Cover Image: The Mountains Sing

The Mountains Sing

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Member Reviews

Ha Noi live with her grandmother, Tran Dieu Lan, while her parents are off to war. When bombing destroys their home, Tran Dieu Lan begins trading at the local market, a practice looked upon with derision by her communist neighbors. Alternating with Ha Noi's story, Tran Dieu Lan tells her granddaughter about her life, when she was forced to flee with her children during the Land Reform.

This was a well written, interesting and engaging story. The alternating story lines worked very well together. The story flowed very smoothly and was well paced. I found it fascinating to read a story about Vietnam told over multli generations, and from the point of view of Vietnamese. Overall, highly recommended.

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A bit of a hard read for me personally but one I really ended up enjoying. It’s not easy for sure but it’s more than worth it and you gain a lot out of it but by bit generation through generation.
I’m happy that I requested this title.
Thank you very much to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy of my ARC.

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Thank you NetGalley for the free ARC.

"Politics is as dirty as sewage."

Truer words have not been spoken. This is the best book I have read about Vietnam written from the Vietnamese point of view. The history lesson includes the French and Japanese occupations, the Viet Minh war (Indochina War), the great hunger and the land reform after the Geneva Accords until the eventual reunification. All of it is told from the viewpoint of several generations of the Tran family that suffered and survived the many atrocities. A must read!

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