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If I Had Two Lives
This luminous debut novel follows a young woman from her childhood in Vietnam to her life as an immigrant in the United States – and her necessary return to her homeland.
As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother, she turns for affection to a sympathetic soldier and to the only other girl in the camp, forming two friendships that will shape the rest of her life.
As a young adult in New York, cut off from her native country and haunted by the scars of her youth, she is still in search of a home. She falls in love with a married woman who is the image of her childhood friend, and follows strangers because they remind her of her soldier. When tragedy arises, she must return to Vietnam to confront the memories of her youth – and recover her identity.
An inspiring meditation on love, loss, and the presence of a past that never dies, the novel explores the ancient question: do we value the people in our lives because of who they are, or because of what we need them to be?
240 pages, Paperback
First published April 9, 2019
32 people are currently reading
1633 people want to read
About the author
Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood
5 books69 followersAbbigail Nguyen Rosewood is a Vietnamese and American author. After having spent 20 years in the U.S, she is now a reversed immigrant living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with her husband and their daughter.
Her debut novel, IF I HAD TWO LIVES, is out from Europa Editions. Her second novel CONSTELLATIONS OF EVE is the inaugural title available now from DVAN/TTUP, a publishing imprint founded by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, a scholar of Asian American history and literature, and Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen to promote Vietnamese American literature.
Her works can be found at TIME Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Salon, Cosmopolitan, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, Catapult, Pen America, BOMB, among others. In 2019, her hybrid writing was featured in a multimedia art and poetry exhibit at Eccles Gallery. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best American Short Story 2020, and was a finalist for the 49th New Millennium Writing Award. She won first place in the Writers Workshop of Asheville Literary Fiction contest.
She currently serves on the graduating thesis committee at Columbia University. She is the founder of Neon Door, an immersive art exhibit.
Her debut novel, IF I HAD TWO LIVES, is out from Europa Editions. Her second novel CONSTELLATIONS OF EVE is the inaugural title available now from DVAN/TTUP, a publishing imprint founded by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, a scholar of Asian American history and literature, and Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen to promote Vietnamese American literature.
Her works can be found at TIME Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Salon, Cosmopolitan, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, Catapult, Pen America, BOMB, among others. In 2019, her hybrid writing was featured in a multimedia art and poetry exhibit at Eccles Gallery. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best American Short Story 2020, and was a finalist for the 49th New Millennium Writing Award. She won first place in the Writers Workshop of Asheville Literary Fiction contest.
She currently serves on the graduating thesis committee at Columbia University. She is the founder of Neon Door, an immersive art exhibit.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
March 24, 2024
This is possibly the first book I've read and not known anyone's name which feels weird. It's also one of the few books where I've disliked every single character, which I have a feeling was the intention.
Set between Vietnam and the States this is a story about the various layers of relationships. The complicated layers of relationships.
While I didn't like any of the characters, while I didn't bond with anyone at all and they all remain nameless to me, I actually quite enjoyed this. Its beautifully written and I felt transported to another time, another place. It didn't blow me away though, hence the three stars.
Set between Vietnam and the States this is a story about the various layers of relationships. The complicated layers of relationships.
While I didn't like any of the characters, while I didn't bond with anyone at all and they all remain nameless to me, I actually quite enjoyed this. Its beautifully written and I felt transported to another time, another place. It didn't blow me away though, hence the three stars.
March 6, 2019
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'My mother had no daughter. It was her gift to me.'
The novel begins in Vietnam as our young narrator is reunited with her mother, living under protection inside a military camp after she comes to the dangerous attention of the Prime Minister for her work as an energy consultant “bringing electricity to hundreds of districts in Vietnam”. Angering those corrupted by greed who would rather abuse the funds by “buying defunct equipment” keeping the wealth for themselves,her only option had been to seek refuge, leaving behind her daughter. Her lieutenant friend saves her, but she must remain loyal to the President. Cassette tapes were their means of communication during the separation but now she is living with her mother among other families under military protection as well. Lonely, she spends her time being cared for by ‘my soldier’, there to take care of her every need, emotional and otherwise, more nurturing than her distant mother. Her mother’s overload of information a jumbled mess to her child’s mind, “I wanted only to be held, to press my nose to her stomach,” she feels like a failure, a poor student, worse a bed wetter. To no longer be given away, she promises to be good, oblivious to her mother’s political games, not understanding that the only reason they are alive is because of her mother’s abandonment.
A child of loneliness her entire existence, everything changes when she meets ‘little girl’. The two sometimes merging into one, making up stories for each other, giving funerals for bugs, playing games and sharing in the disgusting shame of the adults. Little girl is destined for poverty and ignorance, and yet she is the deepest, earliest connection to love she will ever know. Their love is a sisterhood that will haunt her for years to come. The past becomes ash when her mother manages to help her escape to the United States to begin her second life leaving behind her best friend.
Part Two or second life to my thinking, she is now a grown adult recalling the punishing years of moving through different homes of friends, families, her mother’s connections in America, never fitting in. Longing for information about her mother “lost in her fiction”, trying to follow Vietnam’s politics, knowing she is alive only through second hand sources, sorting through gossip online, life is again solitary. She meets a woman named Lilah in Montauk, New York, echoing the immediate bond she once shared with ‘little girl’. Pulled into her escapades and ‘affairs’, passion grows between them until their lives merge. Lilah has wounds that fester but her eccentricities and boundless energy hide the sorrow. “I was drawn to her because people are drawn to uncertainty, the abyss.” When around husband Jon, Lilah is less free, diminished somehow. The two become three and she surrenders herself in their hands. This is where the story explores the meaning of friendship, love, all-consuming grief and the maniacal nature of fate. She is between two places always, until tragedy strikes and life comes full circle in Part Three. It is a strange and tragic tale. The defilement of both the narrator and her friend at the start of the novel had me gutted, the horrors always eat away at the children when it comes to politics, don’t they? Hard to read, but closing your eyes changes nothing. It’s a rupture in time, the things that transpire. As a grown woman I certainly don’t make light of how mind numbing it must be to make your way through the world without the nurturing and love of parents. Tragic doing so while moving between two countries, two identities with scars and severe trauma. That is shocking enough, a child hungry for love, connection so much so that she is willing to encompass her best friend’s pain as her own, later learning to be degraded, coming of age expecting nothing as not to feel disappointment. There is another vital character later, her neighbor, and I love how they both act as ghosts in a sense for each other, but come to mean so much more. The author’s take on loss and love hit me between the eyes. Loss… loss as ‘a fuller experience than love’ opened the floodgates for me. Whoa!
