I suppose writing or drawing in a linear timeline is way overrated. And that's why I had to flip back and forth to figure out who was born when, whose story line was being narrated, and how it all pieced together. With that being said, however, I found the lives of these people very interesting and the more I delved into the book, the more I felt the author's purpose.
Thi Bui wants to write a family story about her mother and father's lives in Vietnam, along with the tumultuous time of the war and the aftermath once in America. The story begins with the author's own time giving birth to her first child, and then years later trying to understand her mother and find out her history. As stated before, there is a lot of back and forth in the time lines, and I had to flip a few times to finally get it straight in my head. But, maybe I'm just dense. I'm ok with that. I still figured it out as I invested my time reading about her father's sad home life growing up, as well as her mother's tireless work trying to support the recently immigrated family in the U.S.
A good read, and I can honestly say I know a bit more about the lives of the Vietnamese before and after the introduction of the 17th parallel.