When we feel, we heal.

THE MANICURISTS DAUGHTER is a raw and moving memoir told from the POV of the youngest daughter of Vietnamese refugees about the crumbling American dream and her search for answers after her mother’s tragic death from a plastic surgery gone wrong. In her journey through grief, healing and acceptance, Lieu brings readers on her quest to demand answers from the doctor who preyed on vulnerable Vietnamese immigrants and got away with medical malpractice and uncovers the painful truth about her mother, herself and the impossible ideal for beauty. Susan Lieu created “140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother,” a theatrical solo performance that weaves together the multi-general immigrant experience, body insecurity and shame and accountability in the medical system. It’s so important that Susan could share her findings in this format for her family’s own healing journey as well.

I will never turn down an immigration story. Every story is unique and deserves to be shared. There’s so much power in being the first, second, or however many generations in, and what we learn about ourselves through learning about our family’s origin story connects us all. I understand all too well the frustration of having a family that deals with grief by pushing it down and refusing to talk about it, so I applaud Lieu’s efforts to continue the fight for answers to give herself the healing she needed and deserved, even when it felt impossible at every turn. In a world where plastic surgery is pushed on women from every angle, it’s so important to raise awareness to the conversation around beauty standards and medical malpractice, particularly in communities that are often silenced and don’t have the same resources to fight back if something like this happens.

Lieu’s Vietnamese roots are braided throughout the entire memoir. From names and phrases to traditional meals and practices, I was captivated by how Lieu wrote about her heritage. She’s a natural storyteller and I appreciate that she shared her family’s story with the world. I can’t imagine how proud her mother would be to know that she dedicated her life to finding answers not only for her own family but raising awareness and being the voice to so many others.

A special thanks to @celadon for the advanced digital copy! This is certainly a top contender for me for memoir of the year and I recommend everyone picks up a copy.

The Manicurist’s Daughter a memoir, by Susan Lieu
Pub 3/12

This book is an emotional yet beautiful read. This story is very sad and yet Lieu us so strong you can’t help but feel things will get better. I really appreciate her honestly and drive to get answers after the tragedy of her mother passing away when she was young. The range of emotions she was able to convey was impressive and impactful.

I cried multiple times due to the heavy nature of her story. Her Vietnamese culture was also a ground element of her life and I enjoyed how she highlights that too.

This was a very emotional book, expected due to the subject matter but it wasn't maudlin or overly sentimental. It was a real look into the Vietnamese immigrant experience here in the US. Her mother died when she was only 11 and her family really seemed to have pushed on (had to push on) and she is now grappling with that. She really dove into the research around her mother's medical malpractice death which was little hard to read but impressive in her diligence.

*Thank you so much to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to review an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

The thing with memoirs is they are very I-centric. They are full of "this happened to me", "I felt this", "I wanted to know why", among other things. This is not a bad thing. After all, the author is sharing something monumental in his/her life.
Case in point: Susan Lieu tells us about losing her mother at the age of 11. This was a very strong line in her life. Before her mother's death there was a big family that lived and worked together. After her mother's death, the family split and she rarely saw her mother's side of the family again. No one spoke about her mother. It was as if her mother had done something unspeakable, when all she wanted was to be more beautiful.
Susan spent a large portion of her life trying to find and understand her mother. She went to Viet Nam several times to talk with relatives about their memories of her. Mostly she got nothing, but slowly, bit by bit, she started to see the person her mother was. After that, she started to feel her mother's presents occasionally. To consolidate her impressions, and because other people asked her to, she created a spoken word show about her mother called "140 pounds; How Beauty Killed My Mother". Most of that show informs this book.
The first generation cultural conflicts of immigrants is not something we think about. The parents live with the customs they learned from their parents while the children learn our language and ways. Sometimes understanding of what really happened comes years later, after hurts have separated children from other relatives. Susan found that to be the case in her family.
I liked this look at the the way Susan grew up. I recommend the book.
I want to thank the publishers who gave me this book through Netgalley. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book.

I’m still trying to put words together after reading Susan Lieu’s memoir, The Manicurist’s Daughter. It’s left me speechless and heartbroken, with its beautiful, poignant, and profound prose, it is one of the most amazing memoirs I’ve read. It’s rare for a book to make me cry, and this one still has me sobbing. The way Susan reconstructed her family history and intergenerational trauma was an incredible journey to experience, with many highs and lows. I was in awe of how well Susan captured her perception of her family and it slowly transformed as she learned more about them and herself through the creation of her show 140 Lbs. This memoir will stay with me for a long time! Know that it will grab your heart and not let it go with its food dishes, family dilemmas, and raw stories of growth and resilience. It’s a must-read!

