I sometimes struggle to review memoirs. While someone’s story may not resonate with me personally, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be told and won’t impact or inspire someone else.

This one was a courageous and unfiltered narrative that's heart-wrenching and poignant yet infused with clever wit and humor.

It’s a story about family and grief and is certainly powerful. I always enjoy memoirs in audiobook form and I definitely recommend this format for this one!

3.5 stars rounded to 4 for Goodreads

A harrowing and heartbreaking immigrant/mother-daughter story that is also enlightening and entertaining. Lieu successfully broaches breaking intergenerational trauma while preserving legacy and, above all else, love. The authors audiobook performance is masterful. The beginning of the book was serendipitous in hearing about her health struggle, as I had recently dealt with the exact same issue and felt I needed to hear the rest of her story just from that sign and I’m so glad I did.

The Manicurist's Daughter was a really interesting read. I appreciated the memoir quality and the writing read like fiction at times.

Thank you @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the complimentary copy.

Imagine losing your parent at 11 years old and no one being willing to talk to you about it. My heart broke for Susan as time after time through the years she tried to discuss her feelings and was consistently and abruptly shut down. Regardless, as an adult she made the decision to investigate her mother’s death, and to learn about who her mother was as a person before she passed, to help her heal and forgive. Highly recommend listening to this one on audio, Susan narrates herself and was incredible. There is quite a bit Vietnamese throughout, and while Susan does give you the translations immediately after, I always like to hear the language as it should be, and not the way I would butcher it in my mind.

I learned so much about Vietnamese culture in this book—the food, the family, the work ethic—and the backdrop of Susan Lieu's story makes it so much more poignant.

This book broke my heart and put it back together with such beautiful writing and the perfect mix of humor. I could feel Susan healing through reading this. It was such a good read. Thanks NetGallery!

This memoir about grief, intergenerational trauma, Vietnamese American culture, and body shame issues is beautifully written in a style that's vulnerable and witty. Lieu is a born storyteller and performer, and that really shines through in the way she narrated the audiobook. Highly recommended for fans of Crying in H Mart.

THE MANICURIST DAUGHTER
Susan Lieu

I recently read a memorable and insightful memoir. Susan Lieu writes it and it’s about the death of her mother and how she recovered and is still recovering in the aftermath.

Susan’s mom died when Susan was at the tender age of eleven from a plastic surgery operation. The way her mother died is wrapped up in her death and her memory. Susan is honest both with us and most importantly herself. She discusses how her mother’s death impacted her, how her family responded to that death, and what she has learned from all of it.

I enjoyed the honesty, frankness, and compassion I found within the pages of THE MANICURIST DAUGHTER. I think it will help a lot of people and I highly recommend it!

She had been looking for parts of her mother her entire life only one day to find her in the deep recesses of herself. In the folds of her body, in the chasms of her self-doubt, in the ways she loved herself and all the ways she did not.

When Susan speaks of her mother you can feel the loss, the absence, the lifetime of never going to happen. It’s a loss she may never recover from, only move on from. It’s a beautiful tribute to Susan’s mother and every other mother living or dead.

THE MANICURIST DAUGHTER is available where books are sold and is one of my favorite nonfiction pieces of this year so far.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Celadon Books, and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copies and the opportunity to provide feedback!

THE MANICURIST DAUGHTER…⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is without a doubt one of the best memoirs I have ever read. Full of raw emotion and brilliant storytelling that had me hooked from the first page. 10/10 recommend!

Method read: 🎧

Thank you so much Macmillan Audio for the advancd copy.

This books feels like an essential read. It's an essential read for those wanting to know more about the flaws of our healthcare system, the struggles for people who immigrate to the united states, the experiences of being first generation, being Asian American, and Vietnamese American. This story was eye=opening, thoughtful, and beautiful.