I stayed up late last night, devouring every last page and that is saying a lot as I am recovering from invasive surgery, but I was at the end and it was actually my favorite part. The beginning reads a bit differently than when our narrator is an adult, because it is told through the mist of youth, but it flows. Yes, read it!
Publication Date: April 19, 2019
Europa Editions
'My mother had no daughter. It was her gift to me.'
The novel begins in Vietnam as our young narrator is reunited with her mother, living under protection inside a military camp after she comes to the dangerous attention of the Prime Minister for her work as an energy consultant “bringing electricity to hundreds of districts in Vietnam”. Angering those corrupted by greed who would rather abuse the funds by “buying defunct equipment” keeping the wealth for themselves,her only option had been to seek refuge, leaving behind her daughter. Her lieutenant friend saves her, but she must remain loyal to the President. Cassette tapes were their means of communication during the separation but now she is living with her mother among other families under military protection as well. Lonely, she spends her time being cared for by ‘my soldier’, there to take care of her every need, emotional and otherwise, more nurturing than her distant mother. Her mother’s overload of information a jumbled mess to her child’s mind, “I wanted only to be held, to press my nose to her stomach,” she feels like a failure, a poor student, worse a bed wetter. To no longer be given away, she promises to be good, oblivious to her mother’s political games, not understanding that the only reason they are alive is because of her mother’s abandonment.
A child of loneliness her entire existence, everything changes when she meets ‘little girl’. The two sometimes merging into one, making up stories for each other, giving funerals for bugs, playing games and sharing in the disgusting shame of the adults. Little girl is destined for poverty and ignorance, and yet she is the deepest, earliest connection to love she will ever know. Their love is a sisterhood that will haunt her for years to come. The past becomes ash when her mother manages to help her escape to the United States to begin her second life leaving behind her best friend.
Part Two or second life to my thinking, she is now a grown adult recalling the punishing years of moving through different homes of friends, families, her mother’s connections in America, never fitting in. Longing for information about her mother “lost in her fiction”, trying to follow Vietnam’s politics, knowing she is alive only through second hand sources, sorting through gossip online, life is again solitary. She meets a woman named Lilah in Montauk, New York, echoing the immediate bond she once shared with ‘little girl’. Pulled into her escapades and ‘affairs’, passion grows between them until their lives merge. Lilah has wounds that fester but her eccentricities and boundless energy hide the sorrow. “I was drawn to her because people are drawn to uncertainty, the abyss.” When around husband Jon, Lilah is less free, diminished somehow. The two become three and she surrenders herself in their hands. This is where the story explores the meaning of friendship, love, all-consuming grief and the maniacal nature of fate. She is between two places always, until tragedy strikes and life comes full circle in Part Three. It is a strange and tragic tale. The defilement of both the narrator and her friend at the start of the novel had me gutted, the horrors always eat away at the children when it comes to politics, don’t they? Hard to read, but closing your eyes changes nothing. It’s a rupture in time, the things that transpire. As a grown woman I certainly don’t make light of how mind numbing it must be to make your way through the world without the nurturing and love of parents. Tragic doing so while moving between two countries, two identities with scars and severe trauma. That is shocking enough, a child hungry for love, connection so much so that she is willing to encompass her best friend’s pain as her own, later learning to be degraded, coming of age expecting nothing as not to feel disappointment. There is another vital character later, her neighbor, and I love how they both act as ghosts in a sense for each other, but come to mean so much more. The author’s take on loss and love hit me between the eyes. Loss… loss as ‘a fuller experience than love’ opened the floodgates for me. Whoa!
I stayed up late last night, devouring every last page and that is saying a lot as I am recovering from invasive surgery, but I was at the end and it was actually my favorite part. The beginning reads a bit differently than when our narrator is an adult, because it is told through the mist of youth, but it flows. Yes, read it!
Publication Date: April 19, 2019
Europa Editions
April 28, 2019
Visit the locations in the novel
This is such an emotional read. I really hesitated with the star rating. For a book with these themes and subject matter, stars always seem wrong somehow. The writing was good but I struggled with the subject and it was a tough read given the violence and brutality against women.
We meet the narrator of this novel in Vietnam as she is there to meet her mother who is living in a military camp. She’s there for her own protection since she works as an energy consultant and not everyone in the country agree with what she does. This is a country where control of the people is paramount.
The daughter is looked after by a soldier who has more time to spend with her. It was really sad to see the breakdown of the relationship and the desperate need of a child to seek love from her own mother and not really get it . However what the child doesn’t know is that the mother is only cold and distant as it has been the only way to save them both. She does form a close friendship with another girl, but then has to leave her too when she manages to be smuggled out to America.
A new life beckons. And this is when we see her desperate journey of trying to fit in to a new homeland. She tries to connect with home and news of her mother. This is a sad and tricky time for her and it was interesting to see how she coped and what she went through. I was pleased when she met Lilah !
This is certainly a tale of loss and love, of heartbreak and wanting to fit in, be a part of something. It’s emotional on so many levels too. Add to that cultural differences, politics and a wide gap between freedom and duty and it’s hard to imagine.
Quite a novel. One that has ripples long after you’ve finished reading it.
February 1, 2019
So entranced was I by this book that I slowed my reading toward the end to prolong my time with the story and its characters. The writing is hauntingly beautiful with precise descriptions that don’t shy away from grotesque or difficult realities. It’s a story of the search for belonging (in both place and people), of deep and compassionate friendships, of journeys: from one country to another, from childhood to adolescence, adolescence to adulthood. If you're looking for a read with spell-binding prose, a well-woven story and a slice of untold history, read this book.
March 1, 2019
The premise of this sounded like it had great potential - following a young woman from her childhood in a military encampment Vietnam to her eventual move to America but I found the characters hard to care about and the plot points implausible. I get why the main character was supposed to be motivated to make the decisions she did... but I didn't buy it, things felt so forced. Not for me.
Thank you Netgalley and Europa Editions for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you Netgalley and Europa Editions for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
January 13, 2019
If I Had Two Lives, I would read this book again so that I could rediscover the gorgeous, devastating story anew. This is a work of staggering beauty and compassion, portraying the themes of friendship, motherhood, family and belonging with deft lyricism. I could not put it down.
October 7, 2019
I did like this book. Although, I found that I struggled with finding the strong emotional connection that this type of book requires.
Our young woman is a good narrator. She does bring me the reader into her world. I instantly got a good visual into what life was like for her. Therefore, I understood her "obsession" with the solider and young girl. Which in turn transpired into her new life in America.
What I struggled with is that the other characters were "faceless". In what I mean by this is that because I did not share a strong connection to the other characters, they could have been anyone. They were characters in this story but it was mainly the young woman's voice that was the star of this book for me.
Our young woman is a good narrator. She does bring me the reader into her world. I instantly got a good visual into what life was like for her. Therefore, I understood her "obsession" with the solider and young girl. Which in turn transpired into her new life in America.
What I struggled with is that the other characters were "faceless". In what I mean by this is that because I did not share a strong connection to the other characters, they could have been anyone. They were characters in this story but it was mainly the young woman's voice that was the star of this book for me.
May 15, 2019
Novel set in NEW YORK and VIETNAM
If I Had Two Lives is a brilliant debut novel in two parts. Abbigail, like the heroine in the book, was brought up in Vietnam until the age of twelve and then moved to the United States. The first half of the book describes life in Vietnam for our nameless heroine (the book is written in the first person throughout and she never tells us her name…). From the age of four to twelve she lives in a military camp with her mother somewhere in Vietnam. Her mother has been moved to the camp for her own protection from elements in the government that are hostile to her. Life in the camp is not easy, but it is not too difficult. She is befriended by ‘her’ soldier, who looks after her and tutors her (and for whom she has a childish crush…) and by the only other girl in the camp – someone of similar age, but very different background. They play together incessantly.
When she is twelve her mother arranges for her to escape Vietnam by emigrating to the States. She promises she will follow, but never does – in fact she rises to a position of considerable power and influence under a new regime in Vietnam. Our heroine lives with various distant relatives and friends until she is an adult. But she cannot escape her past. She sees on the New York subway someone who reminds her of ‘her’ soldier and follows him to his house. She moves into the apartment below his, and they become friends. On a weekend trip to new England she meets, and begins to fall in love with, a woman who reminds her of the girl in the camp. The woman is married, but can’t have children. She has an affair with her and finally agrees to be a surrogate mother to the couple’s baby. To do so she has to make a baby (in the normal way) with the husband. They really do become a threesome. Just before the birth the couple are killed in a car crash – and our heroine is left (literally) holding the baby.
Four years later she sets off with her daughter to Vietnam – in an effort to lay her past to rest. She intends to seek out both her mother (who she sees but only from afar) and the girl from the camp – now, of course, a woman. The woman has fallen on tough times and scratches out a living as a beggar living in a slum hut. She, too, has a daughter the same age as our heroine’s. At first she pretends not to recognise her erstwhile friend, but then she comes round. She wants a better life for her daughter, and wants her to go back to the States with our heroine and her daughter. To facilitate this she commits suicide and leaves her friend to adopt her child.
Luckily the two girls get on famously. Back in New York they form a credible (if somewhat oddl) family with the heroine and the man upstairs who reminds her of ‘her’ soldier. As far as we know, they live happily ever after.
If I Had Two Lives is a more than impressive debut novel – handling difficult issues with sensitivity and a beautiful and involving writing style.
Recommended.
If I Had Two Lives is a brilliant debut novel in two parts. Abbigail, like the heroine in the book, was brought up in Vietnam until the age of twelve and then moved to the United States. The first half of the book describes life in Vietnam for our nameless heroine (the book is written in the first person throughout and she never tells us her name…). From the age of four to twelve she lives in a military camp with her mother somewhere in Vietnam. Her mother has been moved to the camp for her own protection from elements in the government that are hostile to her. Life in the camp is not easy, but it is not too difficult. She is befriended by ‘her’ soldier, who looks after her and tutors her (and for whom she has a childish crush…) and by the only other girl in the camp – someone of similar age, but very different background. They play together incessantly.
When she is twelve her mother arranges for her to escape Vietnam by emigrating to the States. She promises she will follow, but never does – in fact she rises to a position of considerable power and influence under a new regime in Vietnam. Our heroine lives with various distant relatives and friends until she is an adult. But she cannot escape her past. She sees on the New York subway someone who reminds her of ‘her’ soldier and follows him to his house. She moves into the apartment below his, and they become friends. On a weekend trip to new England she meets, and begins to fall in love with, a woman who reminds her of the girl in the camp. The woman is married, but can’t have children. She has an affair with her and finally agrees to be a surrogate mother to the couple’s baby. To do so she has to make a baby (in the normal way) with the husband. They really do become a threesome. Just before the birth the couple are killed in a car crash – and our heroine is left (literally) holding the baby.
