audiobook #ownvoices historical fiction - Land Reform and the Vietnam War from the perspective of a farming family whose home and village have been destroyed.
This has been on my to-read list for a while, but alas, technical difficulties (device too old!) prevent me from listening to the whole thing. I streamed a few chapters of it (about an hour) from my laptop via Hoopla, but it's not really a practical way to listen to a 10+ hour-long audiobook (even if Hoopla lets you adjust the playing speed). I will probably end up returning to this book in print format, eventually, but I can usually absorb details better by reading rather than listening, so I do look forward to it.

Excellent narration is provided by Quyen Ngo for this lovingly, lyrically told tale that is sure to be full of heartbreak. I love the detail paid attention to by the author, who had interviewed hundreds of people, putting their memories and experiences into this novel, and also did extensive research to fill in the gaps from her own memories.

I really appreciated the author highlighting so much history in Vietnam, which many people don't talk about. I recently went to Vietnam's War Remnants Museum last year and never even heard of Agent Orange before, which was absolutely devastating. We need more voices to speak up about what happened, as too many of us are left out in the dark.

A beautiful yet heart-wrenching tale. Telling two stories side by side, The Mountains Sing manages to capture a dense history filled with hardship, perseverance, and pride. I think Que Mai does a fantastic job capturing a tone in here that feels raw and real. I also liked the focus on exploitation/colonialism and how it set up many of the issues in Vietnam that we explore in this story. Beyond just telling history well, this book crafts fantastic characters and paints a vivid setting. I wish the two perspectives had more differentiation of voice style-wise, which is my only gripe. Even though chapters had years at the top, I still felt as though the voice was almost too similar. Overall though, a great read.

This was such a beautiful but heartbreaking story. I loved that it’s told in multi-generation point of view. I was so invested that I had a hard time putting down this audio.

The Vietnamese born and raised author and poet, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, left me thinking long after finishing her first book in English titled, “The Mountains Sing.” I think I was so riveted because this is the first book in a long time that had me thinking about war from the other side’s perspective. She helps us see, up close, the dramatic and traumatic effect that the people of Vietnam experienced as it relates to the Great Famine and the 20-year war. We see mental health issues, political issues as well as classism and sexual abuse trauma.

This is very much a multigenerational book about hope and about those who refuse to give up.
Almost every other chapter pivots between the storytelling of a teenage granddaughter and her grandmother, set in different time periods. It’s the story the author wanted to tell about the grandmother she didn’t have (hers died in the 1940s during the Great Famine).

The word “mountains” in the title represents the Vietnamese people while the word “sing” is a symbol for celebration.

I highly recommend this book for those who like historical fiction and learning about other #ownvoices and cultures. It’s also a beautiful epic tale, told through the eyes of two very powerful female characters.

The narrator of the audiobook, Quyen Ngo, is amazing and I was grateful to listen to her voice. Without her exquisite pronunciations, I know I would have had a different experience with the text. There's is a lot of dialogue in this book and her character voices were unique and captivating.

Special thanks to Dreamscape Media, via NetGalley, for an advanced copy of the audiobook in exchange for my review.

A story of family, war, hardship, and hope told through two characters at different times in Vietnam. In the 1950s, Dieu Lan must leave her home and make a new life for her family during the rise of Communism and land reform. During the Vietnam conflict, her granddaughter, Huong, tells the story of living in Hanoi. A powerful story of strength and love, offering different perspectives during a troubling time.

The audiobook was wonderfully narrated.

This was a beautifully written story with descriptions that brought me into the Vietnam landscape and the lives of the characters. I liked having the dual timelines in the story, and I felt that both characters were easy to connect with. I really enjoyed the audio and felt that the narrator brought the story to life!

I think this is a perfect story for readers that enjoy emotional journeys from historical fiction!

I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

Wow! What a remarkable story. Set in the years leading up, during, and after the Vietnam War, this is a story of family, courage, survival, hope, and love. It was beautiful and heartbreaking. The narration of the audiobook was fantastic. I switched back and forth between the audiobook and ebook and I did think it was sometimes hard to differentiate the changes in point of view from the grandmother and granddaughter, but it was easier to follow these differences while reading rather than listening. I sped through it and was on the edge of my seat constantly. Thank you NetGalley, author, and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a beautiful way to learn about the contemporary history of Vietnam. Through the various generations of a family you come to understand the devastating effects of the wars and the aftermath. Not just the physical destruction, but the emotional toll as well. Although I was a little put off by the foreshadowing tropes at the beginning, I was soon deeply immersed in the story.

I enjoyed the narration of this audiobook. Although I can’t personally vouch for the accurateness of the language pronunciation, the use of the native language added substantially to the audiobook experience.

An epic tale that spans generations in Việt Nam throughout the communist rising, the Việt Nam War, and their aftereffects on a large extended family. The words in Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai's first English novel flow like poetry and Quyen Ngo's beautiful voice adds a softness to a story of brutal wartime violence in the audio book version of this beautiful story. The audiobook also lets you experience the sound and pronunciation of Vietnamese names and phrases which I wouldn't have known if reading the written version of the book. This heartbreaking story was difficult to listen to at times but I learned a lot about the history of Việt Nam, from a different and eye-opening perspective than we usually hear in North America. I was very touched by the resilience, compassion, love and loyalty of all the family, friends and neighbors in the story and would highly recommend it to everyone!

A beautifully written family saga about a Vietnamese family and three generations of conflict and love. The audiobook was well narrated and engaging.

A truly incredible historical novel about the Vietnam war, truma and survival of one family. Audiobook highly recommended.

I love the idea of reading the world while I'm stuck at home due to travel restrictions. What an epic way to experience the world - and this novel is an epic way to do this. The Mountains Sing is a truly special novel which I will definitely be coming back to in the future.

This book tell the story of a fictional Trần family very much affected by the Vietnam war. I loved not only the raw and emotional story, but also the very deep, underlaying issues - consequences of a global armed conflict on 'normal' people, a family with its many difficulties and struggles even without a war hanging over their heads. It's a tale of family, generational differences, the power of helping one another. And all this is packaged in a beautifully written novel.

In addition, I was lucky to listen to the audiobook varsion, which was a major hit for me. The narrator did an outstanding job conveying the feelings and the trauma experienced by the characters. I cried multiple times - which is, of course, a fair warning for anyone who may not be in the right place to listen to this heartbreaking tale.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest rveiew.

The Mountains Sing is an intergenerational family story set across major changes in Vietnamese history, from the French colonial period, through the Vietnam War, to present day.

As someone who is unfamiliar with Vietnamese history, I found this book to be very comprehensive in tying together the different historical changes, and showing the effects it had on people. What I also loved about this book is that the characters felt very human in their trials and tribulations, and their celebrations. Both good and 'bad' people alike all experience the effects of the war and other moments in history.

Since, I listened to the audiobook for NetGalley, I wanted to comment on this specific format as well. I'm so glad that a Vietnamese narrator was brought into do the reading. I appreciated the authentic pronunciations of the character names, places, and other Vietnamese terminology used in the book. I do wish that I had the physical copy to read alongside the audiobook, because I've heard that the book shows the correct spelling with all of the accents and inflections. As a listener, I feel like I am missing out on that a bit. Sometimes the characters felt a bit similar and I couldn't tell them apart. I'm not sure if that is the reading per say or if that is a critique I would have of the book itself.

Otherwise, I still highly recommend this because I don't think I've read such a comprehensive story set in Vietnam. I also love how the story tied up really well.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

A riveting story written with lyrical elegance about the heart wrenching, devastating but ultimately hopeful journey of the Tran family, a Northern Vietnamese family that spans 4 generations and 100 years. The story is told by two women, matriarch Dieu Lan born in 1920 and her granddaughter, Huong which picks the story up from 1972 as she’s coming of age. The novel flips back and forth between the two characters in different decades during the major events of 20th century Vietnam. French occupation, The Great Hunger (Vietnamese Famine) of 1945 in Northern Vietnam because of the Japanese Invasion during WWII, the Land Reform, and the Vietnam War. The writing immersed me in this country that my parents grew up rich in culture, language and food.

Vietnamese people are people of true grit and determination, pushed until their breaking point because of constant turmoil.
I have read only a couple of stories about the Vietnam war from authors that considered themselves from the South, meaning they saw the Fall of Saigon in 1975 as the worst lost of their lives, some even committing suicide. Meanwhile, Nguyen gives forth to the northern/mid country families, those that are also torn apart by war.

It is clear that Nguyen has done tremendous research on top of her own family’s history to create this vivid northern Vietnamese family’s journey. I asked my own dad and learn incredible things about my own family. Both of my dad’s maternal & paternal grandparents were wealthy landowners. My grandfather & his father (my great grandfather) were well-educated scholars who could speak several languages including English and French. I believe they did business with the French and instead of wearing traditional Vietnamese clothing, they wore European style clothes. However during the Land Reform, my grandfather and grandmother took their 1 child (my dad’s older brother) and his maternal grandmother and migrated south to escape the riots and murdering. My maternal grandmothers siblings were all murdered in cold blood, apparently nailed to the fig trees on their land. I thought the stories that Nguyen wrote were horrified and often thought “did that really happen? Were people really that evil and horrible?” They were. And it happened to my own linage. My dad was born after their migration. He was born a “Southerner” so the angst that was felt by Tran Family in the novel, was not felt by my dad.

“If our stories survive, we will not die, even when our bodies are no longer here on this Earth.”

Thank you @netgalley & @dreamscapemedia for providing me an audiobook copy. The narrator was able to captivated me in Nguyen’s beautiful writing. It was so brilliant; I purchased my own hardcopy so I can let my family & friends who have been asking to borrow it. I’m not surprised that #themountainssing made it to the She Reads’ best #historicalfiction of 2020!

#TheMountainsSingDreamscapeMedia #NetGalley

The Mountains Sing is a lush, vividly written, and gripping family saga. The author’s words filled my senses; I could see the towering bamboo forests, smell the unwashed bodies, squalor of poverty, and the reek of a land a world away from the newsreels I watched as a young child in the 1960s and 70s. The author’s lyrical prose elucidated the indomitable human spirit through the voices of two strong women. I appreciated the depiction of the grandmother as a survivor instead of a victim. Few women could have withstood the terrors she did. This book was emotionally draining from beginning to end, opening with a brutal beheading and ending with the tragic death of another family member. I was hoping for a moment of beauty, but there was little more than anguish, hardship, suffering, and death. I never heard the mountains sing.

First there is the Great Hunger of 1944-1945 during which an estimated 1-2 million Vietnamese starved to death. After that readers watch on in horror during the Land Reform (1954-1956) when the property of landowners was redistributed to the poor. About 13,500 landlords and reactionaries were killed. The matriarch of the Tran family spirited her six children out of the North to escape such a fate. The Vietnam War comprised surprisingly little of the plot, although its consequences were still disturbing—bombings,napalm, Agent Orange-related birth defects, and hand-to-hand combat—neither the Viet Cong nor the Allies were vilified.

Although the writing was good, sometimes too much of a good thing is… well… too much. The author covered too many historical events in one work of historical fiction. It was difficult to follow the changing point of view and the split narrative. I listened to the audio version (the narrator was excellent); the book would likely be easier to follow. Since the author is a nonnative English speaker, some idioms and colloquialisms were awkward. This was an ambitious project, and for that, and its educational value, I give The Mountains Sing four stars.

This is definitely a book that you need to be in a certain mind frame to be able to listen to or read. It is a beautiful told story of Vietnamese history but also a very tragic story of poverty and hardship particularly among the women. And, also during the Vietnamese war between the north and the south. I have read some historical fictions of other wars in history but this was my first about the Vietnam war and culture. I am glad I started with this one.

I listened to this on audio and the narrator was truly authentic and true to the story line. I really enjoyed listening to this story and because of this narrator I may have to use the word “sister”when referring to close friends. I doubt I could pull this off quite as well as this narrator did but every time I heard “Hello Sister” it just felt endearing.

Thank you Netgalley audio for granting me this audible in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai is a great story about the Vietnam War.

The Mountains Sing is a story about different generations of the Tran family. Tran Dieu Lan, a mother of six children, was forced to leave her family farm. Years later her and her granddaughter are dealing with their family fighting in the Vietnam War.

Do you ever read a book that is so impactful you don’t have words? That was this book. I believe this was the first book I’ve read about the Vietnam War but definitely won’t be my last.

The Mountain Sing is a great story with so much emotion and struggle. I liked how different characters stories were told. The Mountain Sing is a moving, intense, and emotional story with family conflict, different political views, and loss. The Vietnam War is going on, so there is the expected loss and struggles. Having family members on both sides of the war really added to the story. A son wouldn’t talk to his mom, so she made her granddaughter run deliveries to him.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Quyen Ngo and I loved her narration so much. Her tone and voice could not have been more perfect for this story. The narration was so beautiful and added to an excellent story.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for The Mountains Sing.