The Manicurist's Daughter by Susan Lieu is a raw and real memoir. The author is open and honest as she shares her life as the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants who are working hard to survive. I applaud her for opening the door to let the reader see inside her family and her Asian culture. We follow her family’s adjustment to life in the United States and see the dedication of her mother, the family matriarch, as she opens nail salons to make a living.

When Susan is 11 years old, her mother dies following a plastic surgery procedure. Key topics are addressed head-on: the quest for physical beauty, a family’s survival following the mother’s death, and the pull of tradition and heritage. The writing is excellent and yet heartbreaking at times.

Published March 13, 2024.

This was a great story of the love and bond between a mother and daughter. It also addresses how the loss of some has a ripple effect on those all around them. Thank you @NetGalley for the opportunity to receive an advanced readers copy of The Manicurist's Daughter by Susan Lieu. #TheManicuristsDaughter #NetGalley

The Manicurist's Daughter: A Memoir | Susan Lieu | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

11-year old Susan lost her mother to a botched plastic surgery and the negligence of a surgeon.

A couple of degrees from Harvard & Yale; a happy marriage to a handsome man who can cook has not been able to fill the mother-sized hole in her heart or alleviate the weight of grief and trauma from her heart.

The Manicurist's Daughter is Susan Lieu's gritty, honest and soul-stirring journey of seeking closure, knowing her mother and discovering herself in the process.

The youngest of four, Susan, had always known her mother to be a formidable, empowering woman and the steering force of the family.
As a woman who had fled the absolutist Communist regime in Vietnam with undying pluck, tenacity & hope; established a successful nail salon chain in a foreign land and ensured a secure life for her family, she is the typical picture of tough love and discipline that so many of us Asian kids are used to.

While it discusses the hardships and trials of growing up as a first generation bilingual BIPOC American, admonishes a culture that perpetuates unhealthy body image standards; this memoir is primarily about processing and coping with grief and unresolved emotions.

I love how Lieu's simple, lucid prose is so effective in bringing her family's story to life; how I personally became involved in Lieu's journey and all in about 300 pages I came to understand, empathize and have tremendous respect for a woman I found it difficult to garner sympathy for, initially.

What I also appreciated is how food has come up time and again, not only to add an almost palpable deliciousness to the narrative but also has been masterfully used as an instrument to trace the past and stories of displacement and adaptation of the Vietnamese diaspora.

While it introduced me to a new culture, it also felt very familiar, very personal and resonated deeply with this daughter of traditional, hardworking middle-class Indian parents who has often found it difficult to balance between her western education, lifestyle and her Indian upbringing.

And for the first time in a long time @susanlieu made me feel I am not alone in my journey.

Beautiful, devastating, REAL, heartbreaking, and at times, funny, memoir. I had the special treat of seeing Susan Lieu's one-woman show before reading The Manicurist's Daughter. This will stay with me for a long time. <3

- If you’re a lover of memoirs exploring intergenerational trauma, THE MANICURIST’S DAUGHTER is one you can’t miss.
- Lieu’s to-the-point writing brings all her pain to the surface as we follow her trying both to figure out who she is an who her family members are as well.
- As Lieu’s understanding of and empathy for her family members’ individual grief processes grows, we begin to see a portrait of a family doing its best to hold on to each other even as they’ve experienced the worst the world has to offer.

This was an incredibly moving memoir. Susan’s writing was relatable, emotional, and beautiful. Her story is heartbreaking, but one worth sharing. You can feel the healing journey this has taken her on and the writing is so honest that it feels sometimes like I’m reading a private diary.

There is a lot of talk about body image, especially how this affects Susan her entire life, so I do stress anyone who reads this to be aware of this before reading.

•

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Susan for this ARC!

I was drawn to this memoir because of the title. As someone who often frequents nail salons, I wanted to understand the world that facilitates it. Instead, I got a heart-breaking, honest, moving, and unique perspective of the immigrant and refugee communities keeping the nail salons in business. I constantly felt for Susan as she tried to get her family to talk about grief, and I wanted to give her the biggest hug. To see her own growth and her family's growth over 20+ years was powerful, and I wanted to get an update on where they are now. This memoir is one of a kind.

Absolutely riveting, raw, stunning, emotional memoir. I am obsessed with memoirs as I learn so much about life, and this one is now at the top of my list.

