{"id":43398,"date":"2025-09-22T21:42:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T01:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43398"},"modified":"2025-09-22T21:42:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T01:42:05","slug":"review-of-my-father-the-panda-killer-by-jamie-jo-hoang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43398","title":{"rendered":"Review of My Father, the Panda Killer, by Jamie Jo Hoang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My Father, the Panda Killer<\/em><\/p>\n

by Jamie Jo Hoang
\nread by Quyen Ngo<\/p>\n

Listening Library, 2023. 10 hours, 17 minutes.
\nReview written November 3, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

My Father, the Panda Killer<\/em> is the story of Jane, an American teen living in San Jose in 1999, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Jane\u2019s mother left their family four years before, leaving Jane to go through high school as the mother of her little brother, then three years old. As well as giving her the responsibility to spend most of her time helping her father run their family convenience store. And bearing the brunt of her father\u2019s unpredictable wrath and violent beatings.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s the summer after Jane\u2019s senior year. She\u2019s been accepted to UCLA, but doesn\u2019t know how her father will respond to the news that she\u2019s leaving. And she doesn\u2019t know how to even begin to tell her brother that she won\u2019t be there any longer to shepherd him through life and protect him from their father.<\/p>\n

But alongside Jane\u2019s story, we also hear the story of her father\u2019s harrowing journey as a 13-year-old refugee from Vietnam. That part of the story is horrific with lots of death and life-threatening situations. But as Jane pieces together her father\u2019s history, including a trip to Vietnam where she meets her grandparents for the first time, she begins to understand him better. As she understands her father better, she\u2019s better able to understand herself and her heritage.<\/p>\n

One little problem with this? I\u2019m not sure I actually wanted Jane to come to terms with her father\u2019s abuse in that way. I was reminded very strongly of the nonfiction book What My Bones Know<\/a>,<\/em>, by Stephanie Foo, and her C-PTSD and journey to come to terms with it through therapy as an adult. This book implies that even calling it abuse is a violation of Vietnamese culture. It left me feeling uneasy.<\/p>\n

However, it certainly gave you sympathy and understanding for Jane\u2019s father. In view of the horrors he endured, you can understand his ways of coping much better. So I was left not wanting to judge \u2013 but I still don\u2019t think the beatings his daughter received are okay. Understandable, but not okay.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the author’s note at the end said that the next book will be about the little brother \u2013 and his mother. I definitely want to read more. The interweaving of the father\u2019s journey with the daughter\u2019s conflicts was a big strength of the book. The front of the book says, \u201cTHIS IS NOT A HISTORY LESSON,\u201d but at the same time the author points out that there aren\u2019t many narratives of the Vietnam War told from the perspective of the Vietnamese people. At the very least, this book is valuable for filling that gap.<\/p>\n

heyjamie.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/my_father_the_panda_killer.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/a> for more reviews and talk about books.<\/p>\n

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Father, the Panda Killer by Jamie Jo Hoang read by Quyen Ngo Listening Library, 2023. 10 hours, 17 minutes. Review written November 3, 2023, from a library eaudiobook. Starred Review My Father, the Panda Killer is the story of Jane, an American teen living in San Jose in 1999, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45740,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43398\/revisions\/45740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}