Wow. Just wow.

I couldn't believe that this book wasn't completely based on a true story. Although I do understand that it was based on some factual events.

As a Vietnamese American myself, this book hit home. The struggles and views from the individual characters. The desire to help but to also push forward for one self. It's a dog eat dog world and sometimes simply telling the story isn't enough. Or is it?

I loved this book so much.

My Documents by Kevin Nguyen is a disturbing story set in a near future America that seems more possible by the day. Following a terrible act of domestic terrorism the government makes the decision to intern Vietnamese Americans in camps similar to those used to intern Japanese American citizens during the second world war. The book follows the stories of several members of one family as they deal with some very turbulent times. Jen is a freshman in college while her brother Duncan is the star of his high school football team before both are taken to Camp Tacoma with their mother. Their cousin/half sister ( its complicated) Ursula has a white mother and manages to avoid internment while her brother Alvin was supposed to be interned but was exempted at the request of his employer, Google. Life in Camp Tacoma is difficult, dangerous and often dull so when Jen sees an opportunity to contact Ursula on the outside it sets off a chain of events that will give Ursula her career as an investigative journalist but will also have tragic consequences.
Written in very short chapters, this was a very propulsive read, I found myself fully caught up in the fate of these four young people and their struggles to survive. The book moved very quickly, especially in the beginning and I think this gave an almost overwhelming feeling that mimicked what the characters were going through. There is a lot of social commentary wrapped up in some very good story telling and I enjoyed it very much. The characters felt very believable, and I appreciated that they were well fleshed out with both good and bad traits. That made their struggles much more real and relatable.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

“My Documents” is by Kevin Nguyen. After terrorist attacks on American soil by Vietnamese citizens, the US Government enacts an initiative sending many Vietnamese-Americans to internment camps. Having read a number of books about WWII internment camps (ones both overseas and in the US), I wondered how a modern family facing interment would differ from during WWII. Mr. Nguyen does a good job telling the stories of the Nguyen family though the five members - two who are in camp, who who are not, and one who can report camp news to the outside world. There is a lot that happens in this book and it moves along at a rather fast clip. Things happen and it’s onto the next thing - which I felt was a bit jarring at times. This was an interesting idea and I think well done and well written.

This was one of my favorite reads of 2024. It was an absolute page-turner. It managed to be very timely social commentary of the state of America today, while still maintaining heart and humor. I'm recommending this to everyone.

I honestly can not give enough stars to My Documents. This book really hit for me - timely, near-future dystopian that feels more and more real by the day. I hope it was instructive, I hope nothing like this ever actually comes to pass, but with the events of the new administration, it feels more and more likely, and that is incredibly disturbing. History will not judge us kindly if we do something like this. I think the thing that I found the most arresting about My Documents was the characters themselves, and their various motivations, and how that played out. I know people like this, these characters felt very true to life. I can imagine that Alvin would have been of a vaguely tecno-libertarian bent, just based on his job and his surroundings. The relentless striving of Ursula, and the way she never realized the privilege that afforded her her amazing career - when Jen was probably the better journalist. There is nuance even in tragedy, and we are all still flawed humans. I'll be recommending this book very widely once it's released.

After terrorist attacks committed by Vietnamese living in the USA, the government begins detaining the Vietnamese
in camps. Four cousins have different experiences - two remain free due to being biracial while the other two
cousins end up in a camp. While the government portrays the internment as a safety issue, they state that the
detainees are being treated well. When one of the interred cousins is able to connect with the reporter cousin on
the outside, the information provided will lead to harsher restrictions in camp. The book clearly portrays what
happens when fear causes actions that benefit none. Thought provoking read - it appears nothing has been learned
since the unwarranted detention of the Japanese during WWII.
#MyDocuments #Random House #OneWorld #NetGalley

I received a temporary digital copy of My Documents from NetGalley, One World and the author in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

After six terrorist attacks on American soil by Vietnamese citizens, the United States government enacts the American Advanced Protections Initiative sending hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese-Americans to internment camps. My Documents tell the stories of the Nguyen family through the perspective of five of its family members Alvin, Ursula, Jen, Duncan and their extremely absent father, Dan. Jen and Duncan are sent to the internment camp while Alvin and Ursula are not. Jen finds a way to reach out to her journalist half-sister Ursula giving her a unique insight to life in the camps.