This memoir is a lot to unpack (in a good way)! Susan Lieu focuses on the death of her mother from complications caused by cosmetic surgery when Susan, the youngest child was only eleven. As she gets older, she wants to know more about what happened to her mother but finds her family to be tight-lipped as they accuse Susan of stirring up unnecessary pain and encourage her to drop her inquiries. But Susan persists into adulthood, her marriage and becoming a mother herself while she creatively turns her mother’s story into a solo drama performance with the added benefit of processing her own grief and helping her family with theirs.
This book addresses so many themes that I will probably accidentally leave out some important pieces. I learned so many things about the Vietnamese culture! Susan was born in the USA after the rest of her family immigrated to find a better life. Her mother was ambitious and was successful in opening two nail salons in Northern California. The cultural aspect of body image and thinness played a big part in the surgeon’s preying on vulnerable Vietnamese women. Until Susan firmly rebuked her family’s fat-shaming, she also fell victim to this to a lesser degree. The family dynamics were also very interesting in regards to roles and dealing with the mother’s death. I found the concept of channeling and speaking to the deceased as well as the death rituals fascinating. And Susan’s persistence in investigating the surgeon and traveling to Vietnam to put the story together and then bringing everything together with her creative endeavors was inspiring!

I appreciate this book for what it is. I respect Lieu's experience and the way she displays her feelings and grief. I liked the clever uses of language. But with that being said, I found myself bored. The way she talks about her family makes them sound truly insufferable at times because they were downright cruel.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Celadon for this moving and complex memoir. I appreciate the review copy and chance to reflect on Susan Lieu's story, her mother's story. This book made me slow down, think about the lives I interact with in general ways, of the pathways that lead us to connect, even briefly, and if those pathways are intentional, filled with hope and/or loss, and if those are pathways truly wanted. And it moved me to appreciate all that I have done in my work life to amplify unhealthy messages about body image, the sociocultural pressures that women navigate and how those intersect in complex ways with race, ethnicity, context... At the heart of this memoir is also a loving tribute to a mother, a refusal to ignore the body image themes, and to take this story of loss and make it a story about so many lives, feelings, and experiences.

"...when Ma died, when my sun fell out of the sky, she was thirty-eight years old. I was eleven. After that, my family was never the same."

The Manicurist’s Daughter is a memoir that explores themes of grief, forgiveness and discovery of the self. If you enjoyed Crying in H Mart, you will like this book.

The story follows Susan and her Vietnamese family and explores the struggles they endure for being immigrants as well as losing the driven matriarch in their lives unexpectedly. Susan was very young when her mother died due to a tummy tuck procedure gone wrong.

The family is emotionally absent and this could be because they had to be in survival mode all the time to get where they wanted to be. Now an adult, the protagonist has hit a block in her life and is unable to make any meaningful connections to anything and is kind of just floating through everything. She realizes one day that the reason for her struggles, is that she hasn't made peace with her loss.

The Manicurist's Daughter is a poignant memoir of a daughter exploring the loss of her mother, and reconnecting with her family who never shared their feelings about the tragedy. It is a very well done memoir. Kudos.

This memoir was a unique one for me to read. Reading about how Susan and her family would try channeling their family’s matriarch- who was lost during a routine cosmetic surgical procedure when Susan was only 11- was so interesting, as was learning all the spiritual beliefs she and her Vietnamese family hold. I also felt so sorry for this young girl, and just wanted to hold her and give her the comfort that poor child desperately needed. Despite all of Susan’s hardships, though, she becomes an amazing, strong woman, who stands up to her family’s outdated ideals of beauty (an ideal which ultimately lead to her mother’s passing).

This memoir was real, honest, and not afraid to pull the punches. It takes courage for someone to write out their whole life story especially when it might not paint their family (both alive and deceased) in the best light. But that’s what makes this book so beautiful.

Thanks NetGalley, Celadon Books, and Macmillan Audio for the ARC and ALC of this book!

Susan Lieu is the daughter of immigrants who came to California in the 80s from Vietnam. Her mother was a strong force in the family and opened up two nail salons that the family worked together. Her mother passed away when Susan was 11 years old after a botched plastic surgery. Susan wanted to know more about her mother but her family refused to discuss it after her death. She went on a journey to discover who her mother was and to look into the surgeon who operated on her that terrible day.

I loved reading about Vietnam and the culture. I felt terrible for the way her family treated her and wouldn’t open up about her mother. Her mother died getting a tummy tuck and somehow they felt it was okay to call her fat 🤯 It was a raw, honest and heartbreaking memoir that was well written. It could have been cut a little shorter but it is definitely worth a read!