i can't ugly cry the way i really want to, because i finished this in public in a very nice tea shop

I thought I was mentally prepared going into this memoir, but I absolutely was not. Bui wrote this memoir with unflinching honesty, even when that honesty showed parts of her life and her parents lives that most would try to gloss over or touch only superficially. 

The Best We Could Do works as a light history of the Vietnam conflict(s), along with being a family history. Bui writes from a place of being a mother reflecting on what her parents had to do to survive and ultimately get their kids to America. It's raw and real and doesn't always paint the best light on her parents (she doesn't shy away from describing emotional and sometimes physical abuse from her parents), but it also goes through their lives in Vietnam as a way to explain (not excuse) how they came to be the way they are. Her parents did the absolute best they could do under constantly terrible circumstances, and Bui explores that thoroughly.

As a bonus, this book made me realize that I really don't know much about Vietnam or the conflicts there at all, beyond glossing over what America's part in it was in my history classes growing up.

I hesitate to judge the art, because Bui admits that she only began to take art classes in order to draw this graphic novel, even though she did study for years. The art itself feels amateurish, but somehow that works in the book's favor. The color choices were great, as the wash of mainly reds and oranges created a hazy feeling that persisted throughout the whole book, keeping things cohesive.

This is a fantastic memoir and minor history of a short period of Vietnamese history, but I recommend it with caution. It's not graphic in its depiction, but it doesn't shy away from hard truths and rough topics.