It is unnerving how close Kevin Nguyen's alternative-reality story is so close to our current reality. I enjoyed My Documents, especially in the beginning; however, like so many other readers, it is extremely fast-paced. I never say a story is too fast-paced, but for the content and enormity of what Nguyen is discussing, he leaves too much unspoken.

I loved this book. I am definitely the target audience: a mixed race Vietnamese American attorney fan of New Waves who goes to protests and used to work in PR— but I think this book fills a significant gap for all kinds of readers.

The premise of this book is that Vietnamese Americans are interned after an unexplained series of terrorist incidents. The book follows characters who narrowly avoid internment via tech company soft power or white passing and some who are interned. It is hard to say that the set up feels outlandish in today’s political environment.

The book is fascinating, and a quick read- I suspect a lot of folks will find it interesting on plot alone. But the characters are also unique and interesting, and Nguyen did a great job differentiating their perspectives and voices. Some characters I was ready to fight by the end of the book, some I wept for.

I highly recommend this read.

A slower and more contemplative look at what could (and what has) happened.

Notable lines:

"There's the saying that history is always written by the victors. But that assumes a winner and a loser. A more accurate saying would be that history is a reflection of who had power, and how they flattered themselves."

"We believe that giving people TV and movies and music and books will keep them going. Like, what is the point of living if we don't experience things that tell us about who we are? That's how they're going to kill us in this camp. Deprive us of art and culture for long enough and we'll just be fucking empty inside."

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book!

i really enjoyed this slice of life esque speculative novel. there's a lot of funny observations about modern asian culture, and thoughtful examinations about storytelling, journalism, the responsibilities, the expectations and then the pitfalls. the world he builds in the camps feel so real, particular the lingering sense of boredom. i'm actually now really interested in picking up his first book, new waves, based on how he writes here about the tech world and their complicity and profits from the surveillance state.

This was an interesting look at an intergenerational family dealing with a polarizing climate around them. I loved seeing the connection of the family members. It also shows how trauma can stem from policies. In this dystopian world, you can see a lot of aspects of our history and our current climate.

Thank you to Random House and Netgalley for and eARC in exchange for an honest review

This was an interesting alternate-timeline story that tracked closely with real-life events in the United States, though I struggled to place the events of this book precisely in "real" time. The lesson is clear, though: this could happen today.

Although My Documents is ostensibly a cautionary tale for our current fear-driven, polarized political climate, I was most drawn in by the intra-family relationships and the comparisons between the Vietnamese-American point-of-view characters' lives. This contributes to a larger message about the consequences of extreme policies that inflict generational trauma on entire demographic groups in our society. Not every character in this book has a redemptive arc. Some seem less good and/or less successful in the end. While we like to lift up those who have "made the best" of their circumstances or excelled "despite the odds," just as many if not more people will be stunted by generational or acute trauma. Some may check out of society or lose faith in the "American Dream" and its inherent expectations. And that is the price we pay for creating this society.

My biggest wish for this story was for it to slow down a little bit at key moments. Some really heavy things happen both on and off the page, and the action moves forward at a faster pace than I would've preferred. Giving readers space to process along with the characters may have strengthened the emotional resonance.

Regardless, this would be a great pick for book clubs who enjoy discussing not only writing but the bigger ideas it contains.

My Documents draws upon real life historical events (Japanese internment, 9/11, COVID) to imagine a dystopian world in which four characters are differently affected by Vietnamese internment.

I read a Nguyen’s other book, New Waves, and I am still impressed by the quality of writing. My main critique lies in the same place: with so many main characters, I’m not sure the book does justice to any of them because it’s split between them. I could have used more depth in this regard. I’m also a little wary of books that draw so heavily from historical events. What is the purpose of making Asian internment specific to Vietnamese people? It’s like the book asks, “what if this real life thing happened to ME instead?”

If you read and enjoyed Celeste Ng’s most recent book, Our Missing Hearts, you would probably enjoy this too.

My Documents imagines a future in the United States where Vietnamese Americans are interned due to terrorist attacks committed by Vietnamese individuals. The book clearly draws on historical moments to develop the narrative, such as what happened with Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor and Muslims after 9/11, but it also creates a rich narrative that builds on recent conversations about violence against the Asian American community since COVID. I highly recommend My Documents for people who like speculative fiction that centers on social justice themes.

