In her book, Monkey Bridge, Lan Cao uses her lyrical figurative language and genuine anecdotes as a crowbar to pry open a crate full of memories of the scarred heart of Vietnam and the Vietnamese immigrant experience to realistically present Vietnam as more than a war and Vietnamese immigrants as more than refugees.

Her figurative language and anecdotes gives her writing a style of realism that shows the brutal scars left from the Vietnam War on not only the Americans, but more importantly, the Vietnamese. From the first page, Lan Cao begins painting her memories of her childhood in Vietnam with her poetic diction and alliteration. She draws from her real life experience as a volunteer at her local hospital to show the stream of consciousness of Mai Nguyen, the Vietnamese teenage narrator. Mai recalls "the smell of blood, warm, and wet, rose from the floor and settled into the solemn stillness of the hospital air" when visiting her ailing mother in the hospital (1). In one of her many flashbacks, Mai remembers how a maimed soldier was "curled like a newborn, vicious and pink and covered from head to toe in placenta" (72). This simile transports the reader to the vicious Vietnam War and displays to the reader more than a library of war videos could. After Mai is airlifted out of Saigon because of the fall of Vietnam, she must, like all immigrants, learn the difficult language of English. In another flashback, Mai remembers how she was constantly "collecting words like a beggar gathering rain with an earthen pan" (36). This simile realistically describes the desperate manner instilled in all immigrants in which they must adjust themselves as fast as possible and puts the readers in an immigrant's pair of tattered shoes.

Besides figurative language, the anecdotes of Monkey Bridge provide the story with a sense of realism. Lan Cao writes much of the book in diary form to reveal the stream of consciousness of the mom and give the reader a true taste of the distant relationship between an immigrant mom and an assimilated daughter. For instance, one night Mai and her mother are watching a moralistic episode of The Bionic Woman about how children should always listen to their parents. When her mother asks her what happened in the episode, Mai translates the story to one about the virtues of letting children do what they want. This anecdote shows how immigrant families often become fractured and how the role of parent and child become switched. The parent must learn a new culture from their more assimilated child. Legends such as the one of the sly Trung Sisters who defeated the invading Chinese Army depict the Vietnamese morals and way of life. For example, Mai goes into a college interview with the same strategy as the Trung Sisters when defending their country, focusing on their strong points while never showing their weak ones. These stories provide an insightful view on the morals and values Vietnamese people are raised on.

Through her poetic figurative language and her realistic anecdotes, Lan Cao ultimately offers the reader a gem of knowledge: Vietnam is more than a blemish on the smooth surface of American history and that the Vietnamese are more than bystanders in a war, they are human beings.

I personally like reading this novel because the novel is a story about a Vietnamese girl brought to the United States to live. I like it because I can relate to her experience and feelings, also the fears she encounters when first stepping feet into U.S. grounds. With the fact that her mother was not in good health, she was forced to help her mother and herself to survive. Not knowing who her grandfather, was bound to find out. The protagonist was named Mai. She was brought to America after the Vietnam War has just settled down by a close English friend her mother had met. From there on she lives in an apartment home in Virginia neighbored by some friends from Vietnam. There is quite a mystery in the story that is well sorted out at the end. The story was interesting because it kept me thinking like any suspense story or movie would. I would personally reccommend this to any reader; however, if you are from ethnic Vietnamese then you should read this to learn more about the war and what it caused.

The story is so fascinating it has caught my attention many nights in a row. It is packed with so many social and historical facts I have to digest each data before moving to another chapter (the reader, however, could skip these sections if he/she did not want to delve into these details).

Besides the usual digressions about Tet (Vietnamese New Year) and the Tet offensive, the Trung sisters (see book under the same name), the Mongol invasion, the story of the betel nut, and so on, the book could be broadly subdivided into two sections dealing with daughter and mother's recollections about the war. This is one of the rare books that approach the Vietnam War from the natives' point of view.

The year was 1975, when both daughter and mother landed in America shortly before the fall of Saigon. We were given a glimpse about their new life in a foreign land, their adjustment to new customs, ways of thinking, and schooling system. We learned about the story of a U.S. colonel who almost had been killed in Vietnam a few years earlier and who now sponsored the two refugees to the U.S.

The most interesting section, however, was the one related by the mother: she opened our eyes to colonial Vietnam, the system of provincial landlords and peasants, and the Viet Cong. Behind the façade of a plain housewife, the mother slowly unveiled the dark family secrets she had been trying to hide from her daughter all her life. This is a story with a twist that made the reading exciting and worthwhile. How the author has been able to weave together the stories of a U.S. colonel, the Viet Cong, the landlords and peasants, and the refugees together in a short book is simply remarkable.

This is the Vietnam War many Americans did not know about until now.

I acknowledge the complaints of those who do not like this book. It is by no means comprehensive, nor is it a great scholarly achievement. But it's perfect for people like me who are history-illiterate and just can't digest the dry format of most history textbooks. It has a question-and-answer format that makes it easy to learn the history in small chunks. As an Asian-American, I am glad to finally have a way to learn a little bit of my own history. I would recommend this book to those who know little about Asian-American History and want an introduction to the events and attitudes that shaped it, but not to those who are looking for something more.

this book was an unexpected bonus. not only did i totally enjoy it, it was a breeze to read cause it's in funny Q & As, and when i finished it (i read it here and there, cafeteria style), i really felt like a whole door had been opened to me about asian american history and asian american life--this is an incredible and great and excellent culture. i was also able to use this book to help me with my college history courses, and even with my asian american friends when i visited with their families. two thumbs up!

I loved the easy-to-read style of the book. Loved it so much I've begun reading other books within the series of "everything you need to know ..." I'm a history major and I've learned a lot from the book about all the various asian immigrant groups that have arrived in the U.S. I've read lots of other history books also, and although they confirm the historical events and facts I got from this book, I found that those other books are just much harder to get through. This book is intended on purpose, it's clear, to be a popular type of book and has no pretense of being some type of "major research" book. It's fun, it makes one wants to learn more about history, and so one does. I think it's really very worthwhile. I can read it on trains, in between classes even. Recommend highly.