Raising Athena: A Mother and Daughter Attend West Point Thirty Years Apart

by Mylinh Brewster Shattan

The hardest conflict to face is the one within.
 
MyLinh Shattan is no stranger to conflict, from evacuating during the fall of Saigon to reporting to West Point shortly after it accepts women. But when her daughter, Cara, becomes a West Point cadet, she confronts memories she would rather leave behind and new fears as a military mom.
 
For thirty years, MyLinh evaded questions about serving in the US Army. Now, watching her daughter follow in her footsteps, she finds herself searching for answers.
 
Why does anyone join the military?
 
What's changed for women in the past three decades?
 
What hasn't?
 
Raising Athena is a passionate, nuanced, often philosophical testament to the dedication and courage of those who protect our country. This memoir explores in intimate detail the stories we tell ourselves—about war, the disconnect between myth and reality, and what it means to serve.

Genres: Nonfiction

331 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 21, 2026

Reviews

[Priscilla Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raising Athena by Mylinh Shattan is more than just a military story—it’s a heartfelt tribute to service and resilience. It’s a must-read for anyone seeking to better understand the spirit of the Army and the sacrifices made in the name of duty.

What makes the book especially affecting is the mother-daughter perspective, which adds heart and emotional depth to the story. Through that lens, readers get an even fuller sense of the pride, worry, and love that surround the journey into military service.

The writing is superb and makes the book engrossing from start to finish. It’s easy to read in one sitting — even on a cross-country flight — but the story and its impact stay with you long after.

[Sarah Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review: Raising Athena: A Mother and Daughter Attend West Point Thirty Years Apart

Mylinh Brewster Shattan | Houndstooth Press, 2026 | 331 pages, Kindle Edition
Field Detail
Author Mylinh Brewster Shattan
Full Title Raising Athena: A Mother and Daughter Attend West Point Thirty Years Apart
Publisher Houndstooth Press
Publication Date April 21, 2026
Format Reviewed Kindle Edition
Pages 331
ISBN 9781544551197
ASIN B0GTBRT18Q
Language English
Community Rating 5.00/5 (16 ratings, 15 reviews)
User Personal Rating 4.8/5
Objective Criteria Mean 4.6/5

Full review available here: https://prairiefoxreads.blogspot.com/...

Summary Overview

Mylinh Brewster Shattan’s Raising Athena: A Mother and Daughter Attend West Point Thirty Years Apart is a memoir of uncommon depth, structural elegance, and emotional courage—one that earns its perfect early community rating not through the inflation that occasionally attends tightly networked early readership, but through the genuine literary and intellectual force of its undertaking. Shattan, who arrived at West Point in the early years of the United States Military Academy’s experiment with gender integration, who fled Saigon as a child, and who spent three subsequent decades constructing a carefully managed silence around those formative experiences, is at last compelled to speech by the most intimate of provocations: watching her daughter, Cara, walk the same ground she once walked, wear the same gray, and submit herself to the same institution that shaped and cost and gave so much to her mother before her.



The memoir’s title invokes Athena deliberately and with layered intention. The goddess of wisdom, strategy, and just warfare—born fully armored from the head of Zeus, without the mediation of a mother—is at once an emblem of the martial tradition that West Point both preserves and reinterprets, a figure of female martial excellence that the Western imagination has always been more comfortable venerating in myth than accommodating in reality, and a quiet provocation in the mouth of a woman who did in fact raise an Athena, who did in fact navigate the complex relational and institutional terrain of being simultaneously a military woman, a Vietnamese refugee, a mother, and a witness to her own history across its second iteration. The title’s irony is gentle but pointed: Athena had no mother, but Cara does, and that difference—between the mythologized female warrior and the actual woman who serves, suffers, excels, and remembers—is precisely the territory Raising Athena stakes out and inhabits with extraordinary care.