Four years later she sets off with her daughter to Vietnam – in an effort to lay her past to rest. She intends to seek out both her mother (who she sees but only from afar) and the girl from the camp – now, of course, a woman. The woman has fallen on tough times and scratches out a living as a beggar living in a slum hut. She, too, has a daughter the same age as our heroine’s. At first she pretends not to recognise her erstwhile friend, but then she comes round. She wants a better life for her daughter, and wants her to go back to the States with our heroine and her daughter. To facilitate this she commits suicide and leaves her friend to adopt her child.
Luckily the two girls get on famously. Back in New York they form a credible (if somewhat oddl) family with the heroine and the man upstairs who reminds her of ‘her’ soldier. As far as we know, they live happily ever after.
If I Had Two Lives is a more than impressive debut novel – handling difficult issues with sensitivity and a beautiful and involving writing style.
Recommended.
May 9, 2019
An interesting novel, but a bit of an uneven read for me.
I really enjoyed the first part of the story, which introduced us to a young girl being reunited with a mother who'd left her three years earlier. As seen through the young girl's eyes the relationship between them is somewhat strained and remote. Even when physically present, mother is not particularly warm or nurturing. The protagonist befriends another child in the camp where they live, and is more warmly treated by a soldier there to watch out for her. The voice in this part of the story seemed genuine and evoked the confusion and observational simplicity a child in these circumstances might experience. The complexity of attachment is threaded through the developing friendships, as the child matures and tries to make sense of inner feelings and outside events.
The remainder of the novel focuses on the protagonist as an adult, after being sent from the camp by her mother due to concerns about safety. Continuing to be somewhat isolated socially, she befriends two people who remind her of those lost (the little girl and soldier from her youth). The story explores how the events from our childhood can cling to us, affecting what we think and do, and pulling us in directions we don't always understand. It was difficult to feel I really understood the characters and their motivations in the latter part of the story, which left me uncertain as to how to understand some of the events portrayed. Perhaps that is what was intended by the author...to leave questions and uncertainties, because we don't always have all the answers we seek in actual life.
What I liked most in the book was the exploration of loneliness and not fitting in, which is a universal challenge for so many.
I really enjoyed the first part of the story, which introduced us to a young girl being reunited with a mother who'd left her three years earlier. As seen through the young girl's eyes the relationship between them is somewhat strained and remote. Even when physically present, mother is not particularly warm or nurturing. The protagonist befriends another child in the camp where they live, and is more warmly treated by a soldier there to watch out for her. The voice in this part of the story seemed genuine and evoked the confusion and observational simplicity a child in these circumstances might experience. The complexity of attachment is threaded through the developing friendships, as the child matures and tries to make sense of inner feelings and outside events.
The remainder of the novel focuses on the protagonist as an adult, after being sent from the camp by her mother due to concerns about safety. Continuing to be somewhat isolated socially, she befriends two people who remind her of those lost (the little girl and soldier from her youth). The story explores how the events from our childhood can cling to us, affecting what we think and do, and pulling us in directions we don't always understand. It was difficult to feel I really understood the characters and their motivations in the latter part of the story, which left me uncertain as to how to understand some of the events portrayed. Perhaps that is what was intended by the author...to leave questions and uncertainties, because we don't always have all the answers we seek in actual life.
What I liked most in the book was the exploration of loneliness and not fitting in, which is a universal challenge for so many.
March 29, 2019
2.5/5
This story was interesting but it wasn't for me. I thought it missed some deeper meaning. There was a lot of facts and not enough description of how the protagonist felt. A lot happened to her and it was like it flew right pass her head.🙁
This story was interesting but it wasn't for me. I thought it missed some deeper meaning. There was a lot of facts and not enough description of how the protagonist felt. A lot happened to her and it was like it flew right pass her head.🙁
April 5, 2019
Gorgeous storytelling that haunts and will stay with you long after the last page.
March 20, 2019
The book opens in 1998 Vietnam, when the 7-yr old narrator is reunited with her mother at a Vietnamese military camp, where the mom might be some kind of political dissident? All the girl's relationships throughout the story are extreme: from abusive and obsessive to abject neglect. As a child the girl's only companions are a soldier who tutors her, and a traumatized little girl she befriends and creates havoc with. Part Two takes place years later in the US, when at the age of 24 she replaces her soldier with a raunch-talking lawyer neighbor; and the little girl and her rapey father with an unstable older woman and her husband that she finds in Montauk. Author Abbigail Rosewood, who came to America from Vietnam herself at the age of 12, captures viscerally the anguish of being stuck between cultures, the language barriers and isolation. I think the editors could have done a better job of giving her narrator a consistently non-native English speaking voice, instead of the very rare and thus jarring instances of "her angular jaws" and "he took the straw in his mouth and drained the teacup," personally I think it would have made sense to include more elements of linguistic Vietnamese.
Reading this had me uncomfortably on edge, there was a murmuring undercurrent of distress and potential violence throughout, and the characters were all so unstable it was exhausting. Random grabbing of someone's hair in a fist mid-conversation, inappropriately brutal language in an otherwise benign setting, a grown woman attempting repeatedly to stroke butterfly wings; also I was distracted throughout by clumsy disconnects, random mentions that led nowhere, gratuitous perversions, and all the bedwetting - how could these people possibly have enough clean linens and mattresses to manage?! I love a well-written psychological thriller; Joyce Carol Oates is my favorite author, I can enjoy the gore and terror she presents and admire her imagination, creativity and research skills. In contrast, this comes across as a boundary-pushing ruthless and superficial word salad a la crisis-borne confessional. I hope Abbigail Rosewood (or Nguyen Dang Hai Anh) is okay.
Reading this had me uncomfortably on edge, there was a murmuring undercurrent of distress and potential violence throughout, and the characters were all so unstable it was exhausting. Random grabbing of someone's hair in a fist mid-conversation, inappropriately brutal language in an otherwise benign setting, a grown woman attempting repeatedly to stroke butterfly wings; also I was distracted throughout by clumsy disconnects, random mentions that led nowhere, gratuitous perversions, and all the bedwetting - how could these people possibly have enough clean linens and mattresses to manage?! I love a well-written psychological thriller; Joyce Carol Oates is my favorite author, I can enjoy the gore and terror she presents and admire her imagination, creativity and research skills. In contrast, this comes across as a boundary-pushing ruthless and superficial word salad a la crisis-borne confessional. I hope Abbigail Rosewood (or Nguyen Dang Hai Anh) is okay.
April 20, 2019
A young girl joins her mother in a Vietnamese military camp at the age of four, after not seeing her for some years and struggles to connect with her in the way her heart yearns, instead becoming overly attentive to trying to please her in a way that children who can't take having parents there for them for granted might react. She succeeds in attaching herself to the solider who accompanies here whenever she has to go anywhere, even though he discourage it.
She befriends a little girl she finds stacking bricks, their time together establishes the few memories of childhood both will retain, both haunted by the last time they see each other.
In Part Two the girl is sent by her mother to America and promises to follow her there, she drifts from family connections to friends until she's outworn her welcome everywhere. She follows a stranger home because he reminds her of the solider. She befriends a young woman who reminds her of the girl. Her life seems created out of illusion, of faces that have haunted her. But she is not the only one with a past, living with the effects of trauma.
Meeting both these strangers will change the course of her life and eventually she will confront her past, revisit her home country and look for what she lost, taking with her what she has gained.
It's a hard book to describe and one that is disturbing in parts to read, laced with a sadness for a girl that it seems was unwanted, although she was given opportunities, just not love or affection, so in turn her own life seems without purpose and missing something that she can't describe.
I'm not sure I could say I enjoyed it, but it's certainly thought provoking and makes me wonder about the inspiration behind writing it, and the number of sad lives being lived by others, neither from one place nor another, without families, trying to make sense of the world.
She befriends a little girl she finds stacking bricks, their time together establishes the few memories of childhood both will retain, both haunted by the last time they see each other.
In Part Two the girl is sent by her mother to America and promises to follow her there, she drifts from family connections to friends until she's outworn her welcome everywhere. She follows a stranger home because he reminds her of the solider. She befriends a young woman who reminds her of the girl. Her life seems created out of illusion, of faces that have haunted her. But she is not the only one with a past, living with the effects of trauma.
Meeting both these strangers will change the course of her life and eventually she will confront her past, revisit her home country and look for what she lost, taking with her what she has gained.
It's a hard book to describe and one that is disturbing in parts to read, laced with a sadness for a girl that it seems was unwanted, although she was given opportunities, just not love or affection, so in turn her own life seems without purpose and missing something that she can't describe.
I'm not sure I could say I enjoyed it, but it's certainly thought provoking and makes me wonder about the inspiration behind writing it, and the number of sad lives being lived by others, neither from one place nor another, without families, trying to make sense of the world.
October 9, 2019
The protagonist narrator of Abbigail Rosewood’s If I had two Lives hides behind other people’s emotions like a child hiding behind her mother’s skirt. But this child, growing up in a Vietnamese military camp, gets little support from her mother and latches onto another lonely girl for guidance and companionship instead.
The first part of the novel gives an evocative portrayal of postwar Vietnamese life and trials through the eyes of a child. In a world of men, two girls are vulnerable. And in a world of separation, attachment is both danger and treasure.
The protagonist loses focus, mirrored by shifts in the story, as the second part of the novel begins in a not-overly welcoming America. But she finds another lonely girl – lonely adult now – and begins to fill her life again with stories. Except that adult stories have a habit of becoming real.
Returning, child as mother now, to Vietnam, the story shifts and changes again. Coming full circle, it leaves the reader wondering how far fiction and imagination define a life, and how far children redefine it? Do we have two lives, before and after childbirth? And how much of who we are is determined by circumstance; how much do we choose?
By the end of the novel, the protagonist does indeed have two lives, and the reader is left to ponder, which do we love more—real life or the life we make up for ourselves?
Disclosure: I was given a copy and I freely offer my honest review.
The first part of the novel gives an evocative portrayal of postwar Vietnamese life and trials through the eyes of a child. In a world of men, two girls are vulnerable. And in a world of separation, attachment is both danger and treasure.
The protagonist loses focus, mirrored by shifts in the story, as the second part of the novel begins in a not-overly welcoming America. But she finds another lonely girl – lonely adult now – and begins to fill her life again with stories. Except that adult stories have a habit of becoming real.
Returning, child as mother now, to Vietnam, the story shifts and changes again. Coming full circle, it leaves the reader wondering how far fiction and imagination define a life, and how far children redefine it? Do we have two lives, before and after childbirth? And how much of who we are is determined by circumstance; how much do we choose?
By the end of the novel, the protagonist does indeed have two lives, and the reader is left to ponder, which do we love more—real life or the life we make up for ourselves?
Disclosure: I was given a copy and I freely offer my honest review.
April 1, 2019
I don't feel like I got the essence and message of this book. The story itself was flat to me. It should have been one that pulled at my heartstrings but it really didn't. I thought it was confusing, forlorn, haunting, fragmented ... I could go on and on. Somehow I believe that there is more to this book that I missed and perhaps another reader will see it entirely differently than I did.
I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway for this honest review.
I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway for this honest review.
February 13, 2019
Beautiful characters, an incredible story. Heartbreaking and compelling.
June 7, 2022
#ASIAINPRIDE 1
"Se avessi due vite" è un romanzo sulla ricerca di sè stessi. Pochi nomi sono menzionati nel libro: perché che cos'è un nome quando non si conosce la propria identità?
Se lo chiede la protagonista che ci racconta la sua storia: un'infanzia segregata in un accampamento militare, si lega strettamente a un soldato, a metà tra un fratello, un padre e un amante, e ad una bambina che nasconde una storia di abusi.
Quella stessa dinamica si ricrea anche nella sua vita di adulta quando la protagonista emigra negli Stati Uniti e insegue il sogno di ritrovare il "suo" soldato e l'amica; incrocia la propria esistenza con un vicino di casa, intreccia una relazione con Lilah, crea un nucleo "ideale" dove trovare rifugio fino a quando il sottile equilibrio si infrange.
Vite di abbandoni e non-appartenenza che come tasselli in disordine aspettano di essere rimessi al loro posto e formare finalmente un puzzle. Come in un ciclo karmico, le stesse storie si ripetono mentre la protagonista cerca la sua identità.
Avvincente, emozionante e sensibile: è stata una gioia leggerlo!
"Se avessi due vite" è un romanzo sulla ricerca di sè stessi. Pochi nomi sono menzionati nel libro: perché che cos'è un nome quando non si conosce la propria identità?
Se lo chiede la protagonista che ci racconta la sua storia: un'infanzia segregata in un accampamento militare, si lega strettamente a un soldato, a metà tra un fratello, un padre e un amante, e ad una bambina che nasconde una storia di abusi.
Quella stessa dinamica si ricrea anche nella sua vita di adulta quando la protagonista emigra negli Stati Uniti e insegue il sogno di ritrovare il "suo" soldato e l'amica; incrocia la propria esistenza con un vicino di casa, intreccia una relazione con Lilah, crea un nucleo "ideale" dove trovare rifugio fino a quando il sottile equilibrio si infrange.
Vite di abbandoni e non-appartenenza che come tasselli in disordine aspettano di essere rimessi al loro posto e formare finalmente un puzzle. Come in un ciclo karmico, le stesse storie si ripetono mentre la protagonista cerca la sua identità.
Avvincente, emozionante e sensibile: è stata una gioia leggerlo!
March 16, 2022
I tried. And tried again. I stopped at around 60%, listened to another book and then tried this again. I didn't last long before finally giving up. This just isn't for me.
Between when I received an ARC of this book and when I finally got around to starting it, I'd forgotten this was fiction and was expecting a memoir. Fiction would have been fine, but I just didn't care for the main character. At all. So I never bought into this story and it dragged along. Life's just too short to spend reading books that don't bring us some level of enjoyment. I'm moving on...
Thanks to Europa Editions and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. I ended up borrowing these audiobook from my local library and this is likely the reason I even made it to 60%.
Between when I received an ARC of this book and when I finally got around to starting it, I'd forgotten this was fiction and was expecting a memoir. Fiction would have been fine, but I just didn't care for the main character. At all. So I never bought into this story and it dragged along. Life's just too short to spend reading books that don't bring us some level of enjoyment. I'm moving on...
Thanks to Europa Editions and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. I ended up borrowing these audiobook from my local library and this is likely the reason I even made it to 60%.
March 25, 2020
3.5. A painful but compelling read, one feels some of it is autobiographical. The ending is particularly poignant. This is a first book for this writer, look forward to future books.
April 17, 2021
"Don't you think that when we tire of someone, we're really just tired of who we are when we're with them? So we leave and try on new cloaks. The first step to remaking yourself is to get away from the person who knows you best".
This book has been published in 2019, and I’ve only came across it few weeks ago? Shame on me, because it’s such a brilliant book, it makes me sad, because it’s not as popular as it should be. It’s not just a story about life in Vietnam and America, it’s a story of personal development as a person, individual. How do you find yourself if you don’t even know what you’re looking for?! Childhood traumas, people from the past, how it all affects you when you’re a grown up and “supposed” to know what you’re doing...
Book consists of two parts, first, where a girl (narrator) is 7 years old and arrives in the camp, where her mother is being protected, because she’s a valuable figure in the Communist party of Vietnam. She doesn't take part in daughters' life/education, she’s consumed with an ideology and is constantly preoccupied with her work. One of the camp soldiers takes care of a girl, and shows her kindness that she won’t forget until the end of her life. She also makes a friend, the only girl in the camp, who is a daughter of the kitchen worker. One is under the privileged position and another is nobody, how their lives will entwine together in the future?
Second part of the book is about girl's life in New York, after her mother sends her away, because it’s no longer safe in Vietnam. Almost twelve years in the country, where she is an abomination for all her relatives and has to find a life and place in this new world, that belongs just to her. Her nightmares from the past are still hunting her. Here she will meet Jon and Lilah, that will make loads of promises, but would they keep them? And how would the neighbor, who reminds her of her soldier from Vietnam affect her future life decisions?
As I’ve wrote earlier, it an extremely deep book, there is so much psychology behind these pages. I felt deep connection with the main character and was genuinely hoping that this story will end well for her. Book itself is written well, after the story starts in New York I could not stop reading it. The story feels so real with all its ups and downs.
This book has been published in 2019, and I’ve only came across it few weeks ago? Shame on me, because it’s such a brilliant book, it makes me sad, because it’s not as popular as it should be. It’s not just a story about life in Vietnam and America, it’s a story of personal development as a person, individual. How do you find yourself if you don’t even know what you’re looking for?! Childhood traumas, people from the past, how it all affects you when you’re a grown up and “supposed” to know what you’re doing...
