This was a such a beautiful memoir. I loved the journey Susan Lieu took the reader on to find out her family's past. I also loved that her family who were so closed off began to open up to her and see things differently.

Determination thrives. With a tragic turn and much time, memories, questions, and regrets take a toll. Very emotional and inspirational too.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for this e galley!

The Manicurist’s Daughter tells the true story of the daughter of of Vietnamese refugees growing up in her mother’s nail salon and follows her journey to accept her mother’s death during plastic surgery, but to also accept herself and her place in her family.

This was a very interesting memoir, told with humor and sadness. There were many stories in this book that had me riveted. I loved learning about Lieu’s family members, her travels, and her relationships. This memoir will resonate with anyone who has experienced complicated family bonds.

I really enjoyed this book!

Wow. What a beautiful memoir. It beautifully demonstrates a lot of complex and raw feelings that people experience in life. The way she wrote about grief was incredibly healing! I (somewhat) recently lost my father and grandfather and found this book to be incredibly honest, yet insightful! I will now see the world through a different lens.

Another great memoir in which I learn something! This time, it’s Vietnamese culture. This is a heartbreaking story in which the author loses her mother at a young age (both the author and her mother) following complications from plastic surgery. We learn so much about the author’s mother: how determined she was to escape Vietnam in the 80s, how business savvy she was at establishing successful nail salons, and also how insecure and unhappy she was with her physical appearance. This insecurity seemed to be exacerbated by how her Vietnamese relatives constantly criticized her appearance, which was presented as a cultural thing. We watch the author process her mother’s death over the next 20 years, eventually channeling her thoughts, feelings, and questions into a one woman show. Her mother’s loss impacts her in so many ways and she struggles to find a place where she fits in this new world feeling unsupported by her family. A really captivating memoir. Thank you NetGalley and Celadon Books for this gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

Although I enjoyed this book, I felt it to be a bit redundant. Maybe I'm reading too many books about Asian women who have troubled relationships with their mothers and who can't seem to "find themselves." Also, when Susan traveled to Vietnam to find members of her family, I had hoped to read more about her time there. All in all, an entertaining read about a Vietnamese family and a mother who is the focus of the family.

I was very fortunate to receive an advanced reader copy from NetGalley but all thoughts are unbiased and my own!

My goodness I’m SO glad I picked this up. I honestly just liked the cover and that’s what drew me to the book, but the content?!? It’s an amazing story. The writer is so vulnerable and hits so many different topics like generational trauma, mental illness, and even her experiences with a cult. Her experiences and how they all shape and mold the woman she becomes is incredible. Also the way she tackles identity and grief… you just have to read it!

It’s so beautifully written, loved the stories of her family and heritage and reflections of how she grew up. I also loved when she starts her investigating into her mother after her death. I found it very interesting looking at what she discovered about her mother which molded in who she is now. Such a great memoir.

This memoir will most likely be in my top ten memoirs of the year. I loved learning about the author's Vietnamese family and culture. Even though heavy topics were mentioned, Susan Lieu really knew how to use humor to balance it out. Thank you for the opportunity to read this e-galley.

THE MANICURIST DAUGHTER
Susan Lieu

I recently read a memorable and insightful memoir. Susan Lieu writes it and it’s about the death of her mother and how she recovered and is still recovering in the aftermath.

Susan’s mom died when Susan was at the tender age of eleven from a plastic surgery operation. The way her mother died is wrapped up in her death and her memory. Susan is honest both with us and most importantly herself. She discusses how her mother’s death impacted her, how her family responded to that death, and what she has learned from all of it.

I enjoyed the honesty, frankness, and compassion I found within the pages of THE MANICURIST DAUGHTER. I think it will help a lot of people and I highly recommend it!

She had been looking for parts of her mother her entire life only one day to find her in the deep recesses of herself. In the folds of her body, in the chasms of her self-doubt, in the ways she loved herself and all the ways she did not.

When Susan speaks of her mother you can feel the loss, the absence, the lifetime of never going to happen. It’s a loss she may never recover from, only move on from. It’s a beautiful tribute to Susan’s mother and every other mother living or dead.

THE MANICURIST DAUGHTER is available where books are sold and is one of my favorite nonfiction pieces of this year so far.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Celadon Books, and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copies and the opportunity to provide feedback!

