Big thanks to Knopf for granting me a review copy of this book via NetGalley! It was beautiful. I really liked it.

Things We Lost to the Water follows three characters: Huong, who fled Vietnam during the war and came to New Orleans, and her two sons, Tuan and Binh (Ben). We follow their lives over the course of years, from right after Huong arrived in 1978 to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Looming behind everything is Huong’s husband and the boys’ father (or perhaps the idea of him), who was supposed to join them in the US. What follows is a story of heartbreak, growth, hope, memory, family, coming of age, and home.

There’s no denying that Eric Nguyen is an excellent, beautiful writer. There were two chapters in particular — one about halfway through and the other at the very end — that took my breath away. They spin around and around, dizzying, suspenseful, and rich with emotion. And the characters in this novel are gorgeous, full and endearing; you root for all of them. I did enjoy the first half of the book better than the second half (which jumps forward in time much more quickly), but the ending chapter was more than worth it. I’ll be watching for what Nguyen writes next, for sure.

It can be difficult to capture the city in its entirety. In Things We Lost to the Water, Eric Nguyens debut novel, he explores the citys history through multiple layers of lore. In this book, Nguyens introduces us to a family of four that quickly becomes three. Shes a woman who escaped a violent city and brought her sons with her. Each of them has left one home to search for another. For Huong, who has a new lover, and for Tun, who is getting involved with a local gang, the homelessness seems to have its own unique characteristics.

Early on in his novel, Nguyen notes that the water in New Orleans behaved differently than in Vietnam. It stayed still, though it moved. As he guides us through the years, he lets us wind our own clocks. The narrative shifts as the years go by, and the characters conflicts become more complex. Nguyens ability to weave these elements together is especially impressive. The mystery of home continues to be explored. Through multiple perspectives, Nguyens work makes it easier to understand the various facets of belonging.

This book is about moving on, it’s about moving on despite the loss of a loved one. NGuyens ability to chart the course of a journey without being too technical is something that makes it all the more compelling. Thank you, Knopf, for the gifted copy via net galley.

Huong immigrates from Vietnam to New Orleans with her two young sons, Tuan and Binh, in 1978. She is without her husband, homeless, and trying to build a new life. As she adapts to life in America, her sons also search for how they fit in. Told through multiple perspectives over several decades, Nguyen crafts an intricate story about family and identity. Readers get to see Tuan fall into a bad relationship and associate with gang members, and they see how Binh, or Ben as he prefers to be called, face his own sexuality. There is imagery of water throughout the novel as the family immigrates by boat, they live on a bayou, Ben meets his first love at a pool, and eventually the family faces Hurricane Katrina. Readers who enjoy family drama will appreciate following this family through their stuggles.

I did not realize this was a debut novel until I after I had read it!! Wow -- I cannot wait to see what his next book will be!! I loved his first chapter and I find with debut authors -- they struggle with finding a first chapter that will entice you to keep reading. No worries with Eric's first book -- his first chapter had you not only turning the page, but excitedly so. I always love reading historical fiction books which are totally original. If you are looking for a historical fiction book that will keep you hooked til the end -- this one is for you!!

Things We Lost to the Water follows the story of a mother and two sons that escape from communist Vietnam to New Orleans. Spanning a few decades it shares the story of a family life from the rotating perspectives of the three main characters: the mother, and each of the sons. I valued being able to read a story from a different point of view and voice, and felt like I learned more about the difficulties of trying to re-establish ones self and family as immigrants/refugees in a strange land. However, I rarely say this but think I actually would've enjoyed more as an audiobook as I was not sure if I was pronouncing things right in my head and would've like to know I was doing so. I valued being able to hear from a different voice, but overall found the story slow moving. I feel that my struggles with this book are more about me as a reader not finding as much enjoyment in a paced family narrative, than with the writing itself. If that is a genre that you enjoy, then I recommend this one.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Eric Nguyen, and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Some books start out strong and some books end strong. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝗪𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝗪𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑 by Eric Nguyen is one of those books that does both. As the story opens in 1979, we meet Huong and her two young sons, Tuấn, 4, and Binh, a baby. They have just arrived in New Orleans, after first leaving Vietnam by boat and then spending time in a refugee camp. In the chaos of fleeing, Huong’s husband, Cong, did not make it onto the boat. Nguyen did a beautiful job laying out their story in a chronological order, with each member of the family sharing his or her perspectives of what was happening in their lives. We see both their fear and anxiety around being in a new land, and their desire to make a full life there. We also feel their pain at not having Cong with them.⁣
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I loved that first part of this book, then it slowed down a little for me, but at about the halfway point the story really took off. This was when the perspective from Bihn/Ben began to appear in the rotation, adding more depth to the family story. Somehow, this character added more life, more urgency to the whole story. Each family member had secrets that rippled out to affect the others. I don’t want to say much more, but I do want you to know that 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘞𝘦 𝘓𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 was a beautifully rendered story that grew stronger and stronger as it neared the end. As I put it down, I felt awed by Nguyen’s debut. His writing was stellar, his character development, subtly layered, and his sense of place, transported me. I can’t wait to read whatever he writes next.
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Many thanks to @aaknopf for this beautiful finished copy.⁣

> Diversity Representation: Vietnamese family, Haitian side character
Content Warnings: Immigrant experience, natural disaster, PTSD, racism, internalized racism, gang violence, drug use, death of a family member, poverty, hate crimes

**Breathtakingly beautiful, lyrical, stunning, devastating, important**

I found Things We Lost to the Water a day before this book was published, through Loan Le on twitter. Considering A Pho Love Story was one of my favorite recent reads, I immediately requested to read it. I didn't even look into it past the fact that it goes into the immigrant experience of a Vietnamese family. **Let me tell you that it did not disappoint. This story was incredible.** I soaked in every moment of it with deep emotion and appreciation that this book exists.

Things We Lost to the Water follows a mother and her two sons who escape from Vietnam and make it to New Orleans. It's an epic family tale, spanning 26 years that tells of how the family grows, falls apart, and grapples with what it means to be Vietnamese in New Orleans.

It's hard to put into words how great this book was. It's full of so many small experiences and feelings that to mention every thing would be too much. **The book dives into the deep complexities of being forced to leave Vietnam and start a new life for yourself in a new country. A country that doesn't care about you, but that you find yourself, inevitably, assimilating into.** It shows us the feeling of longing for a place and a people you've never been through the sons, and the repercussions of wanting to shield your children from your trauma from the mother.

By following each of the three family members, and jumping between point of views so quickly, **it constantly reminds us that these deep, intricate, and complicated experiences of the characters are echoed in similar and different tales for many more families and people.** Every moment I thought I was getting close to a specific character, we'd switch narratives or move through the years. It was the moments that stayed with me. The book is the story of Huong, Ben and Tuan, but it was so much more. It was experiences shared by many people. It was the confusion of losing a father you didn't know. It's not knowing if you can trust your Chinese neighbors in America, because China occupied Vietnam before France did. **It's losing someone who couldn't make it on the boat themselves.**

As someone who's father also fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, this book was wildly important for me to read. I love that a book like this exists for a person like me to be able to learn and understand more of the intricacies of my family's experience. I related a lot to Ben, being angry at a father he didn't even know, and spending time being lost and trying to fit into an entirely white world. **But most of all, having to learn about his own family history through books, and facts, and knowledge.** Never quite connecting as much as you need to in order to understand yourself. I'm honestly still in awe that a book like this exists for a person like me to read. I am so grateful to Eric Nguyen for writing a powerful book that somehow found it's way into my hands. Thank you.

# Summing it all up

Things Lost to the Water is a beautifully epic family tale of a Vietnamese family in New Orleans learning to start fresh, and trying and failing to heal personal and generational wounds. It was wildly important to me, and I can't even believe that it found it's way into my hands. But I am so grateful that it has.

This is a lovely piece of prose about a woman and her sons leaving Vietnam and moving to New Orleans. This books follows the family over a long period of time, over 25 years. There were perspective shifts throughout the novel that gave insight into the experiences of each of the family members. My only dislike is that the ending felt rushed. I’d recommend this one to anyone looking to broaden their horizons of the immigrant experience.

Huong is a pregnant young mother in war-torn Vietnam. She, along with her husband, decide to leave Vietnam and immigrate to the U.S. However, her husband hesitates at the last minute and Huong ends up on the boat alone with her young son. After giving birth to a second son on the boat, she settles in New Orleans. This book highlights her struggles as a Vietnamese immigrant and a single mother. It also gives us insight into the lives of Tuân and Bình, her sons, as they attempt to achieve a balance between preserving and honoring their Vietnamese roots and learning to “fit in” as an American.

The book was very well-written. Captivating from the start. Eric Nguyen has written an eye-opening novel about what it is like to emigrate from Vietnam to the United States. This is a story that needed to be told and that I needed to read. Pay attention, folks. Nguyen’s is a fresh, new voice making a statement that we need to hear. I especially enjoyed the way he used the water to symbolize the struggles of this Vietnamese family, but also as a way to anchor them. He also took great care to fully develop his three main characters, which can be a daunting task when including multiple main characters. Not only does the reader really get to know these characters, but we are given the opportunity to learn from them.

I absolutely 100% recommend this book. As a human being, this book should be required reading.

This one was released on May 4, 2021 and is available as a Book of the Month selection for May 2021.

Thanks to Eric Nguyen, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and Netgalley for this ARC in return for my honest review.

In 1979 Huong flees Vietnam with her two sons, in hopes of a safer more abundant life in New Orleans. Due to the circumstances of having to leave Vietnam, she leaves behind her husband, Cong hoping she will see him again one day soon. The perspective of this book shifts between Huong and her sons Binh and Tuan to help tell the story of their family's mmigration and settling into America.

The very first thing that struck me about this novel was the writing. It was beautiful and left me breathless at times. The way Nguyen wrote this novel made for such an interesting reading experience. When Huong finally arrives in America, readers feel the strain and overwhelm of the character's dire situation. Jobless, homeless and unable to speak the language, Huong's perspective works to unite readers with the immigrant experience. As the novel progresses, the reader slowly acclimates to the new surroundings alongside the family. This made for a unique and empathy invoking reading experience.

In a story that follows a family over such a long period of time--26 years in this case--I love having chapters that change perspectives. My only issue with this book is I almost felt like it needed to be longer to give the reader more time with the characters. The ending felt a little rushed, but this is a very quiet novel, and the juxtaposition of the chaotic events that take place at the end, could have been responsible for my feelings of being rushed towards a conclusion.

This is something I would recommend widely alongside other stories that center immigrant families. It is a powerful family saga that shows the strength of family and community.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday punlishing for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. You can find Things We Lost in the Water on shelves near you NOW!

This is a beautiful piece of prose. Things We Lost to the Water is a novel about a mother and her two sons who emigrated from Vietnam during the war and immigrated to New Orleans. In a new country without a job or even knowledge of the language spoken or the customs of this new world, Huong and her boys need to learn how to survive and also how to keep the hope alive that Cong, Huong’s husband, will make it to them.

This novel weaved Huong’s, her oldest boy - Tuan’s and her youngest child - Binh’s lives and followed them through three decades as they changed, grew, learned and made their way through life. Without spoiling too much, I loved how Cong’s absence eventually molded the boys and even Huong herself.

I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who likes contemporary fiction, multiple character plot lines, and familial and immigrant stories.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for this complimentary e-arc of Things Lost to the Water.

Historical fiction following the lives of a Viet Nam family fleeing In 1978 via boat through their arrival in New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. Absent her husband who remained behind( clues as to why are subsequently offered but subject to the interpretation of the reader) Huong(mom) and her two children -Tuan who was born in Viet Nam and Binh/ Ben ( with whom she was pregnant at the time) each face different obstacles in adapting to life in New Orleans and cope in different ways.
Each of the characters has his own chapter at different periods of their lives.For me though well written this made the story line fragmented , and at times felt incomplete.
The mother-Huong-I thought the best developed character-isolated, lonely essentially friendless( a boyfriend Vinh does make an appearance) struggling to survive financially and coping with two children who follow completely different paths but for whom she wants only the best.
Water provides the “ bookends” for the novel-a loss of a homeland and husband initially and then the loss of her home and city with Hurricane Katrina. In sum, an excellent reflection on the immigrant experience( in this case from Viet Nam) and the subsequent sense both of loss of homeland and the difficulty of adapting to a new country.
Well written and well done.

This is a beautiful, powerful novel about a woman and her two sons who flee Vietnam in the 1970s and make a life for themselves in New Orleans. We alternate among all three of their perspectives over 26 years. My favorite parts were when the boys were a little bit older and really coming in to their own selves and identities, but I appreciated their experiences as younger children as well. There were a few character and plot points that pleasantly surprised me and had me turning the pages, unable to put this book down. At times I wanted more - more of these characters and their lives! But that is just a testament to the author's talent. I found some of the pacing to be off - the beginning drags a bit and the (fantastic!) ending is too rushed - but otherwise a wonderful novel. I can't wait to see what the author writes next.

THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER by Eric Nguyen is a tender and beautiful novel about family, heritage, belonging, and identity.

Spanning 30 years, it follows the story of a Vietnamese family who flees Vietnam after the war to start a new life. However, Hương is separated from her husband Công as they flee and ends up in New Orleans alone with her two sons while her husband remains in Vietnam. Huong and her sons Tuấn and Bình must learn to survive and find their place in their new home.

The writing is very engaging, and I found myself heavily invested in these characters. Each is very distinct and has their own struggles - Hương trying to accept the loss of her husband while raising her sons, Tuấn working to understand what it means to be Vietnamese and connecting with his missing heritage, and Bình trying to understand himself and his place in the world. I felt a close connection with all these characters and felt their pain of trying to understand what it means to be a family.

This is a beautiful novel that vividly depicts the pain and struggles of being displaced and trying to assimilate. But it also gives us a sense of hope in the wake of loss and the possibilities of the future. This is a stunning and emotional debut novel and I highly recommend it.

Spanning 27 years, this is the heartbreaking story of how a Vietnamese mother and her two sons survived in America. When Huong got on the boat to escape Vietnam, she thought her husband would come with her, their young son, and an unborn baby, but he did not. His decision to stay in Vietnam, impacted her and the boys long after. At first, she would send cassettes to her husband encouraging her sons to participate, but then a curt postcard arrived telling her not to contact him again. She tells the boys their father is dead. Living in the poverty of New Orleans is not easy. The older son turns to a Vietnamese gang and the younger boy decides to become completely American. The theme of the book is about moving on as much as it is about survival. Ben ends up in Paris taking a break before beginning his doctoral program. Tuan sees that a Vietnamese gang is not the life he has envision. As the story began in water, so does it end, escaping the water of Hurricane Katrina. Told from the perspectives of the three main characters, it’s a story of struggle and yet even as they survive the hurricane, there’s hope as they realize how much New Orleans has become a part of them.

immigrant Vietnamese family who settles in New Orleans and struggles to remain connected to one another as their lives are inextricably reshaped.
WoW! What a devastating beautiful debut novel of secrets, deceits, and survival!
.I was hooked to these beautiful pages! I've never read such an emotional slope

Things We Lost to the Water is a story about a family who flees Vietnam to resettle in New Orleans in 1979. Huong and her two boys, Tuan and Binh (Ben) struggle with poverty, language barriers, and racism as they resettle in their new lives. While her husband, Cong planned the escape, he does not ultimately leave with them, later causing a complicated rift with the family.

It starts action packed from page one and was rather a quick read. The writing, although beautiful, is not overly complicated. This character-driven story kept my attention and I found myself wanting to spend more time with them.

It was heart warming at some parts and realistic in portrayal of people and relationships. The characters are well-developed, complex, and flawed. I enjoyed the closeness they felt for their city; the backdrop of New Orleans made it a more unique narrative.

3.5 stars, rounded down. This perceptive first novel follows the immigrant experience of a mother and her two sons, who arrive in New Orleans as refugees from Vietnam in 1979. Hoang has been separated from her husband, who has inexplicably stayed behind, and is haunted by his absence for many years, sending him letters and cassette tapes in distant hope of a reply.

She slowly reassembles the pieces of a new life in a housing project on the edge of the bayou, working long hours at a nail salon to support her boys, who grow up fatherless along different paths, without any parental guidance to help them navigate school and social pressures. Tuan, who escaped with Hoang as a small child, experiences racism at school and drifts into gang membership. Bing, who was born in a refugee camp and never met his father, is a sensitive boy who slowly comes to terms with his gay identity and his literary sensibilities.

Nguyen writes elegantly, and with real insight and empathy, regularly taking a third-person snapshot of one family member every year or so. He channels their distinctive individual voices and rendering their perceptions of each other quite evocatively.

I thought that some of the scenes felt a bit too dutiful and paint-by-the-numbers, and that the pace could be overly languid at times, until the rushed denouement. And especially that the water metaphors (swimming, flooding, drowning) were a bit too on the nose, even before (minor spoiler) Hurricane Katrina makes landfall. But perhaps these are unfair criticisms of a genuinely talented new writer.

This is an impressive and riveting debut novel. It follows the three main characters following their immigration from Vietnam to New Orleans. Huong and her two young sons, Tuan and Binh, begin with nothing -- no friends or family in their new country and no means of support. Over the next 20 plus years, they build a life, each taking much different directions as they adapt to life in the United States in different ways, influenced by their connections to Vietnam and to the absence of Cong, Huong's husband and the father to the two boys who remains behind in Vietnam.

This story is an interesting and compelling exploration of this family's experience and how societal dynamics intersect with individual identities to shape the course of people's lives. The characters are well drawn -- in each perspective, the reader feels fully immersed in that character's point of view. Very highly recommended!

This book is gorgeously written. The characters are specific, clear, and memorable, although I think this was the rare novel that could have been twice as long; it almost felt like a collection of vignettes instead of a full text. I expect this to be a big success for a debut.