Listen, Slowly

Mai has her summer all planned out: hanging out at Laguna Beach with her friends, flirting with that cute boy she's been eying. Then her parents inform her that she is going to spend the summer traveling to Vietnam with her grandmother, who is seeking closure in regards to her husband, Mai's

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grandfather, who disappeared during the war. This will also give Mai a chance to get in touch with her own cultural heritage, her parents add. Mai feels that she is in touch with her heritage just fine, and has no need to spend a summer far from California to explore it. Couldn't one of her parents accompany her grandmother? But her mother, a lawyer, has a busy summer slated at work, and her father, a doctor, will travel with them to Vietnam, but will then continue to more remote villages to perform surgeries and other procedures for people who could otherwise never afford them. And so it is that Mai finds herself in Vietnam, having a far different summer than the one she had planned, and yes, getting in touch with her roots. But finding out the truth about what happened to her grandfather all those years ago will take more work than Mai could have imagined.

Thanhha Lai's masterful use of language has already been established for those who have read her earlier verse novel Inside Out and Back Again. I was surprised to see that Listen, Slowly is prose, not verse, but not surprised that it exhibits the same level of linguistic virtuosity. Lai's multifaceted characters come to life against the rich backdrop of modern Vietnam. With touches of pathos and splashes of humor, this book tells the story of a journey of discovery for Mai, as well as for her grandmother. Mai's character development is the real heart of the story as she learns to truly appreciate her heritage. Highly recommended.

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Mai reluctantly visits Vietnam over the summer with her grandma (Ba), where Mai learns about Vietnamese culture as a detective helps uncover what happened to her grandfather during the Vietnam War. Lai’s strongest achievements in Listen, Slowly are Ba’s story and an excellent command of

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setting. Readers will finish Listen, Slowly feeling as though they have travelled to Vietnam with Mai and will likely learn a lot along the way. Mai has a memorable narrative voice as a South Californian middle school student who misses the beach and feels initially disinterested in Vietnamese village life. Lai’s tone becomes a tad preachy about familial background and Mai learning Vietnamese and there are a few episodic chapters that could have easily been edited out, but Ba’s search for her long missing husband makes for a touching story arch. Listen, Slowly will appeal best to advanced, avid readers and those interested in Vietnamese culture. It is also a strong candidate for being hand-sold to young readers who might not otherwise choose this book, for it is a journey worth taking. Listen, Slowly is highly recommended for ages ten to thirteen.

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Mai/Mia is not happy when her parents tell her she'll be spending the summer in Vietnam. Her grandmother is going to finally find the answer to what happened to her husband during the war. Mai is whiny and self-centered, at least at first. Her transition to life in Vietnam is not smooth.
The

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audiobook was great because there was some Vietnamese in the book that I probably would have just glossed over when reading. I got a sense of the culture, food. The story was well done as Mai lost a little of her self-centered nature to help her grandfather and find truth, peace for her family.

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Narrated by Lulu Lam. This book is best appreciated in the audio version. With all the Vietnamese spoken in the novel, Lam brings the language to life when speaking Vietnamese words or reading in accented English for the passages when characters are clearly supposed to be speaking Vietnamese but it

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is written in English for readers. The speaking style is very glottal so I assume Lam is a native speaker, her presentation sounds so true. The audio is particularly valuable when Mai complains about the different ways to say a single word, such as "bac;" we can just hear the subtle differences and can empathize with Mai.

Moreover, Mai is an American-bred California surfer girl, and Lam performs that role fantastically, a 12-year-old put out by this weeks-long trip when she could be on the beach back home with her best friend and HIM. It's also nice that this trip isn't a huge moment of cultural enlightenment for Mai but primarily about finding family and her place in it in a setting she didn't expect.

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Loved this story about Mia who wants to spend the summer at the beach in California with her friends and ends up in Vietnam with her grandmother discovering the culture she didn't even know she had as well as the truth about her grandfather's disappearance.

I enjoyed this book.

Just out for summer vacation, 12 year old Mai (AKA Mia by her friends in the U.S.) is forced to travel to Vietnam with her Ba (grandmother). Mai is pouty and spiteful, but agrees to go to help care for Ba. Mystery surrounds Mai’s grandfather who went missing during the Vietnam War, the detective

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investigating his disappearance claims to have uncovered the truth, but Ba must travel to Vietnam to find out and gain closure. Through the story, as told from Mai's perspective, we see the love, honor, and dedication of family, her grandmother’s endurance, and we experience Mai’s confusion as she is thrust into Vietnamese culture that has both similarities and differences to her own upbringing as a Vietnamese American. Ultimately, the girl we see at the end of the book is very different from the one we were introduced to in the beginning.

