This memoir was a unique one for me to read. Reading about how Susan and her family would try channeling their family’s matriarch- who was lost during a routine cosmetic surgical procedure when Susan was only 11- was so interesting, as was learning all the spiritual beliefs she and her Vietnamese family hold. I also felt so sorry for this young girl, and just wanted to hold her and give her the comfort that poor child desperately needed. Despite all of Susan’s hardships, though, she becomes an amazing, strong woman, who stands up to her family’s outdated ideals of beauty (an ideal which ultimately lead to her mother’s passing).

This memoir was real, honest, and not afraid to pull the punches. It takes courage for someone to write out their whole life story especially when it might not paint their family (both alive and deceased) in the best light. But that’s what makes this book so beautiful.

Thanks NetGalley, Celadon Books, and Macmillan Audio for the ARC and ALC of this book!

Susan Lieu is the daughter of immigrants who came to California in the 80s from Vietnam. Her mother was a strong force in the family and opened up two nail salons that the family worked together. Her mother passed away when Susan was 11 years old after a botched plastic surgery. Susan wanted to know more about her mother but her family refused to discuss it after her death. She went on a journey to discover who her mother was and to look into the surgeon who operated on her that terrible day.

I loved reading about Vietnam and the culture. I felt terrible for the way her family treated her and wouldn’t open up about her mother. Her mother died getting a tummy tuck and somehow they felt it was okay to call her fat 🤯 It was a raw, honest and heartbreaking memoir that was well written. It could have been cut a little shorter but it is definitely worth a read!

I really enjoy reading memoirs, especially ones like this. They are interesting, informative, educational and show us a way of life that may be very different than our own. They are just fun to read. But often they are equally hard to read. That different way of life is often difficult, challenging, sometimes dangerous. The people who survive and write these memoirs are inspirational. And insightful. Their memories are nuanced, mixing the trauma they had to endure with the joy of that long-ago life. Sometimes they are bitter, and it may take many years to find peace.

Susan Lieu describes a life in The Manicurist’s Daughter that is simply fascinating. I could vividly picture that little girl solemnly and industriously carrying out her assigned duties and bearing a lot of responsibility for such a young child.

But her mother? Pretty terrifying. In the author’s words, “She had the master plan, leading with the omniscience of Oz, the high expectations of Confucius, and the charm of Princess Diana.” Pretty strong force and one you’re unlikely to pit yourself against, especially when you are just a young girl. And not someone whose mind you could change or whose motivations you could understand.

There is so much to absorb in this book, the author covers so much: family history and hierarchy, tradition, grief, body image, food, class, race. Fitting in a strange world that isn’t always accepting. And at the heart of the book, the author’s long-time struggle to understand her mother’s need for plastic surgery, and her own need to find peace with it, to stop wanting to punish the plastic surgeon, even if he deserves it, even if he is now dead.

As always, Celadon Books are the best; they publish a variety of fiction and non-fiction that will always satisfy. The Manicurist’s Daughter is strong, compelling, eye-opening, heartbreaking and author Susan Lieu makes you experience that different world and also the world of the child in all of us who just misses their mother. Thanks to Celadon Books for providing an advance copy of The Manicurist’s Daughter as a Celadon Reader via NetGalley. I couldn’t put it down and recommend it without hesitation. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

As a Vietnamese diaspora memoir, The Manicurist Daughter is unique in that it not only captures Susan Lieu’s journey of grief and healing from the inter-generational traumas that are all too common when you’re the child of refugees, but also from her mother’s death from a botched plastic surgery procedure. Lieu uses the latter to criticize the beauty standards that are imposed upon Vietnamese women…

Read the rest of my review at the attached link.

The Manicurist’s Daughter- a touching memoir about self discovery and family after the loss of her mother from a botched up surgery. Susan goes on her quest to find out what happened to her mother, figure out how deal with her mom’s death at such a young age, and how to find closure. As a first generation Chinese American, I found her story so relatable as far as growing up with immigrant parents. I enjoyed learning about her Vietnamese culture with hints of Chinese culture as well- especially all the talk about comforting foods! It also touches on so many other important issues that affect immigrants and refugees and the impact of the “need to be beautiful” in this world. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

As a fellow 2nd generation daughter of Vietnamese refugees, I had an inkling this would be an enjoyable and resonating read, but I did not anticipate that this would feel like a therapy session.

