“Dear friends, let us not forget the flesh of Christ which is in the flesh of refugees: their flesh is the flesh of Christ.”—Pope Francis
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Review and Thoughts
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai is a beautifully written coming-of-age story about a young Vietnamese girl named Ha. While Ha is a young girl in Vietnam, she witnesses the fall of Saigon, escapes with her family to Alabama, and struggles to learn to adapt to a new life in America. The innocent viewpoint of the young girl is a stark contrast to the seriousness of the war and of her position as a refugee. The novel, which is written entirely in poetry, is simple and delicate and tells a story of survival and growth for Ha and her family.
The novel is broken into four parts. Each part speaks of a different portion of Ha’s journey. She tells about her life in Saigon before the North comes and her eventual escape from Saigon. Next, she describes her terrible journey on boat floating at sea and nearly starving until she and her family are rescued by the Americans. Her family’s “adoption” by a man in Alabama and their struggle to adapt to a new culture is a difficult one. Finally, she accepts her family’s fate and learns to live as a young girl in Alabama. Continue reading Let Us Not Forget: A Review of ‘Inside Out & Back Again’