Reviews

All That's Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien

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ana21's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective

3.0

cornmaven's review against another edition

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4.0

Set in Australia, an element of racism feeds into a murder at a Vietnamese restaurant, along with friendship dynamics for the protagonist. The mystery of who killed the brother is finally solved, but not without much pain and heartache.

oceanvuongfan's review

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4.0

“All That’s Left Unsaid” is a novel of community affliction, grief, and intergenerational trauma highlighted within the intersections of race, gender, class, and citizenship/immigration status.

Set in the 1990s of Australia’s heroin epidemic, this novel follows protagonist Ky Tran, who is forced to endure cycles of grief as she confronts the reality of her brother’s murder. As a journalist, Ky’s nature is to question, to contest, to take initiative. She follows every possible lead to her brother’s killer, which leads her to unrelentingly interrogate fellow community members—Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees, the undocumented, and troubled youth. These interrogations always end the same: with no one confessing to witnessing anything related to the murder of her brother. Ky is forced to reckon with this idea that people are withholding information out of fear of police involvement, fear of deportation, fear of retaliation. Withholding information as an act of protection and self-preservation.

This process of uncovering the truth of what happened leads Ky to learn more about and truly understand herself, her family, those she held closest to her, and this community she grew up in. This is a community of immigrants and refugees. It is a community afflicted with gang violence and substance abuse. It is a community attempting to navigate these layers of coexisting identities and issues in the only ways they know how, which leads to continuous cycles of abuse and violence that eventually catch innocent people in the crossfire.

I appreciated the multiple narrators present in this story, as it gave the book a deep perspective on what grief can look like and how it can manifest. This book is ultimately about confronting loss, which is an experience that everyone—not just immigrants—can relate to. It is a profoundly human experience that gives you the space to reflect on what you have and to be grateful for those things.