I would normally never (of my own volition) read a novel about a 12yo girl, but this book had so many intersections with my own family and experience that it was actually a wonderful selection for me. In this quick review, I’ll discuss that, the cross-cultural aspects of the story, and one mild critique.
A Personally Fitting Book
The 12yo girl is Mai, a Vietnamese-American who’s traveling for the first time to Vietnam with her humanitarian-doctor dad and her very Vietnamese grandmother. Their goal: to discover once and for all the fate of her grandfather who disappeared in the war, shortly before the family evacuated as refugees. Mai leaves her friends and life in California for the summer to navigate this familiar yet foreign world of life in a Vietnamese village.
My own 12yo daughter is herself Chinese-American. She’s also just recently returned to village life overseas after having fallen in love with America. Like Mai, she doesn’t want to be here, and yet she too is surprised to find threads of interest that slowly thicken into roots. She’d be thrilled to return home to the U.S., I’m sure, yet parts of her have also grown accustomed to the village—whether she wants to admit it or not. Unlike Mai, however, she’s yet to find that friend like Út who can help make her transition to village life fun and interesting. We keep praying she will.
I chose to read this book specifically because I was traveling in Hanoi, and I wanted something entertaining to keep me awake on bus rides and in airport terminals. This book fit the bill, and it offered a look at Vietnamese culture that I was witnessing firsthand yet not fully understanding. I don’t think a person needs to be familiar with Vietnam or the language to appreciate this coming-of-age story, but if you’re ever in the area, it’s certainly an added bonus to color your reading.
The Cross-Cultural Story
I’m not entirely sure if Mai could be considered a true Third-culture Kid (TCK) like my own daughter, but I’m moving ahead as if she were. Mai was raised in America by Vietnamese refugees and has shared a house with her non-English-speaking grandma. She’s a full-blown California beach girl, sure, yet her family also raises her to understand Vietnamese and to maintain some of their cultural cues, at least in the home. Thus, this visit to Vietnam is both dreadful and (though she doesn’t want to admit it) mildly exciting.
I found this novel an excellent little study in the process of enculturation, and for that reason, I think I’d love for my daughter to read it. It takes Mai several bad experiences with choppy Vietnamese and unkind village kids to know how much she hates the place, yet also how much more she could enjoy it, if she were only willing to change a few things about herself. Thankfully, she does make some changes (albeit reluctantly), makes some friends, and finally begins to enjoy her stay. She even grows closer to her grandmother and begins to understand some of the hardness in her that she’d always sort of detested.
There were other elements in the story that made it a fun cultural read for me. This early line, for example, about the sensual bombardment of Vietnam to the visitor was so spot-on that it made me certain to keep reading:
Even the crisscrossy electrical lines act like the traffic. Just looking up at such a jumbled mess makes everything louder. The smells are in your face too: fishy, flowery, lemony, meaty, grilled corn, fried dough, ripe fruit. Each smell has fists and is smacking each other for more space inside my nostrils. Yes, this is the Vietnam I’ve always imagined. (15)
I also loved the teenage-boy character who spoke English with a Texas drawl. That might sound ridiculous, but in my first months in China, I met a Chinese guy with a well-studied, well-articulated Alabama accent. When I asked him why he chose to go that direction, he told me: “The Alabama accent is the most sophisticated sounding English in the world.” Proof positive that everything’s still backwards in China.
Finally, I also really appreciated this explanation of the cold, citrussy washcloths people handed me at restaurants, which I at first didn’t understand. It’s a recipe I’m definitely using this summer:
The man [reached] into the square, single-person refrigerator behind him and pull[ed] out two folded cloths, wet, cold, and smelling of orange peels. Mom thought she was being green by composting citrus peels. I’m going to teach her to never buy air or fabric freshener again. We step back outside, the cloths pressed tight against our napes. Shockingly better, like carrying around personalized air conditioners. (160)
A Mild Critique
The only thing I had against this book was how much older this 12yo girl seems than most 12yo girls I know. I fully understand that the author wanted a pre-pubescent character unhindered by hormones and all that’s involved in growing up female, but there were plenty of times that Mai thought, spoke, or behaved like a full-on teen. This exchange with her dad is just one example:
“What are you talking about?” He laughs.
“That life is easy and hard, beautiful and ugly.”
“You get philosophical like this when you don’t eat enough.”
He hugs me some more. “Don’t sit here listening to your old man. Go find Út, go play.”
“I’m not a kid, Dad. I haven’t played since Montana and I were in grade school.” (183)
There are plenty of discussions about butts, boobies, and thongs that might cause me to delay handing it off to my daughter too quickly. I’m not the world’s biggest prude, but discussions of mooning each other and thongs getting lost in butt-cracks—not really our standard topics of conversation! But who knows, in a year or two, she might face similar introspections like the following, and it might be helpful to know she’s not alone:
Every girl is thin and flat chested, the present and future me. No big boobies in this land. Actually, anyone with big boobs would look ridiculous in a demure yet body-hugging áo dài, designed for slim frames. (11)
Conclusion
I really enjoyed this novel, as far off in left field as it was for me! I love to read geographically when I travel, so perhaps I’ll try more from Thanhha Lai in my future travels. This is an excellent study in culture, heritage, friendship, and jealousy, and it might even make for a good classroom read.
©2025 E.T.
Read More about Vietnam: