This book presents a very unique story. Marpheen Chann's life story is very interesting and readers are lucky to get a chance to see this story. This book needs to be read by people who are non-immigrant, heteronormative, and religious to experience a way different life.

I'm not sure how to write a fair review for this book. It's about a young man's journey to grasp intergenerational trauma, having a parent (him mom) that's a refugee, being put into foster care due to the how his mother couldn't be what her kids needed due to how she was dealing with the trauma, being adopted by a conservative household, and learning to accept he's not heterosexual. It ends with him reconnecting with his birth mother and grandmother, as well as other family. I do recommend this book to anybody willing to learn what struggles exist for any one of those factors. I certainly learned from it as well as enjoyed it. ( )

Marpheen Chann's story is an important addition to the canon of social justice memoirs. He describes the hardships of his life with a clear eye, and has compassion and insight for the suffering he experienced at the hands of various caregivers. His story is uplifting and inspirational.

This book is the autobiography of the author, a Cambodian refugee kid. His family escaped the Cambodian genocide and came to California. That’ where the author was born. He and their family then came to state Maine to live with his mother’s sister. Because of poor living condition and his mother’s inability of raising a child, the state took over four of his sibling. Two of them were adopted by berrys family. This left him and his sister Tanya for foster care. Their first foster care family had them for less than a year. Then they were transferred to another single parent foster family whom he has a lot of disagreement with. He even called her an abusive parent. Fortunately he and his sister left the foster care family and adopted by the Berrys family. So there those four siblings were united again. The author grows up as a very evangelical Christian person. But he struggled very hard for his faith. Because he find out he’s gay which is not accepted by his family and his church. He’s very modern Christian. He has many thoughts according with Christianity faith. He even chose a missionary college which he didn’t finish it. Whereas he went to different college major in political science. Based on the book. He’s very warm hearted activist and a typically conserved Politician. But he’s gay so he want to support democrat. Because democrat acknowledge gay marriage. This strong inner conflict didn’t modify his morality. As in his words. He wants to be a good model for his siblings. He has been isolated from his birth family, but he has met with a lot of nice white people. Under the circumstances he grown up as strong and thoughtful person, independent and strong opinioned and amenable. He has great leadership. He led one of the youth group in the church. He has been emphasis on two things strongly nuclear family value which supports the teaching of evangelical church and collaborative value of his own culture which is people tend to live together and help each other. He thought he has both of them sometimes tended to lead towards one or another. He is a perfect family man caring and ambient.
Book at the end it does talk about his reunion with his birth family. He’s a lucky person. He has birth family foster family adoptive family god family. He still cares about them. That’s love. Love makes a man. Otherwise he won’t be so happy. This book is a great inspiring and educational book. It does show no matter what situation, never gives up hope. And there’s always chance in life. ( )

I enjoyed this book for about half way. It is a memoir of an Asian man and his immigration to the US, his trip to several foster homes, and experiences with adoption. We learn about his relationships with all the people he comes across in his life and what he learned from them. The almost entire second half of the book was a commentary by the author on politics, the foster family system and organized religions, specifically the evangelical church. I would have like more details of his LGBTQ experiences as an adult, how he is living as a gay man now, becoming part of the LGBTQ community, etc. The author states at the end that the reader probably will not like how the book ends. That statement was true for me as I finished the book. ( )