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Summary: First They Killed My Father
Review: WOW! A powerful journey of struggle against a fear so great, most of us will feel the tingling awakening of discomfort with the reality that civility can be so easily striped from us. We think of law, order, fairness and justice as a part of everyday life. It is unimaginable what life would be like without them, until you read Loung Ung's book. Loung reminds us that these are ideals, Loung allows us to experience existance in its most basic form. If you can read without denying the fear you should feel, you will grow from reading this book. From the acceptance of the cold and cruel, I developed a stronger sense of love and appreciation for the fragile life I am fortunate to have. This book is also about love, bonds, sacrafice, determination, willpower, the value of intelligence and wisdom, appreciation and character. Thank you Loung for your book.
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Summary: Chilling... heroic.
Review: Loung Ung's writing style is unpretentious. But the experiences she relates are eloquent beyond mere words. In a world where refugees are in the news daily this book is a must-read. Ung and her family are driven from their comfortable home in the city and into the countryside, where they must endure terror, starvation and degradation. Somehow, despite all the inhuman ordeals they must suffer, Ung survives to tell the tale and become a national spokesperson for the elimination of the landmines that many tyrannical governments employ in their callous efforts to control territory. I don't consider myself uneducated when it comes to world events, but this book made me realize what the word "refugee" means, not on a scale of millions, but as one powerless individual.
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Summary: A powerful memoir of survival during the Cambodian Holocaust
Review: This book is well worth reading. The author tells her story of survival during the years l975-79 in Cambodia. I thought the book was especially interesting because you wonder how does a regime kill two or three million people out of a population of seven or eight million. Well, this book shows how. And you see how a certain number were simply murdered. Yet many others died through the negligence of a regime that just did not know how to manage the feeding and care of a country of seven million people.
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Summary: The other side of the fence
Review: This book starts where mine ended, March 1975. Loung Ung almost instantly snapped me back to 1975 Cambodia with her wonderful way of describing first a delightful life as a five-year-old girl then a quick slide into darkness. Loung, we tried to help but it was like running up a fast "down" escalator. There were many tears shed on our side of the fence at Pochentong airport and in the air over your sad city. I can't add any more than this to all the other reviews.
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Summary: An exceptionally resilient little girl
Review: I can only endorse the above comments on Loung's compelling narrative of her 4 year ordeal under the Khmer Rouge. The book should be compulsive reading for those members of the UN and Western Governments who were not troubled by the Pol Pot regime. I have visited Cambodia 2 years ago and the photos of Loung reminded me so much of the little children around Angkor Wat. I was so affected by this book I wrote to Loung.
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Summary: The Human Dimension of the Khmer Rouge Genocide
Review: Loung Ung's book FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER is an intimate, personal account of life under Cambodia's genocidal Khmer Rouge. Its emotion and urgency give the reader a sense of what it was like to be there -- to suffer as Ung and her family suffered and to see the horrors that they saw. The book thus provides a crucial supplement to drier, more academic accounts of the Khmer Rouge regime, which typically are written at a distance in order to preserve an aura of objectivity. Ung is not in the business of providing a dry, historical account of what happened to her country; rather, her purpose is to share the raw, often brutal, story of what happened to her. Ung's book provides a human framework for coming to terms with the madness of the Khmer Rouge. Instead of remaining decontextualized victims -- remarkable only for their suffering and identical to the victims of countless other tragedies -- Ung's family and the people she meets gain the dignity of personal qualities and individuality. Through the eyes of the child that she was at the time, Ung forces us to see her family and acquaintances not just as statistics or haunted faces glimpsed on television, but as people with lives that began before the tragic period of the book and that, at least in a few cases, continued after the events described in the book were over. FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER is part confession, part therapy and part urgent mission to share a story with the world. It is often painful to read but it is profoundly rewarding. Ung's story is heartbreaking but her own persistence, fortitude, and ultimate triumph inspire. Furthermore, in an age where tragedy and genocide have seemingly become commonplace, Ung's ability to heal after such a harrowing childhood is encouraging evidence that others, recovering from tragedies elsewhere, can do the same.
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Summary: A deeply moving story of courage and survival
Review: In the beginning pages of "First They Killed My Father", the book is dedicated in memory of the two million people that were killed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The vastness of that number is hard to understand and comprehend, but by writing her book Loung Ung helps us to understand. By telling her story she speaks not only for herself; but for all of those other voices that will never again be heard. The story that she tells is especially heartbreaking, because it is a story of horror and brutality seen through the eyes of a child. Loung Ung was only 5 years old when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in 1975. Loung and her family; along with hundreds of thousands of other families from the capital city of Phnom Penh; were forced to leave their homes and to flee into the countryside. They witnessed the deliberate destruction of an entire society by the Khmer Rouge. Day to day life in Cambodia became a living nightmare. I felt a very deep sense of grief and sadness reading about the death of so many of the Cambodian people; and of the terrible suffering endured by Loung and her family. But beyond those feelings of sadness, there is much more within this book. There are many poignant moments in the book, that reaffirm the ultimate value of every human life. As you read Loung's story, every member of her family will be vividly brought to life before your eyes. The love, sacrifice, courage and kindness of Loung's family helped to give her the strength to survive. Loung's courageous heart has helped others to live too. This is a book that was written from the heart, and it is a story that you will always remember.
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Summary: A Powerful Read!
Review: I was prompted to pick up Ms. Ung's book after having heard her on NPR's Weekend Edition. She came across as an eloquent and sincere voice in the plight of the Cambodian people. Written through the eyes of a young child, her words take you on a horrific journey into a land and time in which murder and starvation are a way of life. By the end of the book she pulled me away from my tears towards a celebration of this child's survival. This book is a must read.
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Summary: You must read this book
Review: You must read this book. Loung Ung tells us about ourselves as human beings. The news is both good and bad. While you despair over human cruelty, you rejoice at the power of love. The author tells her story without pulling punches. She is honest about her feelings of hatred and despair, feelings we can appreciate and understand, and would in fact share in her place. At the same time, if there is redemption in her life, it is because she rises above her completely understandable and normal wish to take revenge and turns her terrible experience into a positive force for good. She can attribute her ability to do this to the love she received from her family when she was a young child. Loung Ung's experiences are unfortunately not unique. They have been repeated over and over again, on large scale or small (and, after all, each individual only suffers on his or her own scale, so numbers are irrelevant). I couldn't read this book without thinking of a book by Nien Cheng--Life and Death in Shanghai. It is another story of the strength of the human spirit in the face of evil. As for the reviewer who thinks a five year old cannot remember: memory is related to emotional intensity. That's why you forget 90 percent of your life, but can remember traumatic experiences in vivid detail. I vote for every word of this remarkable story being true. Read it.
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Summary: An incredible story written incredibly well
Review: I've had a low-level interest in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge since I saw "The Killing Fields" a few years ago. I've read a few things and was basically familiar with the history. However, I had no real appreciation for the brutality the Cambodian people endured for those 4 years until I read this book. As somebody stated in an earlier review, I wondered (at first) how a 5 year old child could remember all of this. As I got further into the story, it occurred to me that no one could ever forget this sort of thing. In addition, Ung gives one of her older brothers credit for filling in some gaps. This book is VERY believable. Ung writes about horrific events in a matter-of-fact style. She occaisionaly changes the point of view of the narration, which can be a bit confusing. But, overall, it's easy to follow the story. It's even easier to become drawn in to the story. I put another book aside to read this. I'm glad I did.
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