Owner Of A Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen

I was reading this book while I have been listening to Marcus Samuelsson's book Yes, Chef. They both share an immigration story, and the experience of being other in the country they grow up in, Nguyen being Vietnamese in the United States and Samuelson being Ethiopian in Sweden. They both experience prejudice and racism. They both fixate on parentage and what happened to them, how their parents feel about them, and how to move beyond that in their everyday lives. What is different is that Nguyen grapples with a lot of issues that gnaw at her. She notices things and then she tries to grapple with them, and it doesn't always go well. She is willing and able to be flawed. She expresses her aloneness in a way that we can all relate to, even if you don't share that with her. This is a book about history, about family, about where and to whom we belong, and whether we ever really do. It is a portrait of things left unsaid, and what happens next. It is quietly moving and thoughtful.