Susan Lieu’s mother was a force of nature. She, her husband, and two young sons survived five failed attempts to flee war-torn Vietnam before escaping to California in the 1980s. She eventually owned two successful nail salons, employing several family members who also lived in her home. She was definitely the matriarch of her clan. So when she died during elective surgery when Susan was 10, the family was lost, adrift for years. This book chronicles two decades of Susan’s search for answers, meaning, and vocation.

I appreciate how candid and vulnerable Ms. Lieu is in sharing her journey, both highs and lows. This was definitely a “window” story into the life of a fellow American that’s completely different from my own. The cover is so eye-catching and pays tribute to the meaningful title.

I highly recommend this be read via audiobook. It’s skillfully narrated by the author who shares many phrases and sentences in lyrical Vietnamese. I can’t imagine it being nearly as meaningful read in print

Thank you to Celadon Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for access to the review copies of this memoir.

Overall, I loved learning more about Lieu's family history, especially near the end when she detailed her parents' struggle to escape Vietnam. There are so many sentiments that hit close to home for me about traditionally Asian families and their viewpoints/love languages.

I think it's difficult to rate memoirs as obviously this story is incredibly important and deserves to be shared - props to Susan for not only writing this but for developing an entire one woman show to honor her mother and her family. She did a fantastic job narrating the audiobook, unsurprisingly, as authors who read their own audiobooks always bring it that much more to life. I think people who aren't familiar with Vietnamese would have a more enjoyable time with the audiobook since there is some of the language dispersed throughout the book.

I think the book was just a bit long for me - the cult experience during college personally felt really grueling to listen to? And I think that's just preference. I'm glad I read this book and I appreciate Celadon Books and NetGalley for the advanced audiobook copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

There can never be enough immigration stories for me. They help you see other's lives and all the ways they are similar and different than our own. I look forward to more writing from LIeu.

This is a beautiful memoir written by the youngest daughter (Susan) of a Vietnamese family. At the age of 11 she tragically lost her mother to botched plastic surgery. Sadly, she had a fight with her mother the morning of the surgery and she was never really able to come to terms with that.

Through much of the book Susan yearns to learn more about the mother that she never really knew. More often than not she found herself frustrated by her family members and their reluctance to share anything about the topic.

Trips to Vietnam, learning of a malpractice case, digging deeper into her parents fleeing Vietnam… Susan slowly starts to learn more about exactly who her mother was.

The Vietnamese culture, her parents being immigrants, her mother owning nail salons, body image and food were big themes in the book.

It was definitely an emotionally raw read that was full of healing for not only Susan but the family as a whole.

Thank you Celadon Books and Net Galley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

#celadonbooks
#netgalley
#susanlieu

When we feel, we heal

I think it’s an incredibly brave thing to write a memoir and share your triumphs and struggles with the world. I really got into memoirs last year and find that I am always drawn to the ones that teach me things and showcase vulnerability, strength, and hope. Susan Lieu’s might be up there as one of my favorites.

I think a lot of the time books that end up being my favorite are ones that I think about long after I have finished and I want to talk about and process with everyone I see including strangers.

This book educated me. It made me laugh. It made me cry. I’ll never not think of this book when I go to get my nails done. This story made me think of my mom, my family, how I treat my body and think about myself. It made me reflect on my grief. It made me reflect on how thankful and lucky k am to have what I have. I am sad that it’s over. Susan’s narration was exceptional. I loved the way she told her story. I loved her bravery and her heart and the way I felt while listening to her story. I’m just in awe and really recommend you read this one.

Thank you Susan. I love your story so much.

5 ⭐️

Thank you @macmillian.audio for the early listening copy.

One of the best memoirs I have *ever* read, and I highly recommend it as an audiobook! The author’s voice is so distinctive and easy to attend to. The raw emotion in her voice at various points is so powerful, and the voices she does for the members of her family and Uncle #9 are amazing. I also just loved that we get to hear her speak Vietnamese! Her story is about so many things - growing up the youngest, only American-born child of Vietnamese refugees; her parents’ brave escape from communist-controlled Vietnam to a refugee camp in Malaysia and eventually to the Bay Area with two toddlers, her brothers, and then a third child born in the refugee camp, her sister, in the early 80s; her mother’s determination to open her own business and sponsor the rest of her relatives to immigrate to the US; her mother’s tragic death following a tummy tuck at age 38 in San Francisco - so hard to process how this dynamo in a woman could be brought down by a bad surgeon and negative body image!; her family’s intergenerational trauma and their collective refusal to discuss it; her journey to process her grief and figure out what happened to her mom.