The memoir operates on at least three temporal planes simultaneously. There is the deep past—the fall of Saigon, the evacuation, the refugee experience, and the years of resettlement and formation that brought a Vietnamese girl to the gates of West Point. There is the middle distance—Shattan’s own years as a cadet, her service as an Army officer, and the three decades of strategic forgetting through which she managed the weight of those experiences in the context of a full civilian life. And there is the present tense of the narrative—the years of Cara’s cadetship, during which Shattan’s carefully maintained distance from her own history collapses and she is compelled to confront, with her daughter as both witness and catalyst, the questions she has spent thirty years declining to answer: why anyone joins the military; what has changed for women in the institution over three decades; what has not; and what it costs—and means—to serve.



That Shattan brings to this triple temporal structure not only the emotional authority of direct experience but the analytical intelligence of a writer seriously engaged with the philosophical and ethical dimensions of her subject—questions of duty, memory, identity, gender, national belonging, and the relationship between martial mythology and military reality—distinguishes Raising Athena from the considerable body of military memoir in which the authority of experience is present but the intellectual architecture required to make that experience fully legible to a broad readership is not. This is a book that thinks as rigorously as it feels, and the combination is both rare and deeply satisfying.
Formal Review

Raising Athena arrives in April 2026 into a literary and cultural landscape that has seen a significant expansion in first-person narratives of military service written by women, a parallel expansion in memoirs engaging with the Vietnamese American experience and its generational reverberations, and a sustained cultural conversation about what it means to raise children in conscious or unconscious relationship to our own unprocessed histories. Shattan’s book sits at the intersection of all three of these currents and draws productive energy from each without being reducible to any one of them. It is a military memoir, yes, and an immigration memoir, and a mother-daughter story, but it is finally and most essentially a philosophical memoir about the stories we tell ourselves—about who we are, what we owe, what we survived, and what we passed on without intending to.



The memoir is structured with care and evident deliberateness, moving between the parallel narratives of mother and daughter with a fluency that reflects both genuine craft and intimate knowledge of its own deepest structural logic: the two stories are not simply related by a thirty-year interval and a shared institution; they are related by the specific way in which a parent’s unspoken history constitutes a kind of inheritance—sometimes intended, sometimes not, always consequential—that shapes the child’s choices and choices’ costs in ways that neither fully understands until the juxtaposition is made visible. The decision to attend West Point is, in Cara’s generation, made in a different context than it was in her mother’s: the institution has changed, the culture of the Army has changed, the geopolitical landscape has changed, the social position of women in military service has changed—and yet Shattan’s narrative insists, with the authority of someone who has watched both iterations closely, that the deeper questions—of belonging, identity, physical and psychological endurance, and the relationship between individual will and institutional demand—remain surprisingly constant across the decades.



This insistence on both change and continuity is one of the memoir’s most valuable intellectual contributions. Easy narratives are available on both sides: the progressive narrative that frames women’s expanding role in the military as unambiguous advancement, and the skeptical narrative that frames institutional change as superficial accommodation of persistent structural discrimination. Shattan refuses both easy framings, not from a failure of analytical nerve but from a genuine commitment to the complexity of what she has witnessed. Her account of what has changed for women at West Point and in the Army over three decades is specific, concrete, and grounded in comparative observation rather than ideological prescription. Her account of what has not changed is equally specific, equally concrete, and, in places, considerably more uncomfortable—and more important—for its refusal of either comforting progress narrative or despairing critique.



The memoir’s engagement with Shattan’s Vietnamese background and refugee experience is integrated into the larger narrative with a care and tonal precision that reflects the literary maturity of its author. The fall of Saigon, rendered in sequences of striking, sensory particularity, is not presented as backstory or origin-myth—as the exotic or traumatic prelude to an assimilationist success narrative—but as an ongoing presence in Shattan’s life, a set of experiences whose meaning she is still in the process of understanding and whose relationship to her decision to serve in the American military, to embrace the institution of West Point and the values it claims to embody, is genuinely complex and not reducible to any single explanatory frame. The question of what it means for a Vietnamese refugee to serve in the American military—to defend by arms the country that was simultaneously a haven and an agent of the catastrophe that produced her refugee status—is one that Shattan handles with extraordinary honesty and intellectual courage, resisting both the easy patriotic resolution and the equally easy critical inversion.



The mother-daughter relationship at the memoir’s emotional center is rendered with an intimacy and psychological acuity that will be immediately recognizable to any reader who has navigated the complex terrain of a deep parental relationship in which the parent’s unprocessed history becomes a live issue in the context of the child’s emerging adult identity. Shattan is scrupulously honest about her own ambivalence—about her pride in Cara’s choice and her fear of what that choice will cost, about her desire to protect her daughter from the specific institutional and personal difficulties she herself experienced and her simultaneously held belief in the formative value of those same difficulties, about the tension between wanting her daughter to have a different and better experience than she did and recognizing that some of what her own experience cost her was also precisely what it gave her. This ambivalence is not resolved neatly in the memoir’s conclusion—it is honored in its full irreducible complexity, which is both the honest and the artistically superior choice.
Strengths

Structural Sophistication: The memoir’s management of its three temporal planes—refugee childhood, cadet years, and military-mom present—is accomplished with a fluency and control that reflects both sustained narrative intelligence and genuine authorial confidence. The transitions between time periods are handled with care, and the structural parallels between mother’s and daughter’s experiences are developed with the kind of patient specificity that earns their emotional resonance rather than merely asserting it.



Intellectual Seriousness: Unlike many military memoirs, which derive their authority primarily from the emotional weight of direct experience and present their reflections in a relatively unsystematic register, Raising Athena is a genuinely philosophical book—one engaged seriously with questions of duty, identity, gender, national belonging, and the epistemology of institutional mythology. Shattan asks hard questions and declines to offer easy answers, and the result is a memoir that rewards careful, active reading rather than simply inviting passive absorption.



Dual Voice and Perspective: The memoir’s most formally distinctive achievement is its successful integration of two generational perspectives on a single institution—a challenge that could easily have collapsed into either parallel monologue or false symmetry, but that Shattan manages with nuance. The differences between mother’s and daughter’s experience are as carefully rendered as their similarities, and the book consistently resists the temptation to flatten the thirty-year interval into a simple before-and-after.



Historical Scope and Precision: The memoir’s engagement with the institutional history of women at West Point—the Academy admitted women for the first time in 1976, and the social, cultural, and institutional evolution of that integration over the subsequent three decades is a genuinely important and underexamined story—is handled with the specific, concrete precision that transforms historical background into active analytical framework.



Tonal Range and Control: The memoir successfully sustains an extraordinary tonal range—moving between passages of lyrical beauty and passages of dry, precise institutional observation, between moments of acute personal vulnerability and moments of philosophical detachment, between grief and humor, between intimacy and analysis—without losing its fundamental coherence of voice and perspective.



The Refugee-to-Soldier Arc: The memoir’s treatment of the Vietnamese refugee experience and its relationship to the decision to serve in the American military is one of the most intellectually honest and emotionally complex treatments of this particular historical and biographical territory available in contemporary American literary nonfiction.
Limitations

Narrow Early Readership Base: The memoir’s current rating of 5.00 from 16 ratings reflects a readership that is likely closely networked with the author or deeply sympathetic to its subject matter. While the book’s quality broadly justifies enthusiastic reception, potential readers should be aware that the rating, at this stage of its publication history, does not yet reflect the broader and more ideologically diverse readership the book will encounter as its distribution expands.



Niche Classification: The book is currently classified solely under “Nonfiction” on major retail platforms, which undersells its generic complexity and may limit the discoverability it deserves among readers of military memoir, Vietnamese American literature, feminist nonfiction, and philosophical memoir. The absence of more specific genre classification may restrict the audience the book can reach.



