The author's choice to write about her experience with the Khmer Rouge as a story instead of as a straight-up memoir made this novel both haunting and beautiful...a difficult mix. I think it was a wonderful decision, giving her reign to write things as she remembered them, even in the places where things seemed blurred or unreal, which I think made the book much more powerful. Mixing in stories that her father had told her, that were so important to her, and imbuing them with more power than they would have had otherwise (in the face of such horrors and atrocities) paints an amazing picture of how it is that a child can survive something like she did. It's hard to imagine a child surviving such a life and how they "justify" why such terrible things are happening to them. How does a child deal with the death of almost her whole family and watching people she has become friends with be killed in front of her eyes? How does a child react to starving almost to death or seeing that her parents cannot be the safe haven that children always think their parents are? This book hurt to read it was so sad and I applaud the author for being able to do that while also staying true to the story form a child's eyes. It's heartbreaking to think that the author herself thought and felt those things she wrote about. This was such a horrific story told in such breathtaking language that it's borderline unreal.

A pretty cool idea, usisng the photographs. But it was a bit to juvenile in plot for me...not quite developed the way I was expecting. All in all, it just isn't what I wanted it to be.

It seems that everyone is criticizing the authors' self/outlook/actions. I feel that unless you are in her shoes, you have no right. I was impressed that she was open enough to talk about the good things she did, as well as the not so good. However, the writing itself was pretty bad.

Haunting. This is one of those books that you just can't stop thinking about after you have read it. Past and future fit so well together and the characters created are superbly written. Just amazing.