The format of this memoir was engaging, easy to follow and very intentional. It made a lot of sense that Susan devoted a lot of time and attention in sharing her parent's and particularly her mom's backstory. As a reader, this kind of background information is crucial in understanding how intergenerational trauma is formed and transmitted from one generation to subsequent ones. It was painful, relatable and heartwrenching to see Susan dig into her family's history and learn just how much of her mother's decision-making, personality and beliefs were shaped by her upbringing and traumatic life events. As someone who also has a fraught, complicated relationship with her mom, I felt motivated to ask her similar questions to understand more about how her life came to be the way it was.

This was a beautiful, heartwrenching homage to Susan's mother that made me cry, think deeply and feel so very seen.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

4.5⭐️

The Manicurist’s Daughter is a fascinating and moving memoir of grief, family, and the search for truth. I was held in thrall from the first page to the last, as Susan explored what drove her mother, from her determined struggle to make it America in pursuit of a better life, to the eternal quest for beauty that proved her downfall. The effects rippled through Susan’s own life, and I felt honored to have her share this deeply personal story.

Thank you Susan Lieu, Celadon Books, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley and for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you, NetGalley and Celadon books for this advanced readers copy. This was an amazing and heartbreaking story written by the author of how she grew up as first generation American when her parents fled to the US as refugees from the Vietnam War and created lives for themselves their family as owners and workers in a nail salon. This is also the story of how the author slowly copes with the loss of her mother from a plastic surgery procedure. Throughout the book, Susan Lieu speaks to the immigrant pressure her parents put on her as she grew up to go an Ivy League school and become something great. And then as an adult, after her mother has died and she does not see her father as often, she questions whether she has made them proud and whether her mother would approve of her choice for a husband. I think everyone can relate to the story Susan tells here of parents wanting to make a better life for their children, the child wanting to live a life of their choosing, and then the child questioning if they made the right choices and if their choices made their parents proud.

A moving memoir by a Vietnamese-American author. Susan Lieu is the daughter of Vietnamese boat people turned nail salon owners. Her mother died at 38 after complications from elective plastic surgery. Her emotionally closed family never discussed what happened, leaving an 11 year old Susan to struggle with her grief alone. Now an adult, Susan is attempting to learn about her mother from family, depositions, and even spirit channelers.

This emotional book is heavy on grief, intergenerational trauma, and the forms of familial love. Susan Lieu captures grief so well, I cried multiple times throughout this book and hugged my own parents. I could not help but reflect on my own family experiences as I went through Susan’s journey. Susan also captured her culture well and provides a great insight to anyone unfamiliar with Vietnamese food and culture.

This was an amazing story and an excellent debut novel. I wish I had the chance to see Susan Lieu’s stage performance of her story that ultimately gave rise to this memoir. Perhaps the audiobook will suffice, as I plan to reread this book. Highly recommend for anyone who has (or wants to) experience the grief process or complex family dynamics.

I received an ARC from Celadon books through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

First, I must offer my appreciation to the publisher and Net Galley for the eARC of this book. This memoir shares a unique perspective exploring the experiences of an American-born child in a Vietnamese refugee family. While I was intrigued by the study of her mother’s death, I found the narrative to be somewhat self-important and unfortunately, boring. Despite its relatively short length, the pacing made it feel much longer, and I struggled to connect with the protagonist, Susan. Her character didn't resonate with me, and I hoped for a more compelling storyline beyond the themes of familial sacrifice and generational trauma. I was particularly moved when Susan faced motherhood, choosing what she wanted her child to call her. The heavy emphasis on spirituality and psychic elements isn’t for me. While I appreciate the theme of understanding parents as individuals, I felt it could have been conveyed more effectively. This book wasn't a good fit for me, and I don’t recommend it.

Susan Lieu, the daughter of immigrant parents, brings us a memoir looking into the power of family, grief, body image and loss. At a young age she loses her mother following a botched plastic surgery. Her large extended family never really talks about her mother again and especially not about what happened. Slowly, the family starts to grieve in their own separate ways. Susan perhaps visibly struggles the most. Not only with the loss of that relationship, but of missing out on knowing what her mother was like and the support her mother would have provided. It also navigates the perpetuation of cultural norms and trying to end toxic familial cycles.

I found Lieu’s story thoughtfully curated. She sets up the story when she’s young, with her earliest memories of her mother. We follow along as she loses her mother, moves to college, and begins a family of her own. Sometimes we flashback along the way to pivotal moments in her upbringing. Lieu’s upbringing is the polar opposite of my own. She grew up in a large extended family within very close proximity; I have a small close immediate family and I’m not really in touch with anyone in my extended family. Yet, despite the closeness of family, or in my case absence of, it was so easy to identify with the feelings of loneliness, the desire above all else to belong, and the struggle to figure out one’s own identity. Books like this remind me just how different yet similar we all are as human beings.