THE MANICURIST DAUGHTER…⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I really loved The Manicurist's Daughter. This was such a multifaceted read - the immigration experience, early childhood parental loss, grief, family struggles, searching for one's self, travel and yummy food! Susan went through so much in her life and it's great to get exposed to her trials and tribulations without having to experience them for yourself. This book also puts an interesting perspective on plastic surgery and the pursuit of beauty.

Susan's life story is unique and it's great that she was able to share it with readers like myself. I found this memoir so well written ans gripping, which usually is not the case for me when I read memoirs that aren't funny. I highly recommend this to anyone that is looking for an engaging read that's off the beaten path that will stay with you.

The Manicurist's Daughter by Susan Lieu was a really good and different memoir. I love the author's sense of humor and her style of writing. My heart was broken by her mother's vanity and need for perfection that led ultimately led to her mother's death. Quick read. Highly recommend.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵’𝘴 𝘋𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 is the memoir of playwright and performer Susan Lieu, the youngest, American-born daughter in a Vietnamese refugee family. The book recounts a youth spent in her parents’ nail salons and around her large extended family—many of them salon employees themselves—as well as her quest as an adult to learn more about her mother, who passed away from a botched cosmetic surgery when Lieu was a pre-teen.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵’𝘴 𝘋𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 is largely centered around Lieu’s search for information about her mother’s life and death and the frustrations she endures when various family members refuse to answer questions and instead urge her to “let it go.” Over time, the memoir evolves into more than just an account of her mother’s journey and a story of her relatives’ grief and complicated relationships. It also explores other important topics like identity as a first-generation American, the impact of family and culture on one’s relationships to body image and food, and the power of grace and forgiveness.

Though I did find some sections rambling and overly verbose, overall 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵’𝘴 𝘋𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 is a well-written and poignant testament of love and healing. Thank you to Celadon for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Manicurist’s Daughter is a memoir of a daughter who was just 11 years old when she lost her mother. Susan’s mother died from a botched tummy tuck that the family never spoke about. In this memoir, she travels back in time to learn about her family’s six attempts (they were successful on attempt six) to flee Vietnam during the war. Her mother owned two successful nail salons and seemed perfect to Susan — and then she was gone. I picked this up after reading great reviews of it and I agree — the story is one that should be told and Lieu tells it in a beautiful way.

This book was amazing! It's very raw and emotional but worth every moment. I enjoy books such as this one because they give an unfiltered view into their life and what events shaped them into who they have become today!
Susan's mother was the center of everything when she was young. She came to America and sponsored other people so they could come into America and had them work in the successful nail salon she built from the ground up. However, Susan's mother tragically died from a botched tummy tuck when she was eleven. As any child would have Susan had lots of questions and she wanted to be able to grasp what happened to her mother and why. But, her family shut down any questions about the death of her mother, as if they just moved on and left the death in the past. While Susan struggled in more ways than one. She obtained an MBA to fulfill her father's expectations but left it behind to tell her story because her story is important to her!
In the end, getting her story out there she was able to finally get closure on not only the death of her mother but also how parents' trauma and expectations are forced on children and how we are impacted by that. Susan was able to embark on a journey of change and forgiveness, she was able to find the will in her heart to understand the trauma from her parent's past and how to forgive them so she could move on with her life! Thank you Celedon Books and Netgalley for the remarkable journey of this book!

Susan Lieu’s mother was a force of nature. She, her husband, and two young sons survived five failed attempts to flee war-torn Vietnam before escaping to California in the 1980s. She eventually owned two successful nail salons, employing several family members who also lived in her home. She was definitely the matriarch of her clan. So when she died during elective surgery when Susan was 10, the family was lost, adrift for years. This book chronicles two decades of Susan’s search for answers, meaning, and vocation.

I appreciate how candid and vulnerable Ms. Lieu is in sharing her journey, both highs and lows. This was definitely a “window” story into the life of a fellow American that’s completely different from my own. The cover is so eye-catching and pays tribute to the meaningful title.

I highly recommend this be read via audiobook. It’s skillfully narrated by the author who shares many phrases and sentences in lyrical Vietnamese. I can’t imagine it being nearly as meaningful read in print

Thank you to Celadon Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for access to the review copies of this memoir.

I adored this book. The reality is I have no stake in the author or Vietnamese American culture. However something about this memoir really gripped me and made me feel all the feelings. I suppose as a mother and a daughter I could 100% relate to many aspects of Susan’s story. I also felt a deep seeded anger for our American healthcare system. It was a well written and emotional memoir and I loved the nods to Vietnamese culture as well.

