Ma and Me is a quiet, but impressively impactful book. I saw this on my Netgalley and immediately had to request it. You don't get many books about Cambodia or by a Cambodian (Cambodian-American) author.
I had the privilege to live and work in Phnom Penh for 5 years and I had many local and expat friends, gay, bi and heterosexual. I was able to learn some of the language and immerse myself into the culture and listen to first hand stories about the genocide and war. Back then I lived very close to the Tuol Sleng museum.
Although I was a "barang" (foreigner) I was able to feel at home there thanks to the kindness and hospitality of the Khmer people.

The author manages to pull you into her cultural and identity struggle and I've experienced many things the author mentioned in her book. I sat in one of the tribunals for "Duch", I listened to my gay friend's struggle of acceptance with his family. Mental health problems are still not acknowledged, health care is only for the rich, many still to this day earn less than a dollar a day etc.
The novel is matter of fact and doesn't hide the ugly sides.

I can highly highly recommend this to anybody who's interested in Cambodia.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with this gem of a book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this memoir seeped in the survivor's guilt of immigration (made worse by the survivor's guilt of escaping Pol Pot's killing fields) and the legacies of a different culture while navigating your sense of self and where you are now. Reang actually does return to Cambodia which adds a few layers of complexity since she does try her best to fulfill all of the expectations upon her while also navigating her own sexual orientation and sense of shiftiness. I couldn't put it down.

An interesting memoir that addresses inherited and community trauma. The author was born in Cambodia but her family escaped when she was just a one-year old. She makes her first trip back when she is a teenager and becomes fascinated with the country.
The reader learns a lot of Cambodian culture and recent history. The author grew up to be a journalist and a writer and her memoir is written very well. It includes the pain of never living up to her mother's expectations and how hard that was on her. Many readers will identify and at the end of the book, you're left feeling that you have learned a lot about this culture and on my part, I'd like to learn more. So, was their upbringing a tragedy or success? Immigrant families face so many challenges. And, by the way, the author is gay and that plays no small part in her relationship with her mother. You can't go wrong with reading this book because it fascinates on every level.

[book:Ma and Me: A Memoir|58772754] is a personal reckoning of so much: transnational identity, intergenerational trauma and survivor's guilt, queer love and shame, and really what we owe to those we love vs what we owe to ourselves. Putsata presents us with the incredible story of her mother's experience as a young woman first fleeing arranged marriage and then the Cambodian genocide, giving up so much of herself as the interminable immigrant experience wrests her choices from her control. Reang then recounts her upbringing in the US, close relationship with her mother and her suffocating expectations, and emotional exploration of her queerness and her identity as a Cambodian severed from her roots. as the best memoirs do, Ma and Me invites us to peer alongside Reang's life and learn not only of her personal life and relationships, but about a culture and diaspora experience.

regarding the structure, it has an interesting out of sync quality. Reang is a talented writer, and at times draws paragraphs directly from interviews with her mother, including parables, and in other times gives sweeping foreshadowing giving us glimpses of the future of their relationship, tying generations and continents with these references. I think it works, for the most part. we're given threads of phone calls and feelings that stretch and weave together over decades, and I can see how maybe it keeps the narrative going with little pieces of foreshadowing, but it also felt a little repetitive at points.

thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and to netgalley for an advanced copy.

Ma and Me is a stunning memoir that wrestles with the question of what we owe the people that gave us life.

Putsata Reang is barely one year old when her family has to flee Cambodia for America. She only survives the perilous journey because of the hope and determination of her mother who she in turn feels indebted to. It is this sense of filial duty to please her mother, to be a good Cambodian daughter, while exploring the opportunities she has in America that causes a rift between them from the moment Putsata comes out as gay, something that her mother cannot accept.

“I would realize that the day a Khmer girl is born is the day she comes into debt, purely by the fact of her existence. That she owes her parents for bringing her into the world, for raising her, and that the only way she can settle the score, or sang khun, is by getting married, when the authority over her is transferred from her parents to her husband”.

As much as Ma and Me is a memoir about forging your own path and the rift that that can cause, it is also an exploration of the trauma of war and how its horrors can trickle down several generations. Putsata often seeks opportunities to travel to Cambodia, and later works there as a journalist to reconcile her family’s past and present: “I needed to figure out what part of the guilt that comes with being an immigrant and a survivor belonged to me, and what belonged to my parents.”

Ma and Me may be a memoir of one person, chronicling one experience, but it asks universal questions about how we are shaped by our parents' past, and how difficult it can be to stay true to yourself even when it means disappointing the people you love. Hands down one of the best memoirs I have read this year and I am hoping that this gets all the buzz it deserves in 2022.

Thank you to Netgalley and FSG for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. I’m very grateful to Putsata for sharing her story and I’m excited for everyone to get their hands on this memoir soon.

I am not generally a big reader of memoirs or biographies of living people; however, I was drawn to this book because of an Around the World reading challenge I am in the middle of, since it would allow me to cross Cambodia off my list. Overall, I found Ma and Me an interesting read. My knowledge of Cambodia was minimal, so I was fascinated to learn more about the country's people, history and culture. I also got caught up in the tale of Put's relationship with her mother. The prose was easy reading yet drew you in, and I liked the style in which the story was presented. I finished the book interested to learn more about Cambodia, and I recommend it to readers interested in Asian culture and history and those who enjoy tales of family relationships and overcoming difficulties.