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Original Title:	The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
ISBN:	0316284610 (ISBN13: 9780316284615)
Edition Language:	English
Setting:	Vietnam

The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood

Kien Nguyen

Paperback | Pages: 343 pages

Rating: 4.27 | 2051 Users | 234 Reviews

Commentary As Books The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood

As a student of memoir, I generally prefer examples that include a fair amount of introspection and reevaluation of past events. But analysis is more appropriate for some material than others. A small child living through apocalyptic times is unlikely to display introspection, and the adult author looking back on those times will be intrusive if he does more than simply provide the facts of his experience. Here, I was the one doing the pondering.

It's sobering to try and comprehend the multitudes of innocent people who have been caught up in and destroyed by events such as those described here. Everyone (of my generation, at least) remembers the iconic photo of people on the roof of the embassy in Saigon, grabbing the last helicopter out in 1975. If you want some human context for that event -- specifically, concerning those who could not evacuate -- this is the book to read. I also think it's instructive to experience situations like these vicariously, since one never really knows what the future holds. It's also a pointed reminder that good intentions are no guarantee of anything. The outcome described here is obscene in the context of the lofty principles the young people are taught to recite, and doubly so in view of the enormous sacrifices previously made there by Americans and others.

The prose betrays no indication that the author is not a native speaker of English, and indeed it includes judicious use of literary devices (the thunder growls like an empty stomach, veins stand out in someone’s throat like fat worms, etc.). It's an easy read -- aside from the fact that the circumstances described go from bad to appalling to hellish, and then to ever deeper levels of hell, proving Dante right. It also reinforces a history lesson that the world ought to have absorbed by now (at the time this was going on, my wife was enduring China's brand of Communism a few hundred miles to the north). It provides a study of what happens to human relationships when the very structure of civilization is turned on its head, and a warning to those of us in the West that we must not take our inherited way of life for granted. I'm left feeling concern for the author, because despite his escape at the end, nobody could live through these experiences without being severely messed up psychologically. I hope writing about it has helped him.

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Title	:	The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
Author	:	Kien Nguyen
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 343 pages
Published	:	April 8th 2002 by Back Bay Books (first published January 1st 2002)
Categories	:	Nonfiction. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography. Cultural. Asia

Rating Out Of Books The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood

Ratings: 4.27 From 2051 Users | 234 Reviews

Assessment Out Of Books The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood

As a freshmen I thought this book was sad but good at the same time.I taught me what my grandparents and parents had to go through when they were young.The book also showed me what Vietnam was like before the communist took over the country and the people's freedom.As I was reading the book I never imagined that he would get rape by his mom's boyfriend.That's just really mean and sad for him.I feel like because of what happened, he learned it and later did it to that girl.I think it should be a

Couldn't put this down. Heartbreaking at times, but a truly amazing read.

Kien Nguyen isn't much older than my husband, but the horror he lived through in Vietnam as a child is far beyond the scope of any American's imagination. His family, once very wealthy before the fall of Saigon, becomes one of the poorest families in war-torn Vietnam. He and his brother are shunned as "half-breeds," their American ancestry evident in their features. Because his mother was once at the top of society, she is punished in the new Communist regime, and has to give everything up to

This book is not for the faint of heart. However, I think everyone should read this. As he placed dates with nightmarish events in his life, I recalled how old I was, the house I lived in and child hood memories. A cultural experience of postwar Vietnam and a lesson of why our freedoms are so precious. A story you will not forget. The only memoir written by an Amerasain who lived through the fall of Saigon, at a young age, enduring life there for 13 years and who now lives in America.

Just when you think the story can't possibly get any more tragic, it does. This book is not for the faint of heart, but there are not many accounts of life in post-Vietnam war Vietnam. Everyone I know from there escaped in 1975, so to read the story of someone who remained for a full ten years after the Americans left was incredible. Even more so, he is half Vietnamese. I have a half Vietnamese child myself, and I cannot believe that anyone could ever see him as anything other than beautiful. It

The memoir about Kien, An Amerasian, certainly was an awakening to me. This book showed what really happened in Viet Nam before and after the Communist took over Saigon. The heartbreaking story of the survival of these people really made me think twice about our life in the United States of America.

Certainly this man had a horrific childhood. However, I cannot know what of the specific events are accurate. It is improbable at best that a 5 year old can recall full conversations and the dinner menu for a specific night. He has interpreted some events later as an adult but he would not have understood what was happening when they occurred. It isn't a very well written story and would have worked better as a novel rather than a liberally embellished "memoir".