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This is the story of a girl named Mia born and raised in L.A, from Vietnamese parents. She consider her self an American girl, and she wasn't interested in learning anything about her background. Until her parents had to take her to Vietnam for the summer, and that's when learned how to love and

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respect her roots.

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This is such a beautiful story about understanding your family history and culture and about inter-generational relationships. I realized how little I know about Vietnamese culture and it made me eager to try some Vietnamese cuisine. Most of all it made me long for my grandmothers: their familiar

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touch, their stories, their cooking, the comfort of having them close by.
I think that the Vietnamese phrases might be intimidating to some readers, I would highly recommend this book for a student book club.

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Mai's grandmother is informed by a detective that there's a chance her husband might still be alive after being caught up in the Vietnam War. So Mai's parents tell her she must accompany her grandmother to Vietnam to find out more information. While there, Mai meets a number of relatives she never

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before interacted with and learns more about her cultural heritage.

This was an interesting read. Mai was fairly annoying, especially in the beginning, which I know was kind of the point -- watching her mature over the course of the summer is a big part of the story. But it was a little off-putting and made the beginning part of the book a bit hard to get invested in. However, the supporting cast of quirky but lovable characters (from tomboyish Út to Texan-accented student Ahn Minh to physically fragile but strong-enough-to-hold-her-own Bà to the local skin care expert Cô Hạnh) helped, as did the strong main storyline.

The prose can be quite beautiful at times, but then it's bogged down with things like "HIM" (Mai refuses to speak the name of her crush, instead referring to him thusly) and "FB" (Because apparently all the cool kids call the social media giant this? I know it is frequently shortened like this in text messaging but in one's internal monologue??)

That being said, my issues with the book were minor (almost more like nitpicking) and I enjoyed it on the whole. I'm interested in reading Lại's other middle grade books now.

For audiophiles, LuLu Lam was an excellent narrator for this book, navigating numerous voices and accents in two languages.

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This is a funny, sad, and charming story of coming "home" to a land you never belonged to and appreciating your cultural heritage. This would pair well with G.B. Tran's Vietnamerica. 4.5 stars.

Cute but predictable

Mai accompanies her grandmother to Vietnam to find information about her grandfather who was lost and presumed dead in the war.

This book is fantastic: well-plotted and filled with tween-centric detail (why does anyone wear thongs, why do parents never talk about their childhood? wonders the

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protagonist). Mom packs all the wrong clothes, bugs bite incessantly, Mai doesn't admit she can understand Vietnamese so she can listen to the extended family gossip about her. It's a very personal and engaging story, told from the point of view of a slightly grumpy but insightful narrator.

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I seem to be in the minority in that I liked this better than Inside Out and Back Again. The sense of place was SO striking in this novel--my senses felt as permeated as Mai's. Her introduction to Vietnamese life was a perfect vehicle for the reader. The linguistic nerd in me LOVED the discussions

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of language, and I would be remiss if I did not give a shout-out to Lulu Lam's delivery on the audiobook--it was fantastic in so many ways, and the pronunciation of Vietnamese words and discussions were certainly a highlight.

I also knew going into this book that Mai was a difficult, which I would suspect may be the most off-putting for most readers. I didn't mind it...in a world of John Greens, Diablo Codys, and all sorts of other writers who give teens and pre-teens adult thought processes and vocabularies like it's NBD, Mai was downright refreshing. She actually resembles the kids I work with, and I truly felt I was seeing the world through a child's eyes. It made me enjoy the transformation she underwent over the course of the novel.

This reading experience definitely makes me reconsider my lukewarm experience with Inside Out and Back Again...I will have to revisit it.

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children's middlegrade fiction (5th-6th grade/tweens). I found 12 year old Mai, on the borderline of teen/tween awkwardness and social insecurities; also on the border of American culture and her parent's Vietnamese roots, to be totally believable and accurate. It was a little weird to have her dad

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disappear like that (should we be worried, or not?) but all in all I thought the characters and their stories were spot on.

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I've been meaning to read this book for years, and I'm glad I finally had the chance. Mai/Mia is being sent to Vietnam for the summer to support her grandmother. This is such an amazing tween-early teen book -- really great at capturing the sometimes desperately whiny conflict as the Mai struggles

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with her own needs and desires (beach! friends! possible-maybe-crush-romance) and her family's (tracing the path of a long lost and dearly beloved grandfather, surgery for kids with facial abnormalities, adult concerns). The story unfolds gradually and Mai uses her secret ability to understand most spoken Vietnamese to learn more about her family's history. Some funny moments, a cousin obsessed with frogs, an ongoing fight to not be the favorite mosquito snack of the entire village, a really eloquent and high impact depiction of Vietnamese summer, and one of the most beautifully kind and loving families at the heart.

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