I am so grateful that I got to read this memoir. As I have expressed before, I read a lot of memoirs. It is my favorite genre in all honesty. I am always fascinated by reading about other people's experiences. I usually feel lucky to have access to these works and love all of them, however, from time to time, I come across a memoir that is impossible to forget, one that I identify with in so many ways, that it is almost as if the author knew my thoughts while writing it.

I am not by any means saying that I can relate to Susan's family's immigration experience to the USA, to all the pain, struggle, and difficulties they went through to be able to come here, from Vietnam. In that part, I always command authors who share these kinds of experiences, but I can relate to some of the aspects of the mother-daughter relationship between Susan and her mom. I actually highlighted those because I don't want to forget them. Some of these words got to my heart so profoundly that I felt heard and understood in a very weird way but that was my experience while reading this book.

I didn't want the book to end but at the same time, I was rooting for Susan to finally find at least some of the answers about her mom that she was so eagerly trying to find.

Thank you Celadon Books and Netgalley for the free advanced copy, in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I loved learning more about Lieu's family history, especially near the end when she detailed her parents' struggle to escape Vietnam. There are so many sentiments that hit close to home for me about traditionally Asian families and their viewpoints/love languages.

I think it's difficult to rate memoirs as obviously this story is incredibly important and deserves to be shared - props to Susan for not only writing this but for developing an entire one woman show to honor her mother and her family. I think people who aren't familiar with Vietnamese would have a more enjoyable time with the audiobook since there is some of the language dispersed throughout the book.

I think the book was just a bit long for me - the cult experience during college personally felt really grueling to listen to? And I think that's just preference. I'm glad I read this book and I appreciate Celadon Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

This is a memoir of Susan Lieu, who was a first generation Vietnamese American. Her family came to the US on a dream and ran a nail salon. It’s where she grew up. At 11, her mom dies from a surgery complication and her world is rocked. Susan spends her whole life trying to find out what happened and understand her mother.

This was fantastic. Susan held nothing back as she told her story. The discussion of grief, self-acceptance, worry, doubt, family history, and complicated family culture/dynamics were at play. Susan’s storytelling of her life was captivating and I didn’t want to put it down. From her mother’s tragic death, to her college days, to her marriage, and complex relationship with her family, this was a truly incredible memoir.

By the end of this memoir, it felt like a love letter to grieving, understanding your family and family dynamics, and accepting yourself and your family. I was taken with Susan immediately and I’m so glad I read this book.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: The Manucurist’s Daughter ✨
Author: @susanlieu
Publisher: @celadonbooks
Release Date: March 12 (out now!)

⁉️: What is a book that has stayed with you this month?

Sometimes there are books that exist to entertain, and then there are some that you are meant to pick up at a certain period of your life. Susan Lieu’s memoir is one such book in which as a daughter, I could relate to her experiences growing up in a country not ours and the unexpected loss of Lieu’s mother. When I lost my own in an untimely manner to stomach cancer without a warning. I could also relate to Lieu’s struggles with the health care system when she was taken to the emergency as my body gets used to living without a pill.

As readers, we bear witness to her emotionally raw memoir about the crumbling of the American dream and as a daughter of refugees who searches for answers after her mother dies during plastic surgery. I feel her anger, pain and related to how her relationship with her mother’s family transformed after she was gone. Lieu’s voice is strong yet vulnerable, human, and is one of the memoirs that should be taught in schools. In fact, I loved it so much that I will be adding it to my syllabus.

We have been reading memoirs in one of my classes and scholars have observed that often memoirs give in to the dominant narrative that has shaped around the tragedy, bu authors like Clementine Warmariya’s The Girl Who Smiles Beads and Susan Lieu’s The Manucurist’s Daughter paint a more nuanced portrait of grief, trauma, body image, loss, anger, and coming to terms with loss of a mother-daughter bond.

Finally, the Vietnam war and its aftermath was introduced to me by The Women recently and it inspired me to seek voices of Vietnamese authors and hear their stories. It is one that is a 5✨ and a story of how inter-generational trauma is real and present. If you were curious about the impact the Vietnam war had on families, then I would recommend picking this one up.

Thank you @susanlieu for the wonderful note and @celadonbooks for gifting me the arc.

#SusanLieu #TheManucuristsDaughter #Celadonbooksreader #Celadonbooks #shnidhi