Customer Reviews

Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I lived in Grand Rapids for about one year and I actually am familiar with the areas the author lived in. I had to laugh as she spoke about Princeton Estates as we lived in a home with that sign in our front lawn for a little over a year. It is now a very typical middle class neighborhood, nothing all that fancy. I felt the author was quite unkind in her descriptions of the Dutch people. They are a hard working group of people, who may come off a little abrupt and who are keen on watching their money. However, they sponsored many immigrant families, set them up with housing, jobs and sponsorships. I felt the author was unkind in her description of them and she came off sounding ungrateful and mean spirited. I am not Dutch but worked with many of them and they were extremely hard working and generous. I believe her isolation came more from her shyness and disfunctional family than from her ethnic background.

I found the book whiney. I grew up lower middle class, but my parents did what they could for us children. We never had store bought snacks, I never had hamburger helper until I was married and I never had a pair of jeans until college. Life goes on, I wanted jeans and a sweater when I was in junior high, didn't get them, but I didn't blame my family, neighbors and the entire town I lived in for not having them.

I kept thinking the author would realize that the life she had was far better than what many other people have. I do think in the last few chapters she was realizing this might be the case, but it was not enough to make up for all the previous boring, whining, endless food stories.

Lastly, I also did not like the fact the book jumped around - one chapter she would be five and then she would be eight and then back to five, etc. I found this confusing. I will say that it was interesting to read a story about a place you have actually lived in and can say - "I remember that store or that street or neighborhood."

This book is non-commital yet oddly angry and unsympathetic toward the narrator's kin: an ill-fitting immigrant step-mother, her ill-suited marraige and their whole patchwork family hold much potential for warmth and growth...but achieve none. Through the book I hoped for some grace, beauty or forgiveness - that the young narrator might find a connection to her family, her community or her nation(s).

At times there are glimpes of a connection, but in the end all of her self-pitiful assessments remain: her sisters were mean, father was distant, step-mother was an overly ambitious, class-confused control freak.

I'd hoped to learn that these fabulous, interesting people- her father, sisters, step-mother, and so-called friends (nothing more to her than ineffective stepping-stones to social success) actually had valid motives and had made valiant efforts, but in the end it was simple: they had not understood her and she had not understood them.

Most importantly, I learned that through her young life she'd been miserable. She'd wanted a lot of foods and other things she couldn't have, which was startlingly familiar to me because I was a kid at this time and I was poor too! I wanted all of those fabulous things like potato chips and soda-pop and barbie dolls, and I didn't get any of it either.

So perhaps this book is most eloquent as a story about growing up poor in America. Perhaps the difference between being a second generation immigrant and a fourth generation immigrant isn't so great as the difference between being poor and not being poor.

Or perhaps I read too much into this book, which may in fact just be about an angry girl who didn't know or get what she wanted.

If you're looking for an introduction into this time period and into an overlooked American population, or if you want an overview/example of the history and experience of Vietnamese/American refugee/immigrants, this is a good start...very simple and skimming the surface.

But for some really excellent and available Vietnamese literature, try "Novel without a Name" or "Paradise of the Blind" and for the Vietnamese-American experience, consider Le Ly Hayslip's "When Heaven & Earth Changed Places", for starters...for those who want to start with a little depth.

This book is just okay. There were a few insighful moments about acculturation and religion, but nothing really new in the ethnic-american and/or memoir genre. It's a nice collection of memories, especially if you grew up in the 1980's. However, it lacks good storytelling. Nothing really happens. I find it surprising that the author teaches literature and creative writing. Overall, disappointing.

Heard the author on NPR and I'm a fan of the whole food writing genre so I snapped this book right up. I often find that memoirs are either beautifully written or have a great story. But this tale of food, assimilation and growing up Vietnamese-American in a conservative midwestern city, has both. I savored the language and also devoured the story. The dinner scenes and descriptions of food, particularly grandmother Noi's Vietnamese feasts, are mouth-watering; Nguyen can even turn a Hostess cupcake into a treasured delicacy. The family's escape from Vietnam is harrowing and heartbreaking, as they have to leave Bich's mother behind. The "characters," if that's what you call them in memoir, are all memorable, from Bich's patchwork family of fulls, halfs and steps to the pious lily-white girls she tries to befriend at school. My heart went out to Bich as a young girl trying so desperately to fit in, and to her entire family, every one of them an outsider in this "sea of blonde." I had bought this book expecting a food memoir, but was pleasantly surprised that it offers far more. A universal story with many rewards. I look forward to this author's next book.

