I barely know where to start to describe my experience of this phenomenal audiobook. The narration is excellent and the pace is perfect. The story itself is just heartbreaking and although clearly there was a great deal of research behind it, the stories are told in a compelling and compassionate way. The novel touches on both Vietnamese bar girls, the GIs they met and the resulting Amerasian children. It had me in tears. Listen to or read it!

Superb writing from this author, a very eye catching cover, this audio book will go far, 5 stars. Blindingly excellent ... This book should come with a disclaimer as once you start reading and listening you aren’t going to want to walk away.

Wow... I don't even know how do justice to this book.
This is the kind of book that will change your life. I feel like it's such a necessary read if you're even remotely interested in how our modern day present has been shaped by the past, by wars by proxy between colonising countries and all their ramifications you didn't even consider, by the racism that STILL exist in this day and age.
Yes, this book deals with a lot of heavy topics but they are very much important ones. We need more books like this one to further educate ourselves and to understand our world better.
I'll admit, I don't know much about the Vietnamese war (and even Vietnamese culture and history). We talked about all of 30 minutes in High School and I hadn't gad the opportunity to learn more about it until now. But having heard only rave reviews for this book, I had to request it when I saw it on NetGalley. And boy am I glad I did.
I'll be honest, this book brought me to tears so many times, broke my heart into tiny pieces. The characters touched me in a way that very few book characters have in the past. Their stories, their pain, their hope and their search for a better life (during the war and in the present day) united them in such a beautiful and powerful way. They taught me lessons I will never forget and this book will stay with me for a long time. I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and I still think about it every day.
I remain purposely vague about the plotlines of the book, and the structure of it because I do feel like it's best to go in blind (other than checking the TWs; please do check them as they are quite a few).

From the little research I did, I understand that the author is Vietnamese herself. That's something that I find very interesting and you can see it in her voice. She has a clarity and a point of view about the Vietnamese war, about colonisation and about racism, you can feel the research she's done and the life experiences she has gone through. Moreover, she's not afraid to say it like is and I LOVE that. Here she critizes openly why the US went to war in Vietnam, what they're supposed goal was vs what they actually accomplished. More often than not, with Western authors, you tip toe around the line, you infer ideas that can be seen as "controversial". But here, the author is not afraid to actually say the words. It reminds me in that way of Babel and Yellowface by RF Kuang, and it is something that I truly appreciate in my reading.

I did the audiobook and to me it was the perfect way to read this book. The narrator is excellent. She performed the story beautifully, and I have to say that it was really nice to have someone familiar with Vietnamese. Having all the names and sentences spoken in a perfect Vietnamese added authenticity to the book, but I also felt that it was a beautiful mark of respect to the author and her work.
I think this is also amazing in physical or ebook format, but here, I really felt as if each of the characers were telling me their stories directly, Their pain and struggles cut me even deeper, but I felt with them their joy in the little things in life, and their hope. It truly was inspiring.

If this review has not convinced you to pick up this book yet, then please let me know and I will go into HEAVY detail as to why you ABSOLUTELY have to.

Three perspectives, and a whole lot of heart and beautiful storytelling. This had my heart, and that's unusual as I wouldn't always choose to read historical fiction but this was composed so well.

I found it thought provoking and the narration of the audio was well pronounced, suitably paced and the character voices really came through.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Bolinda audio for approving me for an ARC of this book.

🪷Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam war we are given a story that is not only beautiful but devastating too.

😢It’s impossible not to shed a tear or two when reading this. Whilst the characters are entirely fictional you know that the story is based on real events and many faced these awful circumstances.

⌛The multiple POVs and switching between past and present gave the story the pace it needed. Whilst I had figured out some of the end results I was still left with one or two surprising twists at the end.

⭐Overall this story will give you many perspectives of not just the Vietnam war but the aftermath too. It will show the devastation, turmoil and hope they all faced whilst giving you characters to root for. A truly emotional book filled with a lot of heart.

I loved this story. I didn’t know much about the Vietnam war before reading Nguyen phan que mai’s books and I found them absolutely fascinating. I thought the characters were deep and interesting and I loved the switch between past and present. I also thought the narrator was great.

