend UCLA on scholarship, she worries what her father might do to Paul in her absence. Hoping to prepare Paul, Jane tells him the story of the past their father never discusses. In an alternating first-person POV that follows Jane's present and third-person telling of her then-13-year-old father's harrowing escape from Vietnam in 1975 by boat, Hoang delivers a searing novel inspired by her own family history. Graphic language renders brutal scenes of parental abuse that are sometimes hard to read; still, equally lush storytelling details surreal sequences bordering on the fantastical amid Jane's father's migration, as well as chilling depictions of Vietnamese refugees' search for freedom, and the impact their trauma has on their futures, making for a riveting intergenerational drama. Ages 14â€"up.

From Kirkus

June 15, 2023
A Vietnamese father and daughter wrestle with intergenerational trauma in San Jose. It's the summer of 1999, and 17-year-old Jane Vũ is resentful: Her mom left three years ago, and Jane wakes up before dawn to open her family's convenience store, where she has worked the register since age 11. Jane and Paul, the 7-year-old brother she's taken care of since he was a baby, are routinely beaten by their abusive father, Ph�c. Despite all this, she got into UCLA, her ticket to a better life. But now Jane is struggling to tell Paul she'll be leaving. Before she goes, she has a story to tell him, one that follows a 13-year-old Ph�c in 1975 as he attempts to escape Vietnam during the war. Leaving his hometown of Đ� Nẵng, Ph�c encounters pirates, sharks, and other horrors on his way to the United States. The two narratives alternate, offering parallels between the harsh realities faced by a war refugee and his daughter. A sharp, introspective lead, Jane works to reconcile her father's love with his cruelty and is bitingly candid on the subjects of Vietnamese stereotypes, culture, and people--including her parents. The painfully raw depictions of Ph�c's brutality are arduous to read, but even so, Hoang successfully makes the case for offering empathy over judgment. A gripping and difficult story of a family surviving abuse. (glossary of characters) (Fiction. 15-adult)

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From AudioFile Magazine

Narrator Quyen Ngo delivers an emotionally intense performance in this raw YA coming-of-age story about a complex Vietnamese American family. The year is 1999, and Jane Vu is a 17-year-old who is getting ready to leave for college. She's living in San Jose with her 7-year-old brother, Paul, and their abusive father, Ph�c. Jane and Paul's mother abandoned them three years earlier. The story alternates perspectives and timelines between Jane in the present day and Ph�c in 1975 in war-torn Vietnam. Ngo immerses listeners in Vietnamese culture and experiences with her expressive, fluent delivery. She excels at capturing the story's bleak tone while evoking empathy for the family's intergenerational trauma, immigrant experience, and brutal family dynamics. The result is a difficult yet compelling listen. V.T.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine