This was a heavy read -- not based on the writing, based on the content. The writing was really great I thought and made the heavier subject matter a bit easier to palate. It was a little confusing as the timelines shifted around which was further complicated by the plot-forward nature of the story. But it was still a great read! I'm tucking it away for a potential book club book in the future.

When I first started reading this book I was unsure because of the pacing and it was a different writing style than I was used to BUT I LOVED IT!

What could have been better?
The pacing could sometimes feel slow.

What I enjoyed?

Whoa! This book was complex in the best kind of way. You get multiple time periods and points of view to get a story that eventually ties together to make your eyes go wide. I think this novel shows the author’s phenomenal storytelling abilities as she intertwines the time periods and characters lives seamlessly together by the end in some ways I saw coming and other ways I didn’t.

This story is dark! Has a lot of paranormal elements! Has a revenge plot and some thriller elements tied in too, while also introducing us to some elements of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American experience and cultural dynamics (this author is an #ownvoices author).

This is a book I feel like I would have loved to have a college literature class about! There’s a lot to unpack and it has a lot going on, but I personally think it’s in the best way possible. I literally was writing down my guesses and all the connections of the characters as I read (there’s also a cheat cheat of characters at the beginning of the book if needed).

I recommend this book to people who don’t mind a slower pace story, with time shifts and multiple povs, and are looking for a complex read that’s different than anything they’ve ever read before!

WARNING! There are lots and lots of triggers.

4.75/5 rounded to 5 for netgalley

TW: racism, sexual assault, drugging, rape, animal cruelty, xenophobia, verbal abuse, murder, depression, mentions of eating disorder and rape

This a beautifully written and atmospheric tale of body horror, folklore, and women's revenge. I really wish I had loved it, but it just didn't quite work for me.

I truly felt like I was in the town of Ia Kare at times, and the setting was so wonderfully detailed. I often struggle with achronological narratives, and this book has the unlucky fact of being both achronological and featuring a wide range of characters with each time jump. These narratives just didn't all come together for me- in plot they did, for the most part, but I just wish we had gotten more development of our two main women. Winnie was more detailed than Binh, but we spent so much time on the secondary characters that I just wanted to get back to their stories. I also wish we'd spent more time with Ma's daughter and the First Assistant- I was really intrigued by their story.

There is a lot of body horror and almost magical folklore at play here, and also lots of mentions of snakes, so if that's not your jam I'd probably skip this one.

Overall, this one just didn't work for me, but the writing is beautiful and I would definitely read more from Kupersmith in the future.

It is fantastically difficult to categorize this book. Is it horror? historical fiction? comedy? a ghost story? There is absolutely no good way to summarize or explain this book. What I CAN say is that you are in very good hands with Violet Kupersmith. There are many disparate threads in this book, but they weave together beautifully by the end.

Here is what you will get from this book: gorgeous descriptions of Vietnam, folklore, excellent characters, colonization of both countries and bodies, dark and hilarious but also lovely writing, smoke monsters, fortune tellers, a talking dog, cobras, cemeteries, a lottery ticket, a character list, maps, women who disappear, and women who get revenge.

You will also find use of the words such as phosphenes, dactylic, and scapulae. I love a book that talks nerdy to me.

If you remember nothing else from this ramble, PLEASE remember this: If you read this book for no other reason (and there are a lot of good reasons to), read it for the story of the rat. It is perfection and it is beautiful and it had me smiling from ear to ear.

One last note- this cover is gorgeous. Even more so after you’ve read the book and revisit the different patterns and textures in the illustration.

Thank you to @randomhouse and @netgalley for the review copy!

This is for those who enjoy atmospheric tales that incorporate folklore and magical realism. Kuppersmith pushes these to the forefront of the novel at the expense of her main character. Winnie= and the mystery of the disappearance of her disappearance. It jumps around, a lot. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

I'm not quite sure where to start with this review or even what to write at all. I don't know what I was expecting this book to be but it was definitely not what the book turned out to be. I'm not even sure why, because re-reading the description after I finished, it's definitely accurate. I still really enjoyed the book luckily. It was much deeper and thought-provoking though than I had imagined. It's also quite creepy, with some chapters deserving a horror label for the genre.

The beginning is a bit slow going just because the scenes and backgrounds are being set up, but by the ending I could barely put the book down. I appreciated how it all came together in the end. Many clues and "a-ha" moments occur throughout the book but the ending still was a mystery to me until the last few pages. With important themes including feminism and colonialism, I can tell this is a book I'll be thinking about for a long time.

Disclaimer: I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Penguin Random House and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Violet Kupersmith has written a book that straddles the line of thriller/horror/fiction/folklore. The history of ghosts in Vietnamese culture is as strong today as it always has been and this book is an excellent exploration into it.

Winnie is a half Viet/half American who moves to Vietnam to teach. She's bored, she's lonely, and she disappears.

Years before, another young woman disappears after fleeing her angry father.

These two missing women are connected in a spider's web of coincidence with a strong connection to ghosts and power.

This is a story that requires a reader to devote the time to the nuance and subtle connection that only deeper the further one gets into the book and story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

4.5 stars

This is one of the most innovative uses of folklore I've seen in a long time, and I loved it.

Winnie, nee Ngoan, is one of the main characters of this novel, and when readers meet her, she has somewhat recently come to Saigon to either get a better sense of who she is or to lose herself fully. While this part isn't clear at the start of the novel, what is apparent is that she is battling some real demons (pun intended this time) and that she has many more hurdles to overcome before her story can be fully determined. This structure - characters with a lot of damage, secrets, and questions about their identities, and a truly cool infiltration of folklore - grounds the entire work.

The real payoff for me is how the various characters come together and what they signify ultimately about trauma, the construction of the self, and vengeance. Though all of the characters are messy at best, the women identifying folks are holding the moral high ground. Even when they make challenging decisions, they offer reasons for why these choices work within personally established codes. This aspect connects some untraditional characters to traditional heroic models in ways that are - again - utterly creative.

There is so much nuance, detail, and existential questioning here. This is not a novel that should be picked up for mindless summer reading. However, if you are the kind of reader who is willing to put in a little work - keeping the characters, symbols, motives, and archetypal elements aligned - the payoff is outstanding and SAVAGE.

I can't wait to read more from Kupersmith, and if you're the above described reader, this one gets a high rec!

TW: sexual assault, sexual harassment, rape

Added note: I know some folks are particularly sensitive to snakes. Snakes - literal and figurative - abound here. You can judge that part of the book by its cover (just in case).

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. I really enjoyed this one and read it in one day. Look forward to much more by this author.

I thought I knew what to expect from Violet Kupersmith’s astounding novel, Build Your House Around My Body. The first chapters set up two disappearances, a little more than twenty years apart. Narrative law led me to think that, first, the two disappearances would be linked and, second, that there would be a detective character who would sleuth out everyone’s secrets and figure out what happened. The first assumption turned out to be true. The second assumption was blown out of the water as the pace started to pick up and things started to get weird. By the end of the novel, I was so hooked that I wanted more pages to explore the world Kupersmith created from everyday Vietnamese life and a heavy dose of the supernatural.

The first disappearance we learn about—and the one that provides a central reference point in the timeline of Build Your House Around My Body—takes place in Saigon, in 2011. Vietnamese American woman Winnie has come to Saigon looking for something. She takes a job teaching English, but she’s terrible at it. When she’s not leading “advanced conversation” sessions (defining American slang), Winnie drifts around the city. She’d had the vague notion that she would fit in better in Vietnam, but here she gets side-eye for being too American. (The reverse was true in the United States.) Although she manages to make some (one) friend in Saigon, Winnie never really makes a life. Someone always has to take care of her. It’s not hard to believe that Winnie would go missing in the city, where everyone knows a lot more than the unambitious, naïve American.

Kupersmith introduces many characters during the slow ramp-up of the plot. We meet the very sweet man, Long, who tries to take care of Winnie; a fortune teller who might actually know how to harness the supernatural; Long’s brother, a reluctantly corrupt police officer; and Long’s old friend in Đà Lạt, the tough and unpredictable Binh. The plot also jumps from 2011 to 1986 to the 1940s and back, all circling around what happens to Winnie and other characters in 2011. The only connection at first is Long, but more links start to form between the characters. I don’t want to say too much about what happens in this book. The reveal is so magical and original that I don’t want to ruin it for other readers. The slow start is more than made up for by the last third or so. Once the links started to tighten, I couldn’t put the book down. I had to know what was going on.

I’ve written before, in other reviews, about books that walk the line between the possibly supernatural and the rational explanation. I love the tension that comes from characters and plots walking that line until the reveal resolves it. It’s fiction, so either possibility is likely. Build Your House Around My Body falls off that line early. Because I know so little about Vietnamese folklore and literature, I had no clue what was coming. (Kupersmith is brilliant at dropping clues that, in retrospect, perfectly foreshadow what happens later. I love those hints.) Like Winnie, whose adopted parents never bothered to tell her about her cultural heritage, we have to wade into a world with subtext and context that we can sense, but not understand. I love a book that not only gives me a wonderfully original plot but also one that introduces me to new lore.

Readers who like books that do new and original things with genre fiction will find a lot to like—especially readers who are used to keeping a sharp eye on everything and can navigate a densely interwoven timeline. I see Build Your House Around My Body as the kind of book that you read, hand to another reader, then eagerly wait for them to finish it so that you can have conversations that go: “Did you notice—?” “Yes! And how it lead to—” “And then—!” “I know! So amazing!”

There is a lot going on in this book, which isn’t a bad thing. Build Your House Around My Body is a rich and beautifully written book that weaves together themes of family, identity and Vietnamese folklore which feels literary and part mystery and even hints of gothic.

There are two distinct timelines in this book, both of which follow two young women, one teen in the mid 80’s and one young American teaching English in Vietnam in 2011. The women are linked through their fate, (no spoilers here!) In fact, this is a difficult book to talk about because so much of it is about discovery and not just in a plot sense, but how the author weaves together these stories in a way that is reminiscent of pastiche. There are many nuanced discussions throughout, including what it means to be an ex-pat, colonialism in Vietnam, big business’ effect on the country and even ghost conjurings. This is a kaleidoscope of a book if you are willing to take it on and feel comfortable with the fact that you may not always know where the book is taking you. I found this book to be a tour de force and if you’re up for the challenge, you will too! Thank you to NetGalley and to Randomhouse for the advanced Review copy.

The book is a rather bold and impressive debut! There's an emphasis on 'halfies' or biracial people, such as the protagonist Winnie, who was born and raised in the United States with her Italian / Irish mother and Vietnamese father (who is also a refugee).
The book is presented to be full of Vietnamese folklore and history. To be honest, I didn't get the sense, yet TO BE FAIR, my knowledge is limited. Of course, there are folkloric elements, but It just felt like a supernatural story to me - it was ripe with ghosts and snakes.

Saying this, I can see me reading this again!

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fantastical ride through Vietnam's amazing backdrop, with lore seeping out of every page and the characters taking unexpected turns. I did not know what I was getting into with this one but I would recommend it; the writing is unique and memorable and the characters stick with you once this one is done.

A strange, complex and imaginative, often frighteningly so, novel of Vietnam at many levels - historic, political, social. Kupersmith’s wild ride of a book will be too dark and creepy for some, yet its visionary sweep and freshness mark her as an impressive new voice.

I've never read a book like this by an Asian author before and I was completely engrossed. Fans of writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Andrê Alexis ,who write in the style of magical realism, I think will enjoy this novel. It mixes reality with fantasy/supernatural elements and makes you feel like you're in a fever dream while you're reading. For a long novel, it didn't feel long and the short length of the chapters makes you want to keep reading.

There were a number of aspects that made reading it a bit confusing and required some thinking and work on the part of the reader. The story is not in chronological order so you are constantly jumping back and forth between past and present in each chapter. Many books are like this which is normally fine but, the chapters are titled "length of time" before or after disappearance and do not specify which disappearance they are talking about - is it Winnie's? Binh's? Based on the contents of the chapter and the characters, for the most part you are able to figure out where you are in time but it starts off the chapter with some confusion.

There were also a lot of characters in this novel which became a little confusing. There is a list of characters provided at the beginning but reading the ebook, I didn't find it particularly helpful or easy to reference. Most characters end up being linked with someone else in the future which I found fascinating but, some characters made short appearances making them seem a little unnecessary to me given the amount of names to remember.

Overall a great novel and one I will be recommending to many when it is published.

Thank you to Netgalley for the chance to read this book..

I loved the cover, that's why I requested the book to be honest.

Build Your House Around My Body takes place in Vietnam, shifting between a cast of interconnected characters, and moving from the 1940s to the early 2011.

The setting is vividly rendered, that's for sure. We feel the oppressive heat and humidity experienced by the characters and the author has a knack for bringing to life the environments in which her characters are (be it a cemetery, a forest, or a dingy bathroom). The various storylines however don't really flow that well together. The author wastes too much time poking fun at secondary characters that she loses sight of her novel's central figures. Take Winnie. She remains a half-formed character, and while some of her vagueness may be intentional she could have still been fleshed out more. But her chapters often detail the silly routines of her colleagues or try really hard to gross you out through unpleasant descriptions of bodily fluids. Each storyline seems punctuated by slime, sweat, and shit. Which...yeah. The supposed revenge storyline doesn't really come into play until the very end of the novel and by the end, it was glaringly obvious what had taken place in the past. The only section that made me feel somewhat amused was the one featuring the Fortune Teller's First Assistant, but she was at beat a minor character (more of a cameo appearance really).

Ngoan Nguyen, or 'Winnie' as she prefers to be called, is an Vietnamese-American twenty-something who has moved to Saigon to teach English as a second language. She's not a particularly inspired or inspiring teacher and seems to have a malaise regarding her future, and truthfully, her present as well. One day she disappears.

This incident begins the myriad connections that make up this novel of interconnected storylines. We follow Winnie in the months leading up to her mysterious disappearance. We are introduced to a figure known only (for a while) as the Fortune Teller and his assistants, only referred to as First and Second Assistant. The story jumps back in forth in time, across decades, wars, colonization, and tragic incidences. What weaves these narratives all together is Winnie's disappearance as well as another mystery which occurred twenty-five year prior.

Through all of these narratives, Kupersmith seems to be coming to some thesis about the power of the body, not only the native body but particularly that of a woman's body. In many of the stories we see the way that white colonizers overtake the land (and bodies, to which land is often closely linked) and men in power abuse women's bodies. This stripping of autonomy from a large people group has deep impact that reverberates across generations and through the land, and Kupersmith explores this in very strange, supernatural ways.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting this to be as much of a 'horror' book as it is, but I didn't mind! That content was quite unexpected but very compelling. If you are squeamish or fearful of snakes, monsters or just intense scenes, I think you can handle this but just be warned that it's in there. It's never gratuitous; it straddles literary and genre fiction surprisingly well. And it was a lot more plot-based than I was expecting which made this very readable and exciting.

I do think because it was so plot-based and there were so many characters and storylines woven in and out of each chapter, it did get somewhat hard to keep track of who was who and what their motivations were at times. By the end, however, it all came together in an interesting way that satisfied me, even if some of the earlier details were lost on me in the reading process.

I absolutely will read more of Kupersmith in the future. I think this is a solid debut novel that will appeal to many readers, especially those who enjoy something on the darker side and that plays out like a puzzle, keeping you guessing, doling out information and making connections slowly, but landing with a powerful message at the end. I'd love to talk to other readers about this and am excited to see what they think when it's released in July 2021.

If I could give this book 0 stars I would I found it difficult to follow from word one-it seemed to have to no cohesiveness, no story line and no character development.

This was a fantastic read. I loved the setting of modern Vietnam. The author does a great job of describing the world in a way that is easy to visualize, and the story is haunting. This is definitely a story that will stay with me.

Build Your House Around My Body has moments of wonderful unpredictability. Framed around a present day disappearance, it weaves together a tapestry of enriching, supernatural, Vietnamese stories. Twenty-something Winnie feels like her life is a dead end with a job she hates teaching English in Saigon and no friends, family, or significant other in sight. When she goes missing, connections past and present emerge pulling significant details into focus of how this development occurred and might even be a blessing. Exploring estranged families, unreciprocated love, and the relentless battles of womanhood, this story unfolds layers of biting, illuminating histories.

This novel starts out strong painting a detailed account of Winnie's upbringing and current discontentment with her surroundings. Its nonlinear structure was at points frustrating trying to piece all the details together. The map and character list were helpful, but it still felt difficult matching up the timelines. Providing a timeline afterward or reshuffling some of the chapters would have been helpful in appreciating the full course of events. I loved the nuanced characterizations and parallels between Winnie and Binh, and found myself longing to read more of them rather than venturing off with other characters. A solid start, varying middle, but an ending that made me glad I stuck it out. Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the copy!