Posts Tagged Bich Minh Nguyen
BOOK NEWS: Pioneer Girl out in paperback (giveaway); Asian-American Authors
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on January 9, 2015
One of the best books of 2014 comes out in paperback on January 27. Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nyugen is about second-generation immigrants born in the United States who still feel very much bound to their family’s and country’s customs even though they have never traveled to their homeland. Paralleling the stories of PhD student Lee Lien and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter Rose Wilder proves a truly clever way to describe this unique immigrant experience as it is very much like that of those pioneers who braved the new frontier traveling West so many years ago. An energetic read I didn’t want to put down.
Giveaway: Viking will provide one paperback copy of Pioneer Girl to one reader. Open to U.S. contestants. Please provide your email in the comments section and I’ll choose a winner. Deadline January 29.
purchase at Amazon: Pioneer Girl: A Novel
follow Bich Minh Nyugen on twitter
Please also read the list of Asian-American authors my friend Celeste Ng (Everything I Never Told You) compiled for SALON. Her novel was another best of 2014 read.
purchase at Amazon: Everything I Never Told You: A Novel
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STEELE PICKS: 12 BEST FICTION BOOKS of 2014
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on December 26, 2014
1. Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi [Riverhead]
clever, stunningly gorgeous novel about race.
2. The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott [Doubleday]
If you grew up in Massachusetts like me, you likely went on a Lowell Mill tour at some point during an elementary school or junior high field trip. I went twice because when my Aunt and cousins visited from Texas they wanted to go. While you rode on a boat along the Merrimack River listening to a guide speak about girls and young women leaving their families from all over New England to work at the Lowell mills it was easy enough to disassociate from it yet dreadful to think about the harsh conditions these women faced back in the 19th century.
Like the Salem witch trials the industrial revolution and bitter working conditions for Lowell mill girls happened essentially in my backyard and I feel particularly close to the plight of the mill girls depicted in this novel. It’s only the second five-star rating I’ve given to any book this year. Kate Alcott vibrantly brings the stories of the Lowell mill girls to the page as she creates strong, outspoken female characters enduring adverse situations that dare imagine and dispute better working and living situations.
3. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng [Penguin Press]
Anything I write will never be enough to convey the power and magnificence of this debut novel.
4. Fallout by Sadie Jones [Harper]
Fallout revolves around Luke Kanowski, a young man with a mother living in a mental institution and a a former Polish POW father who remained in England after the war. Both parents rely tremendously on Luke. Living in a rustic northern town, Luke escapes the familial strain and dead-end choices through a passion for theatre. He reads everything and remains updated on all theatrical goings on. One night he meets aspiring producer Paul Driscoll and theater student Leigh Radley who will influence his future in myriad ways
5. Visible City by Tova Mirvis [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]
Author Tova Mirvis writes with a melancholy gorgeousness about connectivity and disparity. When we imagine others’ lives we never expect what we eventually discover to be true. Perfection masks insecurities. Contentment hides dissatisfaction. What is happiness? Our ideal is never another’s ideal. How something looks from afar rarely looks as virtuous once you start to delve into the grit and imperfections.
6. Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nguyen [Viking]
Author Bich Minh Nguyen writes about a Vietnamese-American family and its connection to the beloved American Ingalls-Wilder family as seen through the eyes of a savvy, inquisitive young woman. Almost everyone remembers reading the Little House on the Prairie books about Laura Ingalls and watching the television show.
7. Love Me Back by Merritt Tierce [Doubleday]
One of the best novels in a while about finding your way and developing a sense-of-self in your twenties.
8. The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman [Berkley Trade]
When I’m thinking about a novel for some time after reading it, I know it’s remarkable. Think you’ve heard all the stories about WWII. Think again. The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman focuses on the Italian Resistance. Elodie, a young student and cello player, becomes involved in the Italian Resistance when artists and teachers at her school become targets for Mussolini’s Fascist regime.
9. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill [Vintage]
impressively creative.
10. All Days are Night by Peter Stamm [Other Press]
A popular television news reporter wakes up severely disfigured by a car accident. The novel beautifully traverses past and present. Stamm writes in an effectively laconic and melancholy style. He’s exploring appearances from various angles. It’s a gripping read about art and connection.
11. Life Drawing by Robin Black [Random House]
stunning writing. brilliantly explores marriage in all its nuances.
