“I was an adult when I confronted the fact that their memories were too painful, that the silences in our family were a method of survival. What they told me was often a version of the truth, the happy or exciting moments of their former lives; in sharing only these parts, they reshaped the truth, almost creating an entirely different one.” 

I stumbled upon this book on a random Saturday at my local indie bookstore, I thought to myself that “oh this cover looks interesting”. I read the back and was intrigued by the story summary, so I took a photo of the cover and added to my TBR and did not think about it again. Fast forward a few weeks and I needed a new audiobook to listen to and this happened to be on Spotify Premium. When I tell you that this story emotionally wrecked me multiple times while working out, I absolutely mean it!

“Daughters of the New Year” by E.M Tran is one of the most autobiographical fictional tales I have ever read/listened to. You can see the reality that Tran, a Vietnamese-American from New Orleans lived in between the lines of fiction that she wrote. The story follows generations of daughters from one bloodline, working backwards from the most recent daughter to the start of their linage. It is like doing a puzzle in reverse, you know the outcome and how it ends but the details that matter are how it began. 

There are many heartstrings that this book pulls on, all with great care and tact coming from real world experience. Relationships between mothers and daughters is heavily explored, what it means to identify with your race and how other races/people view you, there is even power dynamics between genders that is explored. All of this is done through the lens of this family’s ancestry. If you are someone who has any passing interest in genealogy, you should read this immediately.

Like with most audiobooks, even if the story is good it lives or dies by how the narrator is. Lulu Lam is the narrator and she delivers an excellent and entertaining performance that really helps bring to life Tran’s words on the page. How she handles things like inner monologues of characters and uses inflection to show emotion is extraordinary. 

I also quickly want to highlight the author’s note that I pulled my review quote from. Normally I pull my quotes from the actual story but I think this author’s note is just as important and shows how important and true this story is. Do not skip the author’s note. 

Right now this book only has a little over 1600 ratings and almost 250 reviews. That is not enough and while I don’t think this is perfect, the impact this had on me is something I will think about a lot and this joins the extremely short list of stories that I would recommend to anyone. This is an amazing debut and I can’t wait to see what else Tran comes out with!