For immigrants, the food from our home countries is embedded into our souls. That is how Thien Pham remembers key items from his childhood - through the taste of salty fish, to the ham and cheese croissants his dad learned to bake in his homeland.
This is a beautiful little book all built around food, memory and what it's like to be a stranger in a strange land.

Thanks to Netgalley and First Second Books for the advance Kindle copy of this 6.20.23 release. All opinions are my own.
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 for this graphic memoir. Each chapter is named for a food that has significance for different parts of Thien Pham’s life. The story starts as his family leaves Vietnam, stays at a refugee camp, and eventually settles in America. As a child, he watches his parents struggle to bring in income, and is introduced to significant foods along the way. It is a powerful story with memories of meals, as he searches for the elusive American Dream. This is suitable for readers in grades 6+.

I’ve read a lot of graphic novels about restarting in a new place and this one touched my heart! I love the way Pham talks about the little things we cling to when we think of those memories. I loved the art and the ways the color changes from place to place and the ways he made his parents the heroes. Such a good graphic novel, I highly recommend!

Thien's memories of moving from Vietnam to America all center around food. His memories of the dangerous boat ride? The saltiness of fish and the sweetness of watermelon. Not the sights or the the sounds, but the foods. The foods that kept his family alive as they were adrift at sea.

Once Thien's family arrives in a refugee camp in Thailand, things don't get much easier. They struggle to make ends meet. They believe that making it to California will change things, but it isn't as easy to make it in America as they thought. In each stage of Thien's life, food takes on new meaning. New indulgences and new means for survival. And possibly bringing with it new ways to belong.

Thanks to NetGalley and First Second for an advanced copy of Family Style by Thien Pham to review! There have been a slew of graphic novel memoirs being published recently, and so far, they have all been phenomenal. I especially enjoyed that this one was so centered around food, with each stage of Pham's life tied to an important food or dish from that moment. It's a unique way to structure a memoir!

Pham captures his family's journey from Vietnam to America through his food journey, focusing on details that I think a lot of people won't necessarily know. The illustration style felt sort of printmaking-esque to me, with so much detail. It also helps in emphasizing the food throughout, showing how they impacted Pham and his family.

The little comics included at the end, where Pham asks his family about making this book, are such a great addition to the story. I love when authors include personal little details like that, so definitely don't skip it! It gives even more characterization to his family as well.

All in all, this is a strongly written, wonderfully illustrated graphic novel memoir that you should definitely pick up when it comes out in June!

Thank you so much for letting me read this graphic novel. This story was really touching. I can't begin to imagine how it feels to never really feel welcome anywhere.

Really enjoyed this!! The art style was so great visually. The story was so touching. I have really enjoyed graphic novels that are a telling of the authors own story, it gives them a different kind of depth than just reading about it. Definitely one to get for the shelf! Highly Recommend!

Family Style is a captivating graphic novel about the experience of Vietnamese immigrants coming to America. Thien Pham did an excellent job articulating their struggles and triumphs as they navigated a new culture and language. As a fellow immigrant, I felt strongly connected to their journey. What I appreciated most about this book was its emphasis on the importance of community and support during times of transition. As well as the situational comedy that comes with being an immigrant. Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in enjoying a moving story about one Vietnamese immigrant's experience and their family's resilience.

Warm fuzzies this graphic novel memoir!

Centered around food (each chapter is a food that appears in the chapter) that tells Pham's story of emigrating to the United States after being in a refugee camp and fleeing Vietnam. The hardships were endured but there were also moments of levity too. The balance is what makes it a deeply-felt memoir as he looks back as an adult on the memories that got him to a stable life and eventually citizenship. However, that meant learning the language and learning that Salisbury steak in school is probably not that delicious. It also meant that there were sacrifices and getting to do the things he enjoys like being an artist now.

The format is entirely vivid- especially the scene of their boat being raided by pirates with the black pages and words each page. Readers can feel in the pages the fear. The format ups the emotional side of the story and the endnotes were a hilarious homage to his past and remembering with others.

