Book Review: A Two-Placed Heart by Doan Phuong Nguyen

Publisher’s description

Afraid her sister (and maybe even herself) could lose sight of their Vietnamese identity, twelve-year-old Bom writes a poetic memoir to help them both remember—a love letter in verse to sisterhood and the places we leave behind.

Bom can’t believe that her sister doesn’t see herself as Vietnamese, only American. She says she doesn’t remember Vietnam or their lives there, their family there, their house and friends. How could her sister forget the terrible journey through Saigon and the airplanes and… everything?

And what about Bom? She remembers now, but how long will she keep her memories? She always found comfort in the sound of her father’s typewriter Clickity-clack, clickity-clack. So she has an idea. She’ll write down all that she can remember: the time when her father was a spy, when her mother was nicknamed a “radio,” when they were so hungry Bom couldn’t walk well, when the family all said goodbye.

Bom will even tell her sister, and herself, about what it was like moving to Tennessee. The ESL classes, bullies, strange new foods, icy weather, friendships, and crushes—and how her family worked to keep their heritage alive.

She’ll type one poem at a time, until they’ll never forget again.

Amanda’s thoughts

I loved this author’s other book, Mèo and Bé, and was excited to read this novel in verse, which did not disappoint.

Bom’s younger sister, Bo, can’t understand why their parents push their country, Vietnam, on them so much. As far as Bo is concerned, Vietnam, where she was born, is not her country. She’s American and that’s that. But for Bom, who has many more memories of living in Vietnam and feels the push and pull of this in-between space of Vietnamese and American, it’s more complicated. Their dad wants them to only speak Vietnamese at home, but Bom is forgetting some words, feeling like she’s losing that part of her. It’s a big part of her—a past, a culture, an identity—and she feels it slipping away. She recalls the many years of feeling alone at school, always othered, constantly hearing people mispronounce her name or throw racist taunts at her. Bom’s feeling of being alone is amplified by how little her sister is interested in anything to do with their life before America and their identity as anything other than American. Bom types up a history of her family for her sister, hoping it will remind her of where they have been and what they have endured to become American. She shares of her father’s life as a spy, his long years in a “reeducation camp,” his life after the camp, and the many long years waiting for the Orderly Departure Program to approve their paperwork to move to the United States.

She writes about war, poverty, famine, natural disasters, and her own toddler years in Vietnam, so malnourished all she could do was scoot around, to weak to crawl, stand, or walk. When the girls are seven and three, the family moves to Nashville, which is really the only life Bo can remember. To her, nothing else matters. It is Bom’s hope that these poems she’s typing out will help keep Vietnam, their family there, and their culture alive for them. For Bom, who carries so many memories, it’s vital that they remember where they come from.

Bom’s reflections on everything that led them to their current time (1996) in Nashville are emotional, raw, and often painful. This well-written story of adjusting to life in a new place and a new culture is a compassionate look at identity, history, belonging, and understanding. An excellent read.

Review copy (ARC) courtesy of the publisher

ISBN-13: 9781643796420
Publisher: Lee & Low Books/Tu Books
Publication date: 09/24/2024
Age Range: 9 – 13 Years

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