This book is told in dual timelines, and it’s one that comes with a pre-story content warning—it’s not an easy read, so take care.
The first timeline is in 1999, in San Jose, California, and it follows Jane, who is 17, just about to graduate from high school, and who has a big secret she’s been keeping: she got into her dream college and will be moving away at the end of the summer. This is a big secret for several reasons, including the fact that she’s sort of the glue holding her family together. Mom disappeared, and Jane has stepped in to be her little brother Paul’s rock. She feels obligated to be that way because of their demanding and, at times, physically abusive father. She is scared to tell Paul she’s leaving because she’s worried he’ll feel like she’s abandoning him and leaving him to fend for himself. At the same time, Jane knows this is her opportunity to finally live her own life rather than live the life she believes she’s supposed to live. Plus, she’ll get away from the rigid expectations of her father.
The second timeline is 1975, and it follows Phuc, who is attempting to leave his war-torn country of Vietnam during the war. It’s been a brutal war and one where even family has been split in their loyalties. But for Phuc, getting out of Vietnam is not easy in the least. Every attempt to get out has left him battered or in danger of losing his life. When he finally does get the chance to get out, even the boat becomes a place of fear. He witnesses murder, death, and the limits of human suffering—all of which he feels deeply and which embeds in him in each attempt to escape. When he finally gets to America, he marries and moves to San Jose. But even if there is no war in America, he carries with him the burden of survival, as well as the challenges that come from being an immigrant.
Phuc is Jane and Paul’s father, and this is not a spoiler—you know early on that you’re seeing both sides of what has been a traumatic immigration experience, one riddled with violence, pain, and suffering. This split perspective gives insight into why Phuc behaves how he does toward his children, never apologizing for it but giving it context; it also gives Jane a lot to think about when it comes to why she feels the pull to be as similar to her white American classmates as possible and eschew her Vietnamese heritage. This will shift and change through the story as Jane is able to reconnect with family overseas and comes to see that her best friend—also a second-generation immigrant—may be misguided in her attempts to forget her family’s past.
This is a slow read, without romance, and it is a powerful story of family, immigration, trauma and its effect on mental health, intergenerational trauma, and what it is to make a life for yourself when the world has been the furthest thing from kind for you. Both Jane and Phuc are deeply flawed characters, but their flaws are what makes their stories so compelling.