Wow, what a beautiful book. This was a lovely, intimate story of a Vietnamese family and their journey immigrating to America, told through memories of food. As a person whose love language is food (lol) this really spoke to me. Family Style is told in vignettes across the author's life, centring around his family and friends. I loved the art style and the simple yet impactful narrative voice. The overarching message of the importance of community and having a strong support system was so touching and left me feeling very grateful for mine. I may have shed a tear or two at the frames where Thien's mother made him Bánh Cuón-- being a teenager and trying to balance who you are with your friends and who you are with your family. I think the feeling of being an adult and realizing all the things your parents did for you growing up that you were never quite appreciative enough of is a universal one. This graphic novel really felt like a love letter to Thien's parents and to everyone who makes the decision to leave their life in one country for a better one in another. I will definitely be recommending this one to everyone at work when it comes out.

I love reading graphic memoirs, it's a great way to learn about the experiences of others, without the heft of a regular memoir. This one was no different. I love how Pham associates various parts of his life with different foods, alternating between American and Vietnamese foods. This is an absolutely beautiful story about identity, one that we definitely need today.

This graphic novel gives the same level of depth and emotion that I got from Art Spiegelman's Maus series. It covers some difficult topics like the circumstances of being a refugee but makes it digestible to a variety of age demographics. I loved the pacing, the emotive illustrations, and the all American relatable tale of the immigrant struggle. Wonderful!

This memoir graphic novel is almost a short story collection of different times in the authors life that led to who he was when he wrote the book. We follow him from a refugee camp to America to citizenship, all with a story filled with family, friendship, and food.

I loved this graphic novel story of immigration. Following the family from the boat, to the refugee camp, to America was amazing. Seeing the young man grow and then go back to reflect for his books was a nice touch. A great read.

Excellent and descriptive illustrations that cover a broad scope of the immigrant and refugee experience. Only complaint is that the time jumps between sections were a little confusing, noting the jump might have been valuable for readers.

Family Style tells the story of a Vietnamese family's journey to America through the eyes of the eldest son, Thien. Beginning on a boat, and spending time in a refugee camp, Thien shares his memories of what it was like to be child in each circumstance. When the family gets to America, the refugees who proceeded them help them find housing and jobs, but it is his mother's foresight that enables the family to start their own business and ultimately succeed. This quiet but interesting memoir would be a good companion to American Born Chinese.

(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

I love it when memoirs show there is something that serves as a link between different stages of the author’s life. In this particular case, it is food which serves to that purpose, making each chapter a small journey towards the meal in particular.
Thien’s life has not been easy. His first memories are of fear and hunger in the sea (amazing first pages that take the reader by the throat until they get ashore), of arriving to a new, strange place, of making friends that suddenly disappear in buses to an unknown location. Hist parents only have one thing in mind: the American Dream.
Thus, the reader follows Thien in different stages of his life, always guided by the food that he gets to eat. The first time he eats steak he can’t slow himself; the first time he goes to a Vietnamese restaurant once in the States he feels that maybe he is losing his heritage; even strawberries or potato chips have a deeper meaning in his life.
There is just one thing that I did not like about this comic, and it was the feeling that it ends too son. I would have been delighted to follow Thien a couple of years more, see how he finds his place in adulthood and which foods were important for him then. I never thought I would be so invested with a ‘link’ in a memoir, but the use of food was the most interesting choice ever.

In this moving, graphic memoir, Thien Pham recalls his experiences fleeing Vietnam, living in a refugee camp in Thailand and immigrating to California. Through all his life changes, he finds a reassurance in food and the memories it evokes in him to this day. FAMILY STYLE adds to the growing number of Asian American graphic memoirs that capture the sacrifices and hopes of immigrating and striving toward the elusive American Dream. Recommended for purchase for high school and public libraries.

This memoir depicts Thien Pham's experiences coming to and assimilating in the U.S. I found the perspective and voice of a child and teen quite engaging. As a teacher in a school with a significant immigrant population, it helps me better understand that there is so much about the experience that we don't see and that empathy and an effort to understand may help more than we know.

The use of food as connective tissue throughout the story was exciting. Seeing the major events of the author’s life through that lens really added to the understanding of how his cultural background interacted with his experiences as a kid growing up in America. This would make for a great addition to any collection of graphic memoirs.

Starting life in Vietnam, risking everything to cross the ocean and seek refuge in America, and struggling to maintain his Vietnamese heritage while also enjoying the newness of America, Thien created a beautiful, unique book, that created such intense emotions. The opening pages filled me with such fear that I didn't think could happen. Each chapter, focuses on a different meal Thien experienced, and provides an intimate look at his family and his life. It is beautiful and shouldn't be read on an empty stomach.