These short stories provide glimpses into the lives of Laotian immigrants and their children, from a former boxer in a nail salon to a woman in a chicken processing plant to children on their first night of trick-or-treating. I found their short length and quiet nature deeply evocative and compelling. Would definitely read more from Souvankham Thammavongsa in the future!

I'm currently clearing out all of the books that were published in 2019-20 from my title feedback view!

Short story collections are often a mixed bag - some good, some bad - so it can feel like a risk to read them. With only a few short pages to capture the reader's attention, will the collection be worth your time? Not to worry with Souvankham Thammavongsa's How to Pronounce Knife, a short story collection primarily about the Lao refugee immigrant experience in Canada. This own voices volume is candid and incisive, and grabs your attention from the very first sentence of each of these fourteen stories. While this collection is hard to definitively put into words, I can say that I liked it very much.

In these fourteen vignettes, Thammavongsa captures what it is like to be an immigrant assimilating in a new country. Often told from the point of view of children, these stories examine the world through a perspective that is both simple and innocent, yet poignant and thought-provoking at the same time. Thammavongsa manages to both educate and entertain with stories that are utterly compelling and captivating, yet also heartfelt and inspired.

Some personal favorites of mine include the title story, "How to Pronounce Knife," where a young girl learns the incorrect pronunciation of the word from her Lao-born father; "Slingshot," in which an older woman forms a sexual relationship with a younger man; "Randy Travis," about a mother-daughter relationship built upon the mother's love for Randy Travis; "Chick-a-Chee" detailing two Lao children's first experience trick-or-treating; "Ewwrrrkk," in which a pre-pubescent girl learns about breasts from her great-grandmother; and "Picking Worms," highlighting the prejudices and inequities immigrants experience in the workplace.

Thammavongsa is a talented writer and I truly enjoyed the beauty and raw quality of her work. I look forward to reading more of her stories in the future and recommend this book to anyone looking for an own voices reading experience.

Life of the refugee immigrants

How to Pronounce Knife drops you into the lives of the refugee immigrants. The reader is torn from their lives of privilege and set in the middle of the questions of survival - understanding new language and culture, losing status and professional qualifications, and surviving poverty and hardship. The writing is sparse and very moving. The stories are short but well developed.

Thank you to the publisher who lent me a time limited e-arc via netgalley with no obligation. This review is optional and my own opinion.

How to Pronounce Knife is a collection of short stories by Lao-Canadian poet Souvankham Thammavongsa.

I can’t find the words to describe this book. The words luminous, poignant, compelling, and bittersweet all come to mind.

The short stories are unrelated, but there is a central theme running through most of them – the immigrant experience and how Lao refugees navigate and acclimate to life in a new country. How they experience racism, how hard it is to make a living doing jobs no one wants, and how they can’t seem to get ahead. But it’s also about life in general – it’s about finding love in unexpected places with unexpected partners, about hoping, and about finding joy in small things and also sadness. The stories are little slices of life. The first thing that came to mind is how impactful each short story is –though we meet a character only briefly, it’s amazing how Thammavongsa vividly captures each character’s life and personality in just a few pages. I am still thinking of them! Some of the characters are nameless, yet I find myself wondering…” how she’s doing?” as if they were real people...

This book is breathtaking. Take your time and digest each story. You’ll enjoy it.

I enjoyed this quick book of short stories by Canadian writer about Laotian refugees. The stories are sharp and distinct and unique. They capture the experience of refugees in Canada trying to assimilate and support their families. This is the first book I've ever read from this experience or perspective.

An impressive volume of short stories that offer bright flashes of compassion, insight and experience.

Thammavongsa's collect of short stories speaks to the Canadian experience from the perspective of the child of Laotian refugees. It's a story of the gap between parents and children trying to navigate a new country, language and culture; of the daily cruelties of being othered and the disappointment of lives made small by circumstance.

While not every story in this collection packs the same punch as the title story, there are some gems and ultimately, Thammavongsa's writing is beautiful and transformative and sticky.

This debut of short stories was easy to read and like most short story collection books I have read this year, some stories are better than others. The book as a whole focus on immigrant children learning to read English, hence "how to pronounce knife." Some of the stories were also more funny than others, and a few even missed the mark of being funny at all.

Still a worthy collection of stories to read, but not what I was expecting. Easy to read this in 2 sittings.

Thanks to Netgalley, Souvankham Thammavongsa, and Little Brown & Company for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Already Available: 4/21/20

How to Pronounce Knife is a collection of spare short stories and vignettes. It focuses on Laotian Canadians and their adjustments to their new environments. I connected with a number of the stories and tidbits within (difficulties in pronunciation, forced anglicization of names, craving for connection and understanding) but found it more difficult to connect to others. In particular, I found the first half of the collection really drew me in and then the second half of the collection was more uneven. Overall, though, the collection is quite short and it is well worth a read.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Little, Brown and Company for an opportunity to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.