My favorite parts - very hard to choose but I so related to Susan on a hike with her husband as someone who also married an outdoorsy man. I loved when she stood up to her aunt’s body shaming, sooo empowering. I also totally relate to having family members calling me fat, and inheriting my older relatives’ internalized body image challenges. I loved her vivid descriptions of so many foods. I loved her vulnerability and came to love all her siblings, parents, and aunts through her loving eyes.

This quote hit me hard - “All I wanted was to feel supported. All I felt was wrong.” Susan seems like the kind of lady I would want to be friends with, an incredibly smart, resilient, woman who, like me, has had being an “emotional” person thrown in her face by the people she trusted most. Truly this book was so powerful and is one I will be recommending to everyone.

I listened to the audiobook of this since the author, Susan Lieu, narrates it herself, and I absolutely can’t pass up those opportunities! The fact that she is a wonderful narrator is just icing on this metaphorical cake. I loved listening to her and it was especially nice to hear her deliver punchlines, hear her sarcasm, and just feel the emotions coming through her writing.

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!

There's a special feeling when you pick up a book at the exact right moment in your life, and this was one of those times for me. In Susan Lieu's memoir, she tells the story of her life and the way it was shaped by her mother's death, who died tragically after getting plastic surgery. Lieu was 10 when she died, and her death became a taboo subject for her large family of Vietnamese immigrants. I lost my mother when I was 7, and there was just so much I related to as the daughter of an immigrant and a child who never got to know my mother. There's so much about grief that is isolating and hard to wrap your head around as a kid, and I think Lieu did such a wonderful job in describing that. As she got older, her grief stayed and grew with her until it became too big for her to ignore. Reading about her pivot to becoming a performance artist and exploring her mother's life and death, as well as confronting her family members in the process, was a study in empathy and steps we have to take to move on. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time. Thanks to Celadon Books and NetGalley for the audio arc!

This book made me hungry. It was a very impactful and emotional story about growth, healing and acceptance. It made me feel all the emotions. I love that the author was the narrator (sometimes that doesn’t work to well) since it was her story being told she really conveyed the emotion in her voice. It was a great story and performance. Would definitely recommend.

Susan Lieu is the self-proclaimed keeper of her family's story--the one who has tasked herself with preserving the memories of her siblings, her father, and in particular, her mother who passed away during cosmetic surgery due to medical malpractice when Susan was only 11 years old. The telling of this story proves to be a lofty task, as Susan runs into many roadblocks along the way, including reluctant family members who would prefer not to talk about any of it, in addition to facing her own trauma.

While there were many elements of this story that I found to be incredibly compelling, overall I found the memoir to be uneven, specifically when it came to pacing and tone. There were times when the author would spend whole paragraphs detailing a single meal, but then she would blow right past an event that seemed to me (as a reader) like it would hold much more significance. Of course, who am I to know what an author finds significant in her own story?

Much of the story was heavy. It felt as though this book was a form of therapy for Susan, as she was worked through the loss of her mother, as well as toxicity within her family. Often times, though, Susan tried to inject moments of humor into her story. Many of these fell flat for me, either seeming overly cynical or dismissive. I would have loved to see Susan explore some of her themes a little more deeply: the generational body shaming within her family that plagued her well into adulthood (and may have contributed to her mother's decision to have surgery), her parents' early struggles as Vietnamese refugees and the impact this had on the way they raised her and her siblings, or her decision to use performance art as a way to heal. These were some of the strongest points in the book that were ultimately overshadowed by vignettes that felt less connected to her story.

Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced listener copy.