Book consists of two parts, first, where a girl (narrator) is 7 years old and arrives in the camp, where her mother is being protected, because she’s a valuable figure in the Communist party of Vietnam. She doesn't take part in daughters' life/education, she’s consumed with an ideology and is constantly preoccupied with her work. One of the camp soldiers takes care of a girl, and shows her kindness that she won’t forget until the end of her life. She also makes a friend, the only girl in the camp, who is a daughter of the kitchen worker. One is under the privileged position and another is nobody, how their lives will entwine together in the future?
Second part of the book is about girl's life in New York, after her mother sends her away, because it’s no longer safe in Vietnam. Almost twelve years in the country, where she is an abomination for all her relatives and has to find a life and place in this new world, that belongs just to her. Her nightmares from the past are still hunting her. Here she will meet Jon and Lilah, that will make loads of promises, but would they keep them? And how would the neighbor, who reminds her of her soldier from Vietnam affect her future life decisions?
As I’ve wrote earlier, it an extremely deep book, there is so much psychology behind these pages. I felt deep connection with the main character and was genuinely hoping that this story will end well for her. Book itself is written well, after the story starts in New York I could not stop reading it. The story feels so real with all its ups and downs.
June 7, 2023
This book is, overall, a very engrossing read for me. The pacing is quite fast (maybe a bit too fast), which I'm glad about since I tend to pick up books whose prose leans toward a more elaborate and leisurely tone. The prose here is lovely, straightforward, a bit melodramatic but not too overbearing. The characters are... interesting. I don't feel very strongly for anyone, not even the narrator, whom I actually dislike a little bit. Usually, I would associate these types of generally flat characters with archetypical characters you'd see in chick lit. Not saying that chick lit characters are flat, but they have a certain dreamlike, surreal, one-track minded quality to them. That's how I feel about the characters here, which I can see that other readers also share.
A second gripe I have with this book, in conjunction with the characters, is that the third part of the book happens way too fast and I think the end doesn't satisfactorily resolve the emotional burden (or childhood trauma, as the narrator refuses to call it) that the narrator has been carrying with her throughout the book.
Third, minor gripe, related to how I dislike the narrator: how in hell does she just accept raising a second child so easily?
All in all, the women in this novel are kind of bonkers and I dislike them. But as characters, they're good characters.
A second gripe I have with this book, in conjunction with the characters, is that the third part of the book happens way too fast and I think the end doesn't satisfactorily resolve the emotional burden (or childhood trauma, as the narrator refuses to call it) that the narrator has been carrying with her throughout the book.
Third, minor gripe, related to how I dislike the narrator: how in hell does she just accept raising a second child so easily?
All in all, the women in this novel are kind of bonkers and I dislike them. But as characters, they're good characters.
October 8, 2019
Originally reviewed for Chick Lit Central (www.chicklitcentral.com)
If I Had Two Lives presents with a stark, raw view of the world, yet within the rawness we see moments of beauty and hope. As the child is thrown into an abyss of madness, not knowing where she is or really, who she is, the reader feels every emotion and we see her struggles in fighting against the horrific situation she’s in. In many scenes, there is uncertainty with her mother. In many others, bonding and finding her way with the soldier or the only other girl in camp. It’s this delicate balance between what’s good and what isn’t that shapes and molds what we see and the changes that are reflective within the protagonist.
There are no names given to many of the characters within this book, and they are not needed. It isn’t important. What makes each character stand out are the well-devised blueprints for each one, how they ebb and flow around the child who turns into a girl, and then a woman. Those blueprints carry out and lend into who she looks for going forward, because in essence, she’s always looking for the two friends who are so important to her, in everyone she has an encounter with. In doing so, she can hopefully mend bridges and try to repair the damage from all those years ago. And through it all, an undercurrent of matriarchal strife. The biggest catalyst for the protagonist is her need to rectify what has gone wrong in her relationship with her mother, possibly one of the biggest forces in her life.
Every chapter, every sentence is filled with honesty. I appreciated that we got to witness the growth of this little girl, could feel and believe that she’s just a child in the beginning, who later transitions into a young woman, with the voice of someone who is grown but there are parts to her that are not. Through all of it, there is no holding back of what she sees and the experiences she might have. Even when it’s tough to read, even when in some moments, it might hit a little too close to home for this reader. Yet that gave me more reason to continue on. In the moments of despair, I clung to the moments of hope, much like she had. A way out of a dark tunnel she can’t seem to find her way out of. A beautifully tragic story of perseverance and acceptance.
If I Had Two Lives presents with a stark, raw view of the world, yet within the rawness we see moments of beauty and hope. As the child is thrown into an abyss of madness, not knowing where she is or really, who she is, the reader feels every emotion and we see her struggles in fighting against the horrific situation she’s in. In many scenes, there is uncertainty with her mother. In many others, bonding and finding her way with the soldier or the only other girl in camp. It’s this delicate balance between what’s good and what isn’t that shapes and molds what we see and the changes that are reflective within the protagonist.
There are no names given to many of the characters within this book, and they are not needed. It isn’t important. What makes each character stand out are the well-devised blueprints for each one, how they ebb and flow around the child who turns into a girl, and then a woman. Those blueprints carry out and lend into who she looks for going forward, because in essence, she’s always looking for the two friends who are so important to her, in everyone she has an encounter with. In doing so, she can hopefully mend bridges and try to repair the damage from all those years ago. And through it all, an undercurrent of matriarchal strife. The biggest catalyst for the protagonist is her need to rectify what has gone wrong in her relationship with her mother, possibly one of the biggest forces in her life.
Every chapter, every sentence is filled with honesty. I appreciated that we got to witness the growth of this little girl, could feel and believe that she’s just a child in the beginning, who later transitions into a young woman, with the voice of someone who is grown but there are parts to her that are not. Through all of it, there is no holding back of what she sees and the experiences she might have. Even when it’s tough to read, even when in some moments, it might hit a little too close to home for this reader. Yet that gave me more reason to continue on. In the moments of despair, I clung to the moments of hope, much like she had. A way out of a dark tunnel she can’t seem to find her way out of. A beautifully tragic story of perseverance and acceptance.