Emotional Pacing in Middle Sections: While the memoir’s opening and closing sections are paced with evident skill, some readers may find that the middle portions—dealing with the years of Shattan’s civilian life between her own service and Cara’s cadetship—feel somewhat compressed relative to the richness of the material on either side. The three decades of strategic forgetting that the memoir makes central to its psychological argument might benefit, in places, from somewhat fuller narrative development.



Limited Institutional Critique Infrastructure: While Shattan’s treatment of what has and has not changed for women at West Point is admirably nuanced, readers seeking a more systematically documented account of the institutional history of gender integration at the Academy—complete with the evidential apparatus of investigative or academic nonfiction—will find that the memoir’s primary mode of authority is personal testimony and close observation rather than documented institutional research. This is a generic limitation as much as an authorial one, but it is worth noting for readers whose prior reading in this area has been primarily scholarly.
Recommended Companion Reading

Readers wishing to extend their engagement with the themes and arguments of Raising Athena will find the following works productive companions: Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline (1980, Houghton Mifflin), for its novelistic account of military academy culture and the violence of institutional belonging and exclusion; Carol Barkalow’s In the Men’s House: An Inside Account of Life in the Army by One of West Point’s First Female Graduates (1990, Poseidon Press), as a firsthand account of the early years of women’s integration at West Point that provides essential historical context for Shattan’s own experience; Bing West’s The Village (2002, Pocket Books) and Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn (2010, Atlantic Monthly Press), for their accounts of the Vietnam War’s human costs that inform the historical horizon against which Shattan’s refugee childhood and American military service both take place; Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019, Penguin Press), as a formally inventive and emotionally comparable exploration of Vietnamese American identity, generational trauma, and the relationship between a child and a parent who carries unspoken historical weight; Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017, Harper), for its example of the philosophical memoir at its most honest and formally conscious; Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir (2015, Harper), as both craft guide and companion text on the ethical and formal challenges of writing about living people and shared experience; and Nathaniel Fick’s One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (2005, Houghton Mifflin), as a rigorous and literary first-person account of the contemporary American military formation experience that provides productive comparison with Shattan’s West Point narrative.
Extended Critical Discussion

I. The Memoir as Palimpsest—Layered Time and the Structure of Involuntary Memory

The formal challenge that Raising Athena sets itself—the simultaneous narration of three temporally distinct but psychologically continuous experiences across a single sustained memoir voice—is one of the most demanding available to the memoirist, and Shattan’s management of it reveals a formal intelligence and structural ambition that distinguish this book from the large majority of its generic neighbors. The memoir is, in its deepest structural logic, a palimpsest: a text written over an earlier text, through which the earlier writing remains visible, shaping and inflecting the surface narrative in ways that neither writer nor reader can entirely control or predict. Shattan’s present-tense experience of military motherhood is written over her own cadet years, which are in turn written over the refugee childhood in Saigon—and each layer exerts pressure on the ones above it, destabilizing the comfortable sequential logic of a simply linear narrative and producing something structurally closer to lived psychological experience, in which past and present are never cleanly separable and earlier selves are never simply superseded but remain active, present, and capable of sudden irruption into the apparently settled surface of adult life.



This palimpsestic structure is not merely a formal conceit—it is the memoir’s central psychological and epistemological argument made visible in the architecture of the text itself. Shattan’s three decades of deliberate silence about her West Point years and her military service are not, her memoir insists, a period of successful forgetting; they are a period of strategic suppression, in which the past was held at bay through an act of sustained voluntary effort. When Cara’s decision to attend West Point makes that effort impossible to maintain, what is released is not simply memory but the full psychological and philosophical burden of experiences that were never adequately processed in the first place—the grief, the pride, the anger, the confusion, and the profound ambivalence about an institution and a vocation that simultaneously formed and taxed and enriched and damaged her in ways she is only now, three decades later, fully equipped to understand.

Full review available here: https://prairiefoxreads.blogspot.com/...

[Janice Lamb]

https://www.netgalley.com/book/807389...
As a parent of a recent female West Point graduate, this book provided me with both an in depth reflection of my own daughter’s similar journey, as well as a unique perspective from a mother (the author) who also graduated from West Point during a time when the military had not quite figured out how to effectively fully integrate women into the military, nor had given them credit for how much the military could benefit from their service. I was reminded of my own fears about sending my daughter to a school that had less than 25% women, and a male dominated culture. The book takes you through an artfully woven story with intimate reflections on the author’s journey, highlighting the parallels and differences in her’s and her daughter’s experiences. The military has undergone many internal changes, by now allowing women to serve in combat roles that were previously unavailable to women, for one. Reflecting on her decision to attend the Academy, the author seeks to understand why she chose this challenging path and expresses her fears for her daughter experiencing some of what she went through, while trying to understand why she would have also have chosen this path. This would be a great read for mothers whose daughters have expressed an interest in pursuing a service academy and military service. The dialogue also provides the mother’s perspective, which I could also relate to. The well earned life experience of a mother that naturally comes with the desire to protect your children from harm was especially unique in the authors case, but all mothers, including me, relate to. . Do those fears ever go away? How much can you influence their decisions after you have raised them to be independent, and to take charge of their own destinies knowing the path they chose, while honorable, is not an easy one.. The author has artfully crafted her story and experiences woven in with her daughters, while providing historical perspective, in an engaging manner that I could not put down. Definitely a recommended read for those interested in an inside view of the West Point experience, mothers, fathers and their daughters.

[Josie Brewster]

Raising Athena is a personal memoir that ties together themes of family, service, and resilience. My-Linh Brewster Shattan offers an honest perspective of her journey through the United States Military Academy during a time when women were only just beginning to be accepted.

The story begins with Shattan’s upbringing, highlighting her determination and work ethic, as well as the influence of her brother, who inspired her to pursue her life at West Point. As part of one of the early groups of women entering the academy, she faces an environment still adjusting—often uncomfortably—to their presence. Shattan does not shy away from these challenges; instead, she presents them with clarity and authenticity, giving readers a realistic view of the academy’s rigorous standards and evolving culture.

What sets this book apart is its emotional depth. Through her tellings of vivid memories—both difficult and inspiring—My-Linh explores not only the duty required of a soldier, but the personal sacrifices that come with it. The narrative becomes even more compelling as it shifts to her role as a mother. When her daughter chooses to follow in her footsteps, Shattan is forced to revisit her own experiences, confronting past struggles in order to guide and support the next generation.

[Serena_gillespieyahoo.Com · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this book so compelling is the author’s willingness to truly open her life and her heart to the reader. Her honesty is both disarming and deeply engaging, drawing you into experiences and reflections that feel at once personal and universally relatable. I found myself highlighting passage after passage—so much so that it seemed like nearly as much was highlighted as not.

The book explores a wide range of thoughtful, layered topics, making it an ideal choice for discussion. It’s the kind of memoir that lingers, prompting reflection and conversation long after you’ve turned the final page. I’ve already found myself wanting to revisit certain sections and share them with others, especially in a book group setting.

As someone who knows the author personally, I initially wondered what exactly was driving my enjoyment—was it her writing style, the added insight into someone I admire, or the story itself? With time and distance from that first reading, I can confidently say it’s all three. This is a beautifully written, meaningful memoir that stands on its own and will resonate with a wide audience.

[Suzanne Koutroubis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suzanne K

I was deeply grateful to receive an advanced copy of Raising Athena, and it did not disappoint. From the very first page, I found myself eager to keep reading, drawn in by the beautifully crafted words that so perfectly conveyed an honest and heartfelt account of memories, hopes, and dreams.



The love parents have for their children is one of life’s greatest privileges, and it was truly inspiring to see that all three of MyLinh’s children followed in their parents’ footsteps of service, bravery, and valor. MyLinh, thank you for your service—and for your family’s service as well.



This book is a moving tribute to family, honestly portraying the joys, accomplishments, hardships, and dangers that our military heroes face each day. Their sacrifice is deeply admirable.