First of all, some parts of the book were well-written with fully developed characters. Trang and Quỳnh story was interesting and their characters fully developed. I enjoyed every aspect of the sister’s story. Phong’s story however is a little problematic, Phong is Black living in Việt Nam suffering discrimination and injustice and wants a way out to the US to live the American Dream. Show me (the reader) that Phong is Black, don’t tell me. The book failed to fully describe the experience of Black People in Vietnamese society. The book is slow paced interconnecting stories from the past and present. In the end, everything makes sense - how the War connects these four characters' lives. It took such a long time for everything to make sense - thus some parts of the story dragged on for a while. The coincidences at the end were so good to be true. Of course, I enjoyed The Mountains Sing way better than I enjoyed this but I appreciate the author for exploring some themes such as the relationship between American Soldiers and Vietnamese Women/Girls, Black people living in Viet Nam, and the search for parents or children post-war.

I happened to have this novel both in audiobook and in hardback and I decided to listen to some chapters on audiobook - whilst I was out on a walk or doing household chores - and then continue and pick up reading from where I left off. I alternated between the two until I finished the novel. I had always wanted to try this but thought that there was perhaps too much organisation involved and in fact there isn't. In the audiobook version the chapters are clearly marked and it was then easy to move to the relevant chapter in the book. The wonderful aspect of doing this with this particular novel was that you could hear what the Vietnamese sounded like, as there are a fair few words and sentences in the narrative which add authenticity and poignancy.

'The Vietnam War' was a conflict between North (Communist) Vietnam and the South that started in 1955 and continued until the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. The Americans entered on the southern side in 1964, essentially to 'stop the spread of Communism'. It was a terrible war that inflicted casualties on all sides, with a level of brutality that is beyond comprehension, including chemical warfare, torture and targeted destruction. The story gives voices to different characters during the war years and examines the legacy and both psychological and emotional harm of the terrible years.

The story stretches from the late 1960s to more or less present day. Back in 1969, Trang and Quynh were two young sisters living in the countryside who were convinced they would find good work in Saigon in order to help their impoverished parents. It turns out that they had been lured into bar work, entertaining American GIs.

Dan falls for one of the bar girls, whom he knows as Kim. They set up home together, so that he has somewhere to relax and call home between missions. Long after the war has ended, he decides to return to Saigon with his wife to try and find 'Kim', whom he unceremoniously abandoned when she told him she was pregnant with his child. He has suffered from PTSD and other psychological harm since the war, and the effects of what he had witnessed were already becoming all too evident in the last period of their time together, as the war raged and damaged so many people in its wake.

The fourth character is Phong, who is the child of Vietnamese woman and a black American GI, who was abandoned in an orphanage when he was very young. Children who had distinctly different features and colour to the Vietnamese were known as dust children - Amerasians -  and were subjected to discrimination, bullying and generally existed on the margins of society. Phong is desperate to find out more about his heritage and runs foul of a family, who suggest they adopt him so that they can all file papers to go to a better life in America. It doesn't happen and he remains in the country of his birth, eking out a living.

There are several threads in this novel which are interwoven and offer an effective overview of the war from when the Americans entered. This is an informative story and a timely and poignant reminder of the long lasting effects and damage of war. It also filled a few gaps in my own personal knowledge of the war years.

Thank you so much for letting listen to this audiobook. I think this is a very important story to be told. Sadly I couldn't get into it as much as I hoped. I kept waiting for that moment where I would get pulled in. But sadly it never came.

In a Nutshell: Reveals some great insights about Vietnam and the aftermath of the American war on the country. The plot was somewhat predictable, but overall, a worthy OwnVoices work.

Story Synopsis:
2016. Middle-aged Phong is the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese mother, but as he grew up in an orphanage, he doesn’t know anything about his parents except their race. He has now decided to search for his father and using his help, escape to the US with his family to avoid the drudgery of Vietnam.
2016. Dan, an American veteran, has returned to the country where he served during the war, in the hope that his PTSD will improve, but unknown to his wife Linda, he has a secret agenda as well.
1969: Sisters Trang and Quỳnh follow their friend’s advice and leave their rice fields to work as ‘bar girls’ in Sài Gòn, hoping to earn enough to repay their parents’ debts. As Sài Gòn is filled with American GIs, the bar girls are supposed to drink ‘Sài Gòn tea’ and flirt with the GIs in exchange for money. Unknown to the two, the interactions don’t stop at just flirting and the sisters are forced to make a tough decision. Things get even more complicated when one of them falls for an American helicopter pilot.
The lives of these four characters are interlinked. How? You will need to read the book and find out.
The story comes to us mostly in the 3rd person limited perspective of the above four characters.

Bookish Yays:
✔ The authenticity of the Vietnamese voice and culture. Not surprising considering the author’s background.
✔ The title: ‘Dust Child’ refers to the mixed race children born during and after the war. While many of these babies were treated as outcasts, the ones with Black fathers and born with prominent Black features were treated the worst. Learning about this unseen side of the war was saddening and yet illuminating.
✔ The narrative choices: A white man, two Vietnamese women, and an Amerasian man, with each voice being given an equal weightage and no sides being taken and no fingers being pointed against either country. Loved the fairness of it. I also appreciate the point raised about the hypocritical attitude of the country that welcomes returning ex-American GIs but shuns ex-Viet Cong soldiers as enemies.
✔ Trang’s character arc – handled the best in terms of emotions as well as development.
✔ This is a war story where the war stays in the background. What we get to see is the human cost of the war for those not actively involved in the fighting. Appreciate this approach as it adds a novelty to the plot.
✔ The themes, ranging from PTSD to single motherhood to rape to prostitution to poverty to racial discrimination to gender discrimination. All handled well. None over the top. (These do create plenty of triggers, so proceed with care. It’s a story set during wartime, so don’t expect an easy, trauma-free read.)


Bookish If Onlys:
⚠ Phong’s character arc: Had so much potential in terms of depicting how Amerasian children left in Vietnam felt about fitting in neither here nor there. But somehow, his arc shoves in too many of some things and too little of others, leaving me feeling like I didn’t get to know him well. I still liked his arc, but wish it had been more streamlined.
⚠ I wish the approach towards this story had been more literary than commercial. The general fiction vibes reduce the impact of the emotions.
⚠ The ending: While most of the ending was good, some part was just too exaggerated and coincidental. A layer of realism would have made me happier as this wasn’t supposed to be a happy story anyway.

Bookish Nays:
❌ Dan’s character arc: Feels quite ad hoc. The changes in his behaviour aren’t written smoothly, and as such, he is quite tough to like and not at all a compelling character. Even if I make allowances for his PTSD, he doesn’t come across as consistent.
❌ Disliked the ‘white saviour’ vibes coming from the contemporary storyline, regardless of how genuine a part of it might be.
❌ The predictability: Most historical fiction readers will be able to see where most of the story is going. Except for a couple of plot points at the end, it is quite guessable and offers no major surprises.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at 12 hrs 27 minutes, is narrated by Quyen Ngo. She does perform well, and her voicing of the Vietnamese words left me in awe of how musical the language actually is. As I have no idea how most diacritics are pronounced (except for the ones appearing in Devanagari scripts), I tended to gloss over the unknown sounds while reading. But her pronunciation (and the author’s writing) made me realise the importance of diacritics, especially in the Vietnamese language.
That said, I feel that a part of my disconnect with the book is because I heard the audio version. Listening to the American accent voicing Vietnamese characters was quite distracting. While the narrator does try to voice the characters’ dialogues in a partially (Vietnamese) accented manner, it isn’t consistent.
The author’s note at the end is read by the author herself, and while the content is brilliant, her authentic Vietnamese accent makes the contrast with the narrator’s voice even more prominent.
While I would still recommend the audiobook, especially if you want to hear the musicality of the Vietnamese language, a part of me wants you to read it rather than listen to it. Now you decide!
(PS: This is the kind of audiobook where I wish there was a separate chapter saying, “Dear Reader/Reviewer, this is how the character names are spelt”, going on to give the right spellings for all the major Vietnamese characters. Seeing ‘Quỳnh’ in the blurb gave me a jolt because I had written ‘Qin’ in my review notes. 😵)


I’ve heard a lot about this author’s debut work, ‘The Mountains Sing’, but as I haven’t read it yet, I cannot compare the two. A friend of mine who has read both warned me that this isn’t as good as the earlier book. I guess that means I have the better book to look forward to.