My Documents is such a special book. On the surface, it’s about a Vietnamese family of cousins, Ursula, a journalist, Alvin, an engineering intern at Google, Jen, a freshman at NYU, and Duncan a promising high school football player. In an all too close to reality alternate America, where a series of attacks have resulted in the US government placing Vietnamese American citizens into internment camps. We get to follow very different paths of the family and see the results of the circumstances laid out before them.  This book is about racism, American ambition, coping, family dynamics, resilience, and who we turn to in these moments.
 I’ve read some early reviews that complain it doesn’t give enough detail about the violent attacks itself, and I think that is because this story is about the people surviving. THEY are the story, and I’m glad it is told in this way. Another complaint I’ve read is that people seemingly don’t think this could happen (duh, where have they been?), and that it wasn’t relatable (reading creates empathy, I don’t want to read about myself in a book, I want to read about others), and didn’t share in the tragedy enough. I think that’s the brilliance of Kevin Nguyen’s writing of this book, within the story, the media and public didn’t want to hear positive daily life tales from a camp survivor, it wanted to focus on the horrific tragedy. The reviewers saying this have become those characters in the book. Much the same way that Andrew Boryga called us all out in his book Victim. We do not get to be gatekeepers and control the narrative of a person's own experience.
I absolutely love this book and can’t wait for its release next year so that you can all get your hands on it and devour it like I did

I thought this was brilliant. The author takes real events and turns them into a plausible dystopia. The characters all felt very real. The story begins when a family flees Vietnam. Some end up in America right away, but a couple end up in a refugee camp. Later, a terrorist event happens and some of the family ends up in internment camps (sadly not implausible as we did this to the Japanese, and some others, during WWII). A college student is taken out of her life and basically loses 3 years and I felt like this is sort of what happened (aside from the removal to an internment camp) during the pandemic, so it felt very real and relatable on that level. I may be giving away spoilers to some extent, but this is pretty bare bones as far as description.

I highly recommend this, basically to anyone that might read a book and doesn't need a "happy" ending.

Many people believe that once something happens we learn from it so that we will not make the same mistakes. Unfortunately, history can, and often does, repeat itself. Kevin Nguyen reimagines another internment in America. This time it is a roundup of Vietnamese people following an alleged terrorist attack. It feels as though this could happen today.

The experience is viewed through the eyes of a Vietnamese brother and sister, Jen and Duncan, locked into a compound in an unknown location while their half siblings, Alvin and Ursula, are on the outside. One worked for Google which gave him protected status. His sister was a journalist who wrote about the camps based on insider information. We see the degradation, horrors, melancholy, boredom, betrayal, suffering and attempts at some level of normalcy in the camp while others take advantage. Those on the outside have their own traumas.

The writing gives you a unique perspective of what is happening, especially since cell phones and the internet are banned. You feel as though you are walking in the shoes of the sibs, feeling every emotion and punch. Nguyen makes you question how you would behave both on the inside and out. Would you be a bystander, participant or activist? While this is a propulsive read, it is an important read.

Thank you NetGalley and One World. All opinions are my own.

I think this book was doomed from the start for me. Although the human heart often surprises me with its capability for evil, I had trouble believing that this specific type of injustice would occur in the US so soon after World War II. I then spent the rest of the book just trying to pretend this was plausible, but that definitely detracted from my reading experience. Premise aside, I also had trouble finding any character (and there are quite a handful of MCs) that I could really connect with or had empathy for. They were mostly very immature and self-centered. Finally, the ending was flat for me. Perhaps another reader would find more to relate to in this story, but this book was not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for a free ARC of this title!

When Vietnamese men engage in terrorism within the US, Vietnamese Americans are interred in camps, just like the Japanese in WWII. We follow four twenty-something siblings--and their dad, who has been conditioned to escape his whole life--who are sent to camp, spared, given special treatment, make their careers, and horrifically abused during the interment period. The characters are superb, the plotting is stunning, the writing feels real and true and honest. It's a tour de force about identity and segregation and privilege, and set in an all-too-possible America. I want every high school student to read this right now. I want everyone to read this right now. What--who--will stop an American government from doing something like this whenever it wants?

Thanks for the review copy. I fear this will be the near future. Dystopian books like this are always interesting but scary.