I especially appreciated the reference to Ithaca, which brought back fond memories of a warm Florida evening shared with dear friends and many special moments together. Having also been to Normandy, I was especially touched by MyLinh’s family’s heartfelt journey there.

Raising Athena is a beautiful, inspiring, and unforgettable story of love, sacrifice, and family legacy.

[Theresa Welles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raising Athena is a beautifully written, deeply thoughtful memoir about what it really means to raise, and become, a strong woman, marked by a quiet admiration for the few who choose military service and all that path demands—not only of them, but for the family who live alongside that choice.

This elegantly written memoir lingers in the heart and mind well after the final page.

Theresa Welles, PhD

[Brian E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully and gracefully written and woven together. I learned so much about MyLinh’s history and love how she notices everything about an event and crafts the words and adds details so that you feel you were also present at the event. Her deep thinking and introspection made me want to write my own West Point journey. A superb and memorable memoir full of the ideals of selfless service to our country. Wonderful!

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, so much more than I expected! When I started this book, I believed that I would be reading about the trials and tribulations of life at West Point as a woman in a male dominated society both past and present. What I found was part memoir, part history lesson, part love letter (to Cara, her daughter) and finally part introspection on what it meant to be a woman at West Point near the inception of women cadets and how it has evolved with all its challenges and rewards. I walk away with more insight into the institution, the complexities of the choice to serve as well as the parts that unite us as humans. Though there was much I learned about the military, there was much of the book that was universal.  I could relate to being a youth struggling to find my place in the world, as a parent who was wholly engaged in creating humans who were curious, kind and engaged, to most recently guiding my young adults to become productive humans while dealing with a soon to be empty nest. I am a sheep to her shepherd, but we share our love and concerns for our children in this crazy world. To protect them from the wolves who disrupt and devour. 


What is truly inspiring is that, knowing all she knew from her time in the service, she was still able to put her concerns aside to support, guide, and most importantly allow her daughter the independence to pursue her own dreams. A gift I am not sure I could have bestowed without a heavy dose of caution or worse!


Raising Athena was an inspiring, thoughtful collection of stories and ideas woven together to create an introspective uplifting read about military progress, leading a meaningful life and creating independent children who stand on their own two feet. I am in awe of the strength of character it took Mylinh to rise to the challenges of West Point, and thankful that we have those who meet the call of service to defend and protect us.  


One of the many quotes in Mylinh's novel that has stuck with me when talking about that turnaround point or inflection point in life which fundamentally alters a person's trajectory and its broader meaning: 


"Could it be that the movement of any of us through our lives is connected through interactions with each other, that one life and its reach binds us in the present, in the past, and into the future?"


How do our choices reflect on others? I believe that she as well as her Cara were prepared to enter the military without grandiose visions of valor and glory, because they were surrounded by people who saw and understood the enormity of the task and signed on anyway. From being evacuated by helicopter from Vietnam, to contending with the enormous dangers facing her child, she strives to reflect on her life and enlighten us along the way, truly remarkable!


No truer statement was contained within the acknowledgments, and I was struck by it's simple fact: "The greatest of gifts - to lay down one's life - is a weight carried by survivors, by parents, by spouses, by families. Only the parents and family know this fear, and it is a fear of injury and ultimate loss, the sacrifice of their greatest blessing. This last wish goes to them, the parents whose children serve in harm's way, and to the warriors who stand in the gap between their home and the enemy: the nation would not be here without you. And I would not be here without you." In my opinion, it belongs on the dedication page for all to see. Not just the few who read all the way through to the end!


I want to thank you Mylinh for your family's continued service, and sharing your thoughts and perspectives during this turbulent time in history!

[Kathleen. A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a mother of a West Point Cadet, this memoir felt especially meaningful to me. Though my cadet is my son, I was glued to the pages learning about the experiences of a mother and daughter at the venerable United States Military Academy.

The story begins with the powerful account of the author’s family during the Vietnam War, including their dramatic escape hours before the fall of Saigon with the help of the U.S. military. It is a suspenseful opening and perhaps the origin of the deeply rooted sense of “Duty, Honor, Country” that runs in the Shattan family.

Mylinh Shattan takes you with her into the halls of West Point as one of the early classes that accepted women. I love how honestly she reveals her challenges and triumphs. What comes through is her personal growth aided by the classmates and superiors that supported her. That along with miles of fortitude.

There were several moments that brought me to tears. Mylinh generously opens herself to the reader and shares her fears about motherhood and what it means to raise a daughter who chooses the path of a warrior. What stands out is her strength, vulnerability, and her deep commitment to both family and service.

You do not have to have a military background to enjoy this story of the writer’s journey in becoming a soldier, leader, wife and mother. Mylinh is inspirational not only to her family but to anyone who learns of her story.

[Khue N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I am so honored and grateful that the author allowed me to read the book. Her meticulous writing skills have given me immense knowledge of the background and family history which I have long to understand. Yet, after having read the book and unknown to her military life, I am in awe and full of wonder how she has lived life...with such dignity and honor and how humble she is with everyone she encountered.

After reading her book, she has educated me so much with the history of WestPoint and what was experienced while learning to serve the country. The author’s dedication and commitment to self and country is truly commendable. Furthermore, her telling stories from the past is so educational and enlightening, such as the understanding of “Quan Am” and many other intriguing stories mentioned in the book. LOVE IT! The author inspires me to “exercise my brain” as she is full of life, curiosity and inspiration.

Again, thanks for sharing this story as an incredible, talented and beautiful “Mother & Daughter”.

[Andrew Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think MyLinh’s story is a story worth telling, one spanning generations of selflessness and courage, of love and endurance through hardship. This ruminative and honest grappling of haunting questions surrounding parenting, death, the future, the past, and our place in a world of rapid change makes for a more than compelling read. This is not only a book for military families alone to read. MyLinh’s story is about hope, progress, and finding peace in turbulent and trying periods of life, of staying grounded and present as the past and the future tug at you from both ends. I hope this book finds those who seek comfort in the journey of watching those they love become their own people, individuals who, like the author, will come to have regrets about choices made or unmade that come to define, in small or large part, the person they become.

[Gail Dwyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an early draft of this book and was glad to have the opportunity to read it. I'd read some of Shattan's writing before and enjoy the way she writes! It’s a rare gift to come across a story that's both meaningful — as this story is — and beautifully written. Shattan somehow manages to strike the perfect balance between a warm, inviting voice, and crisp, well-crafted prose. Her writing is a joy to read. Shattan may have written this book to share her unique perspective as a West Point graduate and a mother, but this story goes beyond that. This is a story about family, service, duty, sacrifice, and love. I highly recommend it!

[Christine Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for military and non-military families. MyLinh lays bare the worry and sacrifice that our soldiers and their loved ones carry everyday. A vital resource for a citizenry that is increasingly isolated from the dangerous vocation that is the armed forces.

The highest compliment I give a writer is that while I read, I'm unaware of the writing. The words are doing their job, painting a picture without getting in the way. MyLinh is a master at this. While the subject is weighty, the reading is effortless.

Christine Hansen, parent of 2021 West Point cadet

[Beth Driver · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Raising Athena" was a fabulous book, and I very much recommend it. I was impressed at how vulnerable the author was, and I can see how this work would be useful for any leadership course. Although I did not personally serve in the military, I do know women who have, and it was so interesting to learn more about the challenges female service members face within the armed services. I can see how leaders would learn a lot from this book -- and how this work could help our military become stronger and effective because it emphasizes how all can add to this success, no matter who they are.

[D DuVaught · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've known MyLinh for decades and I still saw more of her in this book than I ever knew. It's beautifully written, and the way she presents military life makes it palatable to anyone, whether or not they know that world. There are so many things in this book I didn't know, and the way she presents them, it all lands. It turned out really well. It's beautiful!”
Dihanna D, lifelong friend