I wanted to love this book, I really did. I loved the synopsis on the flap, the tantalizing story the title hinted at, and the chance to read a story from a Vietnamese perspective - a relatively rare one thus far in my reading history. In reality, the narrative was passionless, the title story bland, and the characters surprisingly one-dimensional.

I love food, and thus expected to enjoy a book written by someone who conceivably shared the same fascination. However, it was bland, and when I came to the end of 250 pages, I felt vaguely annoyed that there was no central theme, no distinct impression for my several hours of reading. Yes, food is mentioned, and even tied into the author's other great love, reading, but it is done so inexpertly. For every original poetic passage of the translucence of a Pringle, there are several more that are easily twice as long, essentially doing nothing but lengthily paraphrasing food scenes from familiar classic books.

My main concern is the author's seeming inability to stay in a linear time line. I'd be reading about her at age eight, and within the same chapter, one paragraph after and with no segue way, suddenly I was pulled to age five, with important characters and events that had just happened swept aside. In a way, I felt like it was one of those damning statements in court that the judge asks the jury to "disregard"...you can't un-hear something, no matter how hard you try. There was little, if any, connection or emotional involvement with the narrator. In fact, the one person I wanted to know more about, her grandmother, was spoken of almost exclusively in regards to her actions, as if she was a mute.

I am sorry, Ms. Nguyen, because I wanted to like your book. I hate giving bad reviews, but I just did not like it at all. I felt the editor could have done a much better job, both in continuity and the handful of spelling/puctuation mistakes I saw as well.

As a child of the 80s (which was truly a silly time to grow up with the hairstyles and fractal patterned Trapper Keepers and whatnot), and a lover of food, I found much to love about this book.

There were a few passages that I found to be a little off-track, like the chapter where the author rhapsodizes about the Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.

But on the whole, I viewed it as a tiny but vivid window into the immigrant experience. I could find some way to relate to every member of the author's family, even when they were not on their best behaviour. I especially loved her depiction of her grandmother, Noi, who has such a lovely peaceful and nuturing presence throughout the book.

The book was thoughtfully crafted and planned out, and beautifully written. I would recommend it to others.

I'm reading this book at the moment and can honestly say I haven't enjoyed a memoir this much in a long time. It's delicate, honest and very kind. B.M.Nguyen isn't judging anyone, just shares her experience of growing up as an immigrant from Vietnam.

I recommend this book if you are in a bad mood, it lifts you up, gives you a new and wonderful perspective on life.

"Stealing Buddha's Dinner" is as much Ms. Nguyen's story as it is mine. Ms. Nguyen reflects back on her childhood memories of TV commericials of Kool Aid, Carnation Instant Breakfast, and Hamburger Helper; her Dutch neighborhood of pork chops and shepard's pie; her grandmother's canh chua and bo xao voi hanh; and as if that wasn't enough, her stepmother Rosa's sopas. Throughout it all, Ms. Nguyen tries to find her identity in all these clashing cultures, desperately wanting to fit in, only to find solace in solitude, TV, and books. But perhaps the greatest mystery is what happened to her real mother.

It's truly a touching story of what it means to be an American with Asian eyes and black hair.

My favorite book of the year! A must read for any lonely, food obsessed bookworm of the 70/80's raised on television. I never wanted it to end.

There is much to enjoy in "Stealing Buddha's Dinner." It is a nostalgic, pop culture fueled book that will appeal to anyone who can't leave the '80s behind. It is also a touching, almost gut wrenching story about Vietnamese boat people and their assimilation in the US. These two threads coalesce in a narrative that is centered around eating, particularly the American junk food that Bich Minh Nguyen glamorizes while growing up in Grand Rapids, MI.

On the food front, I can relate to the author. I grew up in Minnesota during the same years, and my childhood was full of longing for the colorful candy and fast food that my parents disallowed. I used to steal away to the neighbors and luxuriate in junk food and bad TV. Good times. (Then again, when candy and toys look alike, that may be a sign of a culture headed towards an obesity epidemic. But I digress.) Nguyen writes in great detail about food, making this the literary equivalent of those nostalgia picture books that take you back. She also ties in a lot of pop culture -- music, TV, clothes. food -- somehow all these things slip into one category.

Far more poignant are Nguyen's tales of her assimilation into American culture. I wasn't expecting this to go as deeply as it did; by the end the author has learned family secrets and reunited with lost relatives. I was almost crying by the evocative final chapter. It's amazing to me what people go through to get to this country, only to be met by mixed blessings.

"Stealing Buddha's Dinner" is not without its problems. It skips around a lot, and many chapters don't rise to the quality of writing that the last few paragraphs achieve. Call it uneven. It is also truthful, fun, moving, and engrossing. I doubt I'll read this author again, but I'm grateful for this dip into her world.