Thanks to Celadon Books for providing an ARC through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Susan Lieu’s mother was a powerhouse. Her journey was remarkable. An ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, she was one of the ‘boat people’ fleeing to a refugee camp. Gaining entry to America, her college degree worthless, she grew a successful nail salon business. Her husband had his own trauma, orphaned and surviving war and their shared journey as refugees. She sponsored family who helped in the salon.

Susan was the youngest of the family, the only one born in America. All her life she struggled to juggle parental expectations and her own needs, dealing with mental health issues, and learning to disassociate from her own body, eating what her mother demanded while being criticized for her weight.

Susan’s mother died when she was eleven from complications of a tummy tuck performed by an unscrupulous doctor. Her entire family shut down any conversation about the death. But Susan needed to understand her mother and what had happened. She needed to find the affirmation that was missing from her childhood.

Her journey took her into a cult and to mediums and to Vietnam. She achieved her MBA to meet her father’s expectations, but left it behind to pursue her one woman show telling her story. But in the end, Susan found the enlightenment she sought and came to terms with her family and herself.

What emerges is an understanding of intergenerational trauma, how war and the refugee experience makes people hard and sealed off, and the way a woman’s self image impacts her view of her daughters and negatively forms their own self image.

Food is an important theme in the book, the center of family life and remembering their tradition and heritage.

“All the women were too ashamed of their bodies. If I really wanted to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma, I had to walk into the fire. It was time I stood up for myself,” Lieu writes.

Lieu discovered that we can change, that we can leave our trauma behind. That we can forgive by understanding the trauma others have experienced. It is all a part of growing up and becoming fully realized adults. “Change your thought, you can change your future,” a monk told Lieu.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

A transformational raw and honest personal account of an Asian American story. This was a story for behind the scenes and wake up call in family relationships. The dynamics were intriguing and the truth enlightening.

The Manicurist’s Daughter started as a story of woman trying to learn about her deceased mother and turned into a discovery of self. Through this amazing book, I learned more about Vietnamese culture and history than I could ever have learned in a classroom. Susan’s book details her parents terrifying journey from Communist Vietnam to the United States, how body image and food were deeply ingrained in her family history, how modern beauty standards and targeted advertising led to her mother’s early death, and how cultural norms prevented her from properly grieving her mother as a child. Overcoming these challenges through self exploration and humor, Susan’s book is a call to action for all woman to examine how the beauty industry unfairly preys on our vulnerabilities. It’s a warning to love ourselves, exactly as we are before it is too late.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This was a great memoir on complex grief and search into the past. Susan was eleven when her mother died from a botched tummy tuck. Now as an adult she wants to understand her. There’s a lot to this story and a lot of emotion. Not only does it talk about body image and mental health, but looks into immigration and generational trauma. This memoir is very rich in culture, especially food!

“Seeking the truth was how I would avenge my mother’s death. I am the manicurist’s daughter, and this is our story.”

The Manicurist’s Daughter comes out 3/12.

This book showed how much Susan and her mother cared for each other. I loved how Susan learned more about her mom and the Vietnamese culture throughout the book. I also learned so much about beliefs, traditions, food, grief etc. I love when a book not only portrays a beautiful family (despite the circumstances) but also teaches me about something I dont know. Susan's mother died during plastic surgery and that was part of the healing journey for Susan as she uncovered some truths but also advocated for families that lost someone to malpractice. I appreciate that Susan wrote this memoir and I am honored to have had the chance to read it!

This is such a heartbreaking story in my opinion. It does shed light on another culture that I don’t know much about- how they live and grieve and find a way forward. I think it’s a good way to learn about another culture through the experiences of someone who lived it.

Thank you for the ARC for my honest review.

Susan Lieu has written a memoir about her life after the death of her mother. Her family immigrated to California after the Viet Nam War and had 2 family run nail salons. This book is rich in Vietnamese culture. Susan is trying to find out who her mother really was but she comes full circle and realizes who she is. It’s a beautifully written character driven emotional story.

This was such a beautifully written memoir of the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, the bond between daughter and a mother trying to make a better life for their family, and the dark consequences of beauty standards.

This memoir is so rich with Vietnamese food, culture and language. It is an in depth exploration into loss, love, grief, family, body shaming and mother daughter relationships. Susan struggles to come to terms with her mothers sudden death after a botched tummy tuck surgery. She searches to find answers surrounding her mothers death and struggles to connect to her family. She seeks spiritual advisors and psychics, travels to Vietnam to connect with her moms family and even creates a one woman show based on her experience. In the end she finds the love she was looking for all along within her family and becomes a mother herself. This was an unexpected surprise and I thoroughly enjoyed it.