Reference
Le Ly Hayslip's autobiography tells her story of how she went through a lot in her childhood at the hands of American soldiers and Viet Cong soldiers during the Vietnam War. She was raped and tortured and had her father and brother die due to the war. She marries a GI and moves to the States until she comes back to Vietnam to face her past. It is a chilling story of the pains of war a family goes through and the story of resilience in the midst of such horror.
It is difficult to say that I enjoyed such a sad, horrifying story, but her ability to find meaning in even the most negative circumstances gave me hope and a new perspective on the human will to survive and forgive.
It gives the Vietnam perspective that is usually overlooked when Americans learn and focus on the Vietnam War. It is usually difficult to have sympathy for the enemy, but she is able to make the reader/viewer have empathy and feel sorry for her.
It has made me want to see the countryside and hope to see the beauty of the countryside before the Vietnam War devastated the landscape.
It does a good job weaving the history of Vietnam into the war period and show the devastating effect of the war on a typical Vietnamese family during the period.