Regardless, this book did manage to satisfy me to a great extent. My expectations were quite high, especially as this is an #OwnVoices work. Despite the qualms I had with some of the plot points, I relished reading an insider perspective of the US-Vietnam war.

Definitely recommended to historical fiction readers.

3.75 stars.

My thanks to Bolinda Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “Dust Child”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.

I had wanted to read ‘The Mountains Sing’, but grabbed the chance to read/listen to this book. While I did not find the plot to be path-breaking, but the characters really come alive in this beautiful story – filled with tragedy as well as hope.

In the present time, Phong, an Amerasian – born to an American father and a Vietnamese mother during the Vietnam war is trying unsuccessfully to obtain a US visa. There is Dan, who was a helicopter pilot during the war, now in the US, and the events of that time continue to haunt him. He and his wife Linda are making a trip to Vietnam. There are secrets Dan has which Linda does not know about which he hopes he can resolve with this visit. In another past timeline - during the war, two sisters Trang and Quynh start working as bar girls in the absence of any other option. While they are initially led to believe they just need to offer tea to American soldiers and keep them company, it turns out to be far more than that and quite painful for the sisters. The focus is mostly on Trang who gets involved with an American soldier, who she believes naively would support her for many years to come.

The storytelling is such that you feel drawn to the characters – especially Trang. A lot of what she goes through is painful and her experience really comes alive. In the present timeline Dan’s turmoil as he understands the impact of war on people he had been in touch with in the past is captured very well. The convergence at the end is good, though with its share of continuing pain. Though the book does not focus on the fighting in the war, the impact it has on so many comes across very well.

The audiobook narration by Quyen Ngo was very good.

My rating: 4.5 / 5.

It took me almost a month to finish reading this book, not because it wasn't interesting but because personal and work commitments kept me away from this novel. This is my second book on Vietnam war and my first from this author. So I wasn't sure what to expect and the initial few chapters with multiple POV's were little slow for me. But once the plot starts taking shape, it's difficult to put down this book. Usually if other commitments causes delay in finishing a book, there's a high chance of me losing interest in the book and abandoning it totally but in this case each time I returned to the audio book, I could feel the same enthusiasm to read more of this story.

The book follows the story of three main characters and is set in two time periods. Trang and Quỳnh, are sisters trying to save their house and parents from money lenders in war ravaged South Vietnam in 1969. In an attempt to earn more money, they shift to Sài Gòn and become bar girls. This one decision changes their destiny completely.

In the year 2016, Phong and his family are desperate to escape Vietnam and migrate to America, the land of opportunities. Being an Amerasian and the son of a Black American, Phong is discriminated and ridiculed for his skin color in his own country. Phong dreams of giving a better future for his children and his wife in America and for this he will go to any lengths.

Dan and his wife Linda are visiting Vietnam in the year 2016 and Dan, who served the American army in the Vietnam war is hoping to be reunited with his girlfriend Kim, and the baby he had abandoned in Vietnam during the war. How the three stories and the lives of characters interconnect form the basis of the plot. But each thread of the story shows different facets of the war and how long after the battle is done, the lives of the people who live through the war and even people who are born after is affected.

While reading the book, I became really invested with Trang's story and her innocence and naivety both frustrated me and made me feel protective towards her character. I didn't think the actions of few characters and their fates weren't justified, but that's life I guess. It isn't fair always. This book will stay with me for long, and it definitely is going to be one of my top favorite reads this year.

The narrator, Quyen Ngo, has done a wonderful job handling the voices for the American and Vietnamese characters so well.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for providing the audio book version.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. So much so I finished it in two days. It was a completely new subject for me, but one I found fascinating. The story of lost innocence, lost children and lost families is so desperately sad. History shows how women have always been there, serving the needs of men at war. This book explores the very real hurt, disappointment, abuse and exploitation caused by those relationships. This book is packed with emotion throughout. I rarely give five stars, so it is a testament to this very talented author that I am able to give a five star recommendation. My sincere thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

It took me quite awhile to get into this book as it was told by several POV and also in different era’s , and I think because I was listening to it rather than reading it , the names of the main characters were harder to recognise than if the were in the written form. Once I got to recognise each character and their story, It was a good storyline with twists and turns

The narrator was very good in that she gave the characters the correct accents

I enjoyed the narration even though the story is slow paced.
The narration was a bit difficult to follow with the past- present-past back and forth.

