Stealing Buddha's Dinner: A Memoir
 

Stealing Buddha's Dinner

by Bich Minh Nguyen

A vivid, funny, and viscerally powerful memoir about childhood, assimilation, food, and growing up in the 1980s

As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bich Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity. In the pre-PC era Midwest, where the devoutly Christian blond-haired, blue-eyed Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme, Nguyen’s barely conscious... (read more)

Top tags: memoirmichiganasiavietnamnonfiction (all tags)

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Other Reviews

Amazon Reviews (5)
 

Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

Jane W
  • Rated 4 stars

Wonderful, gentle memoir of a Vietnamese immigrant girl's experience in 1980's Michigan. Her mother is left back in Viet Nam, and her father marries a Mexican-American woman. Three cultures for this young girl to assimilate, and it makes for a great read.

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Didn’t Like It

Julia K
  • Rated 2 stars

I picked up this book because I have family members living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is the setting of the book. I was also interested in following the immigrant experience from early childhood to adulthood. This book gave some insight into how Bich felt when immersed in a culture that was different from the one she was born into and still lives in with her family. The longing for American food, especially junk food, was not the most important part of the story for me. The book was...

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Community:
  • Rated 3.104167 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4.5 stars
 

Newest Comments

  • dao j

    dao j said:

    If you weren't from Vietnam and immigrated here, i think it would be a hard book to relate to. It was an okay read.

    posted Thursday, January 3 2008
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