What Hunger

It's the summer before high school, and Ronny Nguyen finds herself too young for work, too old for cartoons. Her days are spent in a small backyard, dozing off to trashy magazines on a plastic lawn chair. In stark contrast stands her brother Tommy, the pride and joy of their immigrant parents: a popular honor student destined to be the first in the family to attend college. The thought of Tommy leaving for college fills Ronny with dread, as she contemplates the quiet house she will be left alone in with her parents, Me and Ba.Their parents rarely speak of their past in Vietnam, except through the lens of food. The family's meals are a tapestry of cultural memory: thick spring rolls with slim and salty nem chua, and steaming bowls of pho tái with thin, delicate slices of blood-red beef. In the aftermath of the war, Me and Ba taught Ronny and Tommy that meat was a dangerous luxury, a symbol of survival that should never be taken for granted.

"Brutal and poignant; Dang writes beautifully about the complexity of adolescence and generational trauma."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Dang keenly captures her narrator’s alienation and anger, and the intergenerational tale concludes with a powