Rating: 
Summary: Necessary empathy
Review: When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is an extremely important book, particularly for those of us who have grown up and spent our lives in the USA, because it gives us something vital that we lack--the experience of living in a country where war is waged. Our world grows smaller every day, and whatever our government does elsewhere ultimately comes home to roost. This is in part because refugees like Ms. Hayslip, who wash up on our shores, become part of the fabric of our country; both the damage they suffer and the truimph they attain become part of the collective "ours." We can no longer afford to operate without empathy; those we kill are our neighbors, or at the very least, our neighbors' cousins. And so, this book is both important and timely. 'When Heaven and Earth Changed Places' is the autobiography of a woman who survives by wits, guts and sheer endurance the horrors of war and occupation--and, later, the horrors of emmigration to a bizarre new world and marriage to a different kind of war victim. It provides a rare and articulate window into the mind and heart of someone who was made to play, by circumstance, both ally and enemy. It should be mandatory reading for anyone trying to understand the Viet Nam war (or, as the Vietnamese more correctly call it, the American War), but it's far from some dry and bitter medicine that must be consumed with a pinch of the nostrils. It's an exciting story, extremely readable--a tale that is frightening, harrowing and, ultimately, heartening. The movie was decent, but the book is much better. Susan O'Neill, Viet Nam Veteran and author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam
Rating: 
Summary: Documentaryesque
Review: With the unflinching eye of a documentary film maker (not Oliver Stone who directed a motion picture version of this story) Hayslip tackles some of the most difficult subject matter I can imagine. Scenes of horror from the Vietnam War which one might have feared being desensitized to have new vitality in this harrowing novel. Hayslip approaches the drama with a compassion which borders on the inhuman. Despite torture at the hands of soldiers, brutal deaths of family members, and mistreatment from men of varying cultures, Hayslip not only survives, but overcomes with an eye on the past. She constantly searches, even going back to a land which for her has meant little more than severe trauma, all in the hopes of understanding why what happened in the Vietnam War was allowed to occur. She searches to understand the evils America did to her countrymen, the evils her countrymen did to the Americans, and the evils her countrymen did to each other. The true power of this story is that Hayslip is never a victim, or even a survivor, but a victor over the circumstances she was forced to endure.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging story.
Review: Written from a different point of view than most books about Vietnam. This is more than just a book about war. Le Ly is daring, resilient, hopeful, and entrepreneurial, on her journey from Vietnam to America and on to what she sees as her mission in life. This book is a real page-turner. Highly recommended
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