Regardless it was informative an okay read for me.

Thanks for the publishers for this audiobook Arc. I’m so glad NetGalley brought this audiobook option. I love it.

In 1969 after seeing their friend helping her family by making lots of money from her job in Saigon.. two South Vietnamese sisters leave home to follow her so they can work to get their parents debts paid off after they lost their home. They start to work in a bar and realise that their job is entertaining American soldiers. Many children were born during the war, between American soldiers and local women and they were called the Children of Dust. Due to their western features , they were considered as enemies by the local people once the war was over. And this is the story of one such Dust child
This book hones in on the most helpless victims of Vietnam war( any war in general)-the children conceived when local women, many from impoverished families, served the needs of soldiers. It also explores the emotional toll on women who felt compelled to give up their children because they had sacrificed their youths and reputations to jobs that might help their families who had nothing, and the long-time fees, which were nothing to the soldiers, was staggering wealth to them. It was beautiful, lyrical, woven between two timelines and definitely tugs at our hearts strings. Loved the book!
As for the narration, it was just wonderful. It was clear, beautiful, nuanced and in short could transport you directly into the story. Great audiobook!
Content 4stars Narration 5 stars

Parallel timelines in a novel are difficult to pull off. That our author has pulled off three timelines is a testament to how well this story works: there are the 2 sisters in the Vietnam War ‘entertaining’ US troops in bars, there’s a US serviceman in the 2010s travelling back to Vietnam to try and conquer his PTSD/find his former girlfriend and there’s a Vietnamese-American man in the 2010s trying to reach America for a better life with his family. The Vietnam War irrevocably changed all their lives and its legacy includes trauma, racism, silence, many lies and deep buckets of shame for those who did what they had to in order to survive.

The audiobook is excellent, particularly for those of us like me who know zero Vietnamese so would really have struggled to read the phrases in Vietnamese which pop up throughout the story.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

i just learned that the author’s first language isn’t english and honestly kudos to them for writing such a beautiful book despite not writing in your mother tongue. it was such a well crafted story, the different POV’s all different enough that you didn’t have to stop and try to remember whose chapter this was. i really liked all of them and they showed many different aspects of the war in Vietnam, how it was for a local, and especially a woman, at the time, how a former soldier had to deal with the trauma once he had to go back to America but also how someone who was a “result” of the union between the two experiences modern Vietnam (as well as growing up mixed race after the end of it). it truly paints this multifaceted image of the war, without “picking a side”, in the sense that it pictured how both sides were to blame in the horrors of the fighting, extremely well. it’s mostly a story about family, the losses but also finding people that you can call your family without necessarily being blood relatives and also helps better understand how life was, in 1969 and 2016’s Vietnam. Totally recommend! 4⭐️

Wow! What a story. Emotional, heart-breaking, heart-warming and detailed with strong and believable characters. The subject matter is dealt with sensitively with a few poignant twists towards the end which brought me to tears. Listening to the audio version was a joy as it was so well read including the many times Vietnamese was spoken.
This book is about the human devastation left behind after the Vietnam War. Yes, it is a fictional account but based on years of research by the author. It is possibly of most relevance to American readers as they might relate to the history. Here in the UK I think we know little about this horrific time in history, making it all the more important as a work of literature. Everyone should read this book!

Format: audiobook ~ Narrator: Quyen Ngo
Content: 4.5 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars

This novel contains several stories. Two sisters are forced to leave their home village for Saigon to help their parents pay their debts. They become »bar girls« that entertain American soldiers. Decades later, we follow the stories of Phong and Dan. Phong, an Amerasian, was raised in an orphanage and wants to find his father and a better life in America. Racism and poverty marked his life in Vietnam, and he doesn’t want that for his children. Dan, a war veteran, returns to Vietnam to deal with his PTSD.

The narration was great. Once again, Quyen Ngo brought a Vietnamese story to life.

Thanks to Bolinda Audio for the ALC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.