Often, I dream of seeing her face, still young like she was then, and although I can't remember the sound of my mother's voice, she is always trying to tell me something, her lips wrapped around shapes I can't hear. The dream might last only a few seconds, but that's all it takes, really, to undo the time that has passed and has been put between us. I wake from these dreams raw, a child still, though I am forty-five now, and grieve the loss of her again and again.
My father did not grieve. He had done all of this life's grieving when he became a refugee. To lose your love, to be abandoned by your wife was a thing of luxury even—it meant you were alive.

THE OTHER NIGHT, I saw an image of the Earth on the evening news.
I had seen it many times before, and although my mother was not there, I spoke to her anyway as if she was. "See? it really is round. Now we know for sure." I said it out loud again, and even though it disappeared, I knew what I said had become a sound in the world.-104

This passage gutted me. Such phenomenal writing. Thrilled to have discovered this author.

Fourteen vignettes reflecting the lives of some Laotians displaced to a new country with a difficult language, new lifestyles, the things that they expected of themselves and the different ways which others expected of them that were new and different in every way to their pasts. It's kind of a reminder to any one of us who had family who were in similar circumstances years ago and how the social isolation and longing for the way things were in their particular homeland before whatever war drove them to this new land. Well written and sometimes raw. It comes across as reality, and who's to say that some of it isn't. Dr. Siri Paiboun would have been very proud of her.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Hachette Book Group and Little, Brown and Company via NetGalley. Thank you!

I enjoy short stories, so I was happy to try this author and this collection. And it was fine. Just fine. That's not a bad thing - it just didn't wow me, but it was enjoyable and I would recommend others read it.

A disappointing collection of stories. One thing I found about this was that it does not really do what the blurb claims, which is "focus on characters struggling to build lives in unfamiliar territory, or shuttling between idioms, cultures, and values." The mentions of culture are limited to the odd mention of food and apart from that most of them could be set anywhere and be about anyone. They are also not interesting aside from that. Afraid I didn't get the hype with this one.

I once heard a children’s chapter book writer explain that writing a picture book was hard. Getting everything you want into 32 pages that included illustrations was difficult. It is the same for a short story author. Thammavongsa is a master in delivering her first short story collection. Her stories are thoughtful capturing of life in America as a refugee. Her first story in the collection “How to Pronounce Knife” should be in every teacher’s schoolbag. Its poignant in telling what so many teachers don’t know about immigrant home life, the language and cultural differences that make school difficult. In all her stories it’s the feeling of being invisible and alienated. t

I found I couldn't really connect with this book but maybe that is just personal preference as I normally don't read short stories/essays.

I enjoyed the Randy Travis story the most but felt the ending very sudden, a common theme in the book. That being said, the stories cover some important themes so I would encourage others to read it and see what they think - I think the enjoyment of this book is very subjective.

I'm new to short story collections, but I adored this one! In the past, I've been hesitant to pick up short story collections because I often feel the time with the characters is too short. I normally love long, multi-generational family sagas (and lots of other types of stories too!), but those give you a chance to really get to know the characters. However, in this collection, that wasn't a concern at all. Souvankham Thammavongsa writes stories that have so much snap to them. What I mean by that is she sets the stage for the story brilliantly right from the start. In just a few pages, I grew attached to the characters and felt that I could see the perspective they brought to their experiences. Then there would be a pivotal moment that gives the story its meaning and then it would wrap up but also be left open-ended. My favorite story was Mani Pedi. Her writing is beautiful, and I found it to be so powerful. If you enjoy short story collections or are looking for one to try for the first time, I would highly recommend this one!

This is a collection of short stories about Laotian Americans. They are written in a very straight forward, unembellished manner. Some are quite short and none of them has any real resolution. They are just glimpses of a situation. I liked all of the stories, but I particularly liked: “How to Pronounce Knife” in which a young girl accepts that her father isn’t perfect; “Randy Travis” in which a mother becomes obsessed with the singer; “Chick-A-Chee” about a novel trick or treating technique and “Picking Worms” about loyalty. Since I am not that big a fan of short stories, I hope the author writes a novel next. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

In this collection of short stories, Souvankham Thammavongsa discusses the idea of coming to a new country with such precision and emotion. Each story called upon a different feeling whether it was disillusionment, loneliness, envy, sadness, etc. I was left wanting more, but realized that abrupt endings are often how real life plays out.

One of the quotes that stuck with me was the following: "They'd had to begin all over again, as if the life they led before didn't count." As a child of an immigrant, I heavily identified with this. In addition, the child in one of the stories who understands that she is different from her classmates, was super relatable. Having to navigate that difference, which could sometimes mean her experience was more challenging than her classmates is important to note. For example, she wants to believe in her father, but recognizes that he only knows what he knows. She comes to the realization that it is up to her to figure out the things that her father believes he "knows" on her own. Building upon this idea is the fact that often children have to use this acquired knowledge to educate their parents.

I love fiction when it’s written by poets, and Souvankham Thammavongsa‘s debut short story collection is no different. I’ll keep this in mind when teaching any unit on poetry-to-prose, such as Lauren Groff or Ocean Vuong. I find the content of the stories less captivating than the prose, which I will return to; I look forward to reading Thammavongsa‘s future work.