I literally went from 3.5 stars to 4 stars in 2.50 minutes. the ending really made justice to the main characters is like at the end of the book everything was redeemed and I have to say I'm so happy about it because I was ready to go on a rampage and not because the story or the book was not good, it was more because the whole book, chapter after chapter the feeling of sadness was very constant, there was no kindness, no love the whole story was very harsh for me because it felt like at that time no one really cares about anyone, it was hurt, pain and sadness at all times.

The Mountains Sing is the story of two generations gran mother and grandaughter Guava and Tran Dieu Lan, both narrating the atrocities they live during the war in Vietnam in different times of their lives and different situations but both really very similar as the damage this war caused was terrible.

While I was reading this book, I kept wondering why the evilness, why the atrocities, why, why, why,
but I always ask the same questions whenever a read a book that has Asian characters or goes into depth about Asian History. I know it's a different culture and a different history but I always find the sadness and the lack of love are very present in these books. The Mountain Sing was not the exception I was very angry at all times, because no matter how much I wanted to see even a little kindness there was none of it, even at 90% we still have that depression permeating around the characters. I wanted to see Guava happy she deserves it and I was still fighting with the book in the last couple of minutes.

What I really like about this story was the strength of these women, they really show how strong they were, and I have to say more than any hero, or any man, these women were fierceness and endure so much pain and terrible situations during their life, they lost many things, their life, their freedom, their family, home and properties they practically were left in the street by the terrible people who were blinded by rage and didn't stop thinking about the kindness and empathy this family had shown time and time again to their employees.

Injustice, a lot of unnecessary deaths, laws, and reforms that really broke the self-esteem in the entire population, this really made my heartbreak. we don't live in a perfect world and many stories of our world history are terrible but again the end really made justice. These two amazing women were doing and preaching at all times their kindness and love no matter what and that's what really made me felt in love at the end with the book. what Tran Dieu Lan did was shocking and the most honorable thing a person can do with so much love and kindness.

The Narrations by Quyen Ngo were amazing, I really enjoy how much depth was given to the main characters and not only to the main ones also the secondary so this story was more alive with the magnificent voice of Quyen Ngo I enjoy it.

Overall it was a good painful read, too much sadness, and too real for my taste but as I said I'm glad the author gave us a kinder ending. I know real life can be thought but we can also find miracles and magic and that's what we need to keep spreading to remember our true nature.

This is a gut wrenching story of a family from the early 1900s through to the end of the century of Viet Nam's horrific history. The author takes you through these years and the atrocities of war from this Vietnamese family's perspective, starting with grandparents. You follow the many wars in Vietnam's history through this family, the fighting amongst themselves, land owners versus the poor, the north versus the south, fighting the neighboring countries and what I am most familiar with, the Vietnam War. This took a terrible toll on this family and its history. I would suggest looking into a family tree and familiarizing yourself with the layout of Vietnam, specifically Hanoi in the north and Saigon in the south. I learned a lot and enjoyed the narration but at times found it difficult to follow because of the use of family words in Vietnamese, auntie, uncle, grandmother, to signify a relationship, sometimes regardless of a shared bloodline.

'The Mountains Sing' is a stunning and heartbreaking novel set in Vietnam during the twentieth century. The dual timeline story follows a wealthy family Vietnam mostly in the 1950s and 1970s, during and following absolutely devastating periods in the country's history. The country has suffered terrible tribulations in the 20th century: from French and Japanese invasion, to a massive famine where 2 million died, to communist Land Reform, to the Vietnam War, with citizens still suffering from its fallout. This family story is told by a landowning mother of six children who is forced to flee during the communist Land Reform in the 1950s; and by her granddaughter in the 1970s, whose family is on the front lines. This stunning novel entails family separation and reunification in both decades, depicting the acts of cruelty and kindness experienced by so many. Quyen Ngo narrates the audiobook and is absolutely fantastic! Her delivery captures the mood of each scene, whether it is suspenseful, heartbreaking, or heartwarming. ‘The Mountains Sing’ is a breathtaking depiction of persistence, family, and healing and one of the best books I have read this year!