Rating: 
Summary: How does a child view terror?
Review: This book is written from the point of view of the child Ung was when these events were transpiring. I don't know that she still harbors some of the views that she expressed -- for example, her hatred of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. I would like to believe that she no longer harbors the same amount of hatred that she most certainly and understandably felt as a child growing up in those circumstances. Are there things from which she was shielded? Probably. As she was only 8 years old when she escaped from Cambodia, how much of what happened DIDN'T she understand? How much of what she experienced is expressed in her memory as racial hatred? I think, from the fact that she uses the present tense throughout the book, that she is trying to express those emotions felt by a child too young to truly understand what was happening but was forced to experience these things anyway. I think it would be a good read for a child psychologist who may have to deal with future war-torn, terrorized children.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money
Review: Ung, unfortunately chooses to ignore reality in preference for telling a more easily digestible story. Easily digestible, that is, if the reader has no real knowledge about or experience of living through the Killing Fields. Her caricaturization and demonization of the Khmer Rouge does injustice to the real dynamics of the tragedy. Were the distortions to end here, her book would simply be poor fiction that misinforms. It would have negative scholastic merit. The offensiveness of Ung's book goes beyond the mere simplification of such complex concepts, however: Ung butchers the Cambodian tragedy even further by incorporating her racism against the Khmer people into her story. From the outset, she distances herself and her family from ethnic Khmers through descriptions of physical characteristics and customs. Throughout her book, she then debases everything Khmer while extolling everything Chinese. And just as her story is so lacking in authentic detail as to appear black-and-white compared to the stories of the other narrators, so too are her heroes and villains, quite literally: To her, dark skin equates to a dark heart, and she demonizes not just the Khmer Rouge in her story but the entire Khmer people. In her view, she is the light-skinned, Chinese heroine standing in opposition to the dark-skinned, Khmer villains. Her misrepresentations of the Killing Fields is reminiscent of the cowboy-and-Indian movies of the past, with herself playing the role of the heroic cowboy and the Khmer people the savage Indians.
The content of Ung's book, evinces not a person of conscience trying to teach the younger generation about their past ' as the author has repeatedly asserted to the media ' but an entrepreneur willing to sacrifice honestly and integrity to sell tragedy. Her book is an elixir of lies that she goes from media outlet to media outlet, university to university, hawking to the credulous public. That some people have been touched by the story does not make the author a successful artist, but merely a successful con-artist. Whether an elixir is sold in the form of a potion or a story, those pre-disposed to believing its powers will feel its effect. The author knows her audience's emotional predilection and her book is specifically tailored to elicit their pathos. The unfortunate victims of this scam is not only her misinformed readers, but the Khmer people ' a people who have suffered enough that they should not now have their ordeal grotesquely distorted for the sake of making a buck. Profiting off tragedy is horrible enough, profiting off distortions of tragedy even more so.
Rating: 
Summary: Tragic.
Review: The hallucinatory story of the survival of a young girl during the reign of terror of the Red Kmer in Cambodia.
This book constitutes a chilling and devastating account of the murderous and utopian try of rabid and fanatical leftist intellectuals (coming from the best of the West-European universities), who wanted to create a new man (Gramsci) by killing all people of whom they thought they didn't agree with them. A reminder of the fall of the Cathar city of Béziers, when the messenger of the pope ordered to kill everybody inside the city, for God would know his children.
A compelling read and a shame for humanity.
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Summary: first they killed my father
Review: this is one of the most toughing books ever its just incredible and breathtaking i loved it
Rating:
Summary: Child's perspective of the ultimate terror
Review: Another in a short list of superb memoirs written by Cambodian Americans about their childhood experiences during Pol Pot's regime of terror. "First they killed my father" ranks right up there with "When broken glass floats." Both authors have a gift for recalling scenes in the incredibly small detail that only the eyes of a child seem to capture. The experience is more like watching a film than reading a book. The scene of the author's father saying his final farewell to his wife and children when the Khmer Rouge came to his house to take him off to certain execution is seared into my soul. I could smell Cambodia when I witnessed that event through the memory of one child. To think that the very same scene occurred tens of thousands of times continues to haunt me. "First they killed my father" [as well as The Diary of Anne Frank] has recently been published in the Khmer language by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an NGO which specializes in documenting the crimes against humanity committed during the three year, eight month, twenty day regime of horror that occured after the United States abandoned its Cambodian allies of convenience. As the world awaits a decision on an international tribunal, these memoirs make a valuable statement to all Americans and Cambodians. Let us hope that our current "allies in the war on terror" do not meet the same fate after our eyes turn elsewhere.
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Summary: An Amazing Story
Review: This is a wonderful non-fictional book. This story touched my family because we are Cambodian as also the author. And they have been through the same as her. And are so thankful that she was the one who wrote the book, because they couldn't have explained it better. This book relates to my family as it does to me! I am glad she wrote this book so that there are people who don't understand what we have been through in the past. And Cambodia is still recovering! But please take my advice, if you haven't read this book yet, please do read it. But before you buy it check it out or borrow it from a friend. Everybody has different tastes in books. Thank you!
Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: This book was given to my mother by a 30 year old Cambodian friend who knows the author. Having assisted with the resettlement of his family in the States over a number of years, our families are close. Our friend, his mother, and older brother fled the Khmer Rouge when the boys were 3 and 7 years old. Reading this book helped me understand the horror that they experienced, and the amazing triumph of human will. My 10 year old son also read the book (in one long night!) and found it very compelling. I recommend it highly, and believe it is appropriate and accessible for mature 5th graders on up. Thank you, Loung Ung, for having the courage to revisit these experiences.
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Summary: An Eye-Opening Story
Review: Every literate person in the world should read this book. The things that the author went through are almost unbelievable. I had only vaguely heard of the Khmer Rouge before I read this story, but the book told me all I need to know. Through the eyes of a six year old girl, readers are shown all the horrors of this terrifying period in Cambodian history. The author started out as the happy upper-middle class child of a prominent government official. Then, one day the "Angkar" marched in and changed her life forever. Her family was forced to conceal their mixed Chinese-Cambodian blood, and the father's career in the government in order to keep their lives. They sent away to a forced labor camp, where they are starved and in constant fear for their lives. One by one, family members begin to die off, and the author is forced to go out on her own in order to survive. She and her surviving siblings are subjected to brainwashing, rape, starvation, and various other atrocities, but after many year of suffering, she finally manages to come out on top. I am a senior in high school and I think it is outrageous that the Khmer Rouge has not even been mentioned in my history classes. Most people don't even know what the Khmer Rouge is. People need to hear about these things, and this book is the perfect way to do that. It makes you feel like the events are happening right outside your window. The author is an amazing person and her story will touch your heart.
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Summary: One of the best books I have read in years...
Review: This story really opened my eyes to what happend in Cambodia. It tells the story of young Loung Ung and her family. This book showed me that anything can happen to any one, and to never take any thing for grantid. I would love to meet Loung, she is truely an inspiring person.
Rating:
Summary: a great read
Review: This book was fascinating reading. Full of survival and adventure, nothing in it is dull. Full of hope. Her love for her father shines through.
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