12. The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant [Scribner]
This is the story of the education of Addie Baum. Jewish daughter to immigrant parents Addie grew up during the mid-1900s in a one-room tenement house in Boston. In telling Addie’s story, author Anita Diamant covers a lot of history: prohibition; 1920s flappers and artists; WWI; The Great Depression; illegal abortions, birth control and Margaret Sanger; the Spanish Flu; women’s education; women’s careers; journalism; civil rights. Like The Red Tent, Diamant depicts history through a feminist eye. Intelligent, resourceful and intellectually-curious Addie is a wonderful feminist character. I probably truly fell in love with this novel when Diamant mentioned Simmons College, my women’s college alma mater in Boston. At one point, Addie discusses her goal to attend college but that she fears many won’t accept her because she’s Jewish. [“There’s Simmons College,” I said. “They even accept the Irish if you can imagine.”]
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IN THE REALM: BEST BOOKS of 2014 [SO FAR]
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on July 21, 2014
The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott
–Lowell mill girls. a murder. riveting historical fiction.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
–heartbreaking exploration on race and identity in the 1970s.
My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff
–Rakoff makes her memoir about a year working at a literary agency in New York heartwarming, relatable and intriguing through exquisite writing.
Fallout by Sadie Jones
–fell in love with this book about a group of 20-somethings entangled with the theatre and each other’s lives in 1970s London.
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
–stunning re-telling of a fairytale and examination of race.
Visible City by Tova Mirvis
–cool writing, intriguing premise. reflection on connectivity, relationships and urban dwelling.
Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nguyen
–another wonderful novel about race. this time a young woman’s connection to Laura Ingalls Wilder via Vietnam.
Cured by Nathalia Holt
–Berlin patients. painstakingly researched and explained.
Fallen Beauty by Erika Robuck
–Robuck imagines the connection between poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and a seamstress in her small town. Robuck conducted impeccable research and allowed Millay’s vibrant spirit, sensuality and creative force to come forth on the page.
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book review: Pioneer Girl
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on March 11, 2014
PIONEER GIRL by Bich Minh Nguyen. Publisher: Viking (February 11, 2014). Contemporary fiction. Hardcover. 296 pages. ISBN 978-0-670-02509-1.
RATING: *****/5
“So Sam and I grew up as American kids, though we might have looked to others like foreigners. That was our mother, we would have been quick to say. We learned early on to explain her behavior—her fondness for clearance centers, her wariness of school sporting events, her absolute disbelief in compliments. She was one of those fresh-off-the-boat types, we would have said to our friends. Old-school, old-fashioned, old-generation.”
Author Bich Minh Nguyen writes about a Vietnamese-American family and its connection to the beloved American Ingalls-Wilder family as seen through the eyes of a savvy, inquisitive young woman. Almost everyone remembers reading the Little House on the Prairie books about Laura Ingalls and watching the television show.
“So much immigrant desire in this country could be summed up, quite literally, in gold; as shining as the pin Rose had left behind. A promise taken up, held on to for decades, even while Sam and I were reckless with our own history, searching for things we couldn’t yet name. If this Rose was the same Rose of the Little House books, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, then she had defined a part of American desire that my mother understood just as well.”
Many years ago before fleeing Vietnam, Lee’s grandfather tells a story of an unusual American woman reporter visiting his village and 88 Café. She spent time speaking with him. She left behind a gold pin with a little house etched on it. When young Lee reads the Little House books many years later she connects the pin to a passage in one of the books and wonders if it could possibly be Wilder’s pin but she’s young and doesn’t think of it again.
Now in her 20s she’s completing her dissertation on Edith Wharton [“Valerie was the one who’d asked what none of my other professors had broached: Was I sure Wharton was my thing? Ethnic lit, she reminded me, was hotter right now and might make me more marketable.”] and returns home to the usual misunderstandings from her traditional mother who can’t understand why Lee’s getting a PhD in English and can’t just help with the family’s Vietnamese restaurant. Lee starts researching her possible family connection to the pin again. And in doing so she discovers her own desires for the future.
Pioneer Girl is about second-generation immigrants, born in the United States who still feel very much bound to their family’s and country’s customs even though they’ve never traveled to their homeland. It’s fascinating and reads like a memoir. Paralleling the stories of PhD student Lee Lien and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter Rose Wilder proves a truly clever way to describe this unique immigrant experience as it is very much like that of those pioneers who braved the new frontier traveling West so many years ago. I couldn’t put this down. It’s an energetic read and one of the best reads of the year.
–review by Amy Steele
FTC Disclosure: I received these book for review from Viking/Penguin Group.
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About Me
covering mostly music and books. focus on alternative/indie and women in music, literature and the arts. feminist. vegan. mostly alternative, a bit bohemian. Masters in journalism from Boston University. BA from Simmons College.
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