June 19, 2019
I had picked this book up solely for its subject matter as it follows a young woman from her childhood in a military encampment Vietnam for a new life in the United States – the two lives referred to in the title – and an examination of what we can and can’t leave behind when we try to turn the page.
It sounded like my kind of book and there is certainly much to enjoy here but this is a novel more about trauma and its legacy rather than a clash of cultures. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this – I did – but it’s important to note the pain on the pages as it isn’t highlighted in the marketing, which feels a little dishonest.
There’s a very languid entrancing storytelling to the young woman’s childhood and her friendship with a far more disadvantaged young girl that contrasts sharply with scenes of abuse and neglect, and that juxtaposition is pretty interesting if unsettling to read. But the book’s success comes in the show rather than tell of how this trauma continues to manifest itself in the woman’s decisions as she tries to leave her past behind for her new life in the States.
It sounded like my kind of book and there is certainly much to enjoy here but this is a novel more about trauma and its legacy rather than a clash of cultures. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this – I did – but it’s important to note the pain on the pages as it isn’t highlighted in the marketing, which feels a little dishonest.
There’s a very languid entrancing storytelling to the young woman’s childhood and her friendship with a far more disadvantaged young girl that contrasts sharply with scenes of abuse and neglect, and that juxtaposition is pretty interesting if unsettling to read. But the book’s success comes in the show rather than tell of how this trauma continues to manifest itself in the woman’s decisions as she tries to leave her past behind for her new life in the States.
August 22, 2021
I'm not sure how to review this book. It kept me engaged, I felt the protagonist was believable even though she was isolated, lonely, and out of touch with her own thoughts and feelings. This book is not really about reconciling your country/culture of origin with your country/culture of habitation....which was what I expected the story to be about. Instead, it was about memories of childhood, and how those experiences shape adulthood, and coming to term with it.
I wasn't expecting there to be a pedophile in the childhood portion, nor did the surrogacy play out like I expected in the adulthood portion of the book. The author definitely made sure you felt uncomfortable at multiple places in the story, and I was keenly aware of the protagonist's difficulties with isolation and how to interact with others.
Btw, Names are irrelevant for the characters....we aren't told names for a number of the people who make prominent appearances in the book. So if this might bother you, just a heads up.
I wasn't expecting there to be a pedophile in the childhood portion, nor did the surrogacy play out like I expected in the adulthood portion of the book. The author definitely made sure you felt uncomfortable at multiple places in the story, and I was keenly aware of the protagonist's difficulties with isolation and how to interact with others.
Btw, Names are irrelevant for the characters....we aren't told names for a number of the people who make prominent appearances in the book. So if this might bother you, just a heads up.
July 9, 2019
If I Had Two Lives is a novel about a woman born in Vietnam who came to the United States at the age of twelve, written by a woman born in Vietnam who came to the United States at the age of twelve. So, in a sense, Abbigail Rosewood has the two lives of her title: the one she actually lived and the one she fictionalized and wrote about. She says as much in her acknowledgments, explaining that the "novel was born out of the aching pleasure of rearranging memories, reinventing the past--a personal need to solve my childhood's mysteries, figure out how I've arrived here, and to give myself emotional conclusions that real life doesn't afford." Although the rearranged memories do not seem all that pleasurable, nor, for that matter, does it appear that many definitive emotional conclusions were reached, I liked the novel for its evocation of a place and people in such a manner that I'm drawn as close as possible to them as can be felt without actually sharing the experience.
April 16, 2019
TW: various forms of child abuse, pedophilia; explicit scenes as well as various mentions. A good book that suffers from severely dishonest marketing.
Before anything else, this novel is about reconciling trauma, and how childhood trauma specifically seeps into every part of your life, even when you don't admit it.
Full of "magic phrases", and a stark hypocrisy that feels true to life.
By the synopsis and blurbs, I really thought this would be a novel about the experience of being a culturally split person, leaving and returning different places and never belonging fully to either. It's not. It's really a passing plot point that lends color to the novels actual themes: abandonment, isolation, and the general haunting that comes from early trauma, all wrapped in a cold acceptance that everything in life and between lives is cyclical, even the traumatic things.
Before anything else, this novel is about reconciling trauma, and how childhood trauma specifically seeps into every part of your life, even when you don't admit it.
Full of "magic phrases", and a stark hypocrisy that feels true to life.
By the synopsis and blurbs, I really thought this would be a novel about the experience of being a culturally split person, leaving and returning different places and never belonging fully to either. It's not. It's really a passing plot point that lends color to the novels actual themes: abandonment, isolation, and the general haunting that comes from early trauma, all wrapped in a cold acceptance that everything in life and between lives is cyclical, even the traumatic things.
April 1, 2019
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this tragic tale of a woman who emigrates from Vietnam to the US, bringing with her a huge psychic burden. Framed in three parts of the narrator's life, it follows her from a military camp, through various places in the US, and finally to Montauk, where she falls under the thrall of Lilah. Clearly damaged, clearly missing her family and a connection to the world, the narrator is someone you'll feel for and also wonder about. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction which features outsiders.
January 6, 2021
I had a transformative experience reading this powerful book! The language is rich and poetic; many scenes are achingly beautiful. The author treats the difficult subject with an energy and control that can threaten the tyrannic reality all around us, rather than falling victim to it or caving in to an accepted narrative. I love how the main characters do not have names, a smart way of dismantling the power structure and the American way of hero-making. I hope more Asian American authors can write stories like this!
April 24, 2019
Lovely debut.
July 7, 2019
The story is well written with vivid details. The main character is one you can relate to as she grows and tries to figure out her place in the world.
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