Thanhhà Lại

Hang recalls some harrowing stuff over the course of this novel, however, those moments are buffered with bits of humor and hope and the kind of characters who feel as though they’ll linger in your mind forever in a good way.

LeeRoy is most definitely one of those characters, and a surprise at that. He’s a wanna-be cowboy with no actual cowboy experience (yet way too much confidence in his cowboy abilities), he’s an early adopter of rap music (this story takes place in the early 80’s), sports a mustache and questionable cowboy duds, plus he’s booksmart. In our often horrible real world, a girl like Hang probably would have crossed paths with someone awful, but I’m so glad LeeRoy is the person the author gave her, patient and kind and funny and more impressed by Hang’s feisty personality than put out by it.

It should be noted what hints of romance there are here, are slow in coming and often subtle, that isn’t going to work for every reader, to me though it fit the story perfectly, Hang had more pressing concerns than landing a boyfriend. But if you do like a quieter kind of romance, LeeRoy’s willingness to talk Hang through a certain moment in this book is just about as attractive as someone can get, there’s no need for a steamy makeout session to emphasize the point the author makes right then and there about what Hang and LeeRoy mean to one another.

The settings in this book, toiling in the dust and the heat of Texas farm country, the flashbacks to life in Vietnam altered by the military’s presence, and the treachorous boat journey to the US, these are places and experiences I’ve never come close to having but they’re written in a way that made them easily imagined all without going overboard on description.

Lastly, I have to talk about Hang. She’s so admirable to survive what she survived, to carry the amount of guilt she feels and not let it weigh her down, not let the language barrier or fear or anything else stop her from trying to reunite with her little brother. She is brimming with toughness and soul. If you’re looking for a hero (and don’t mind if she’s fictional) I doubt you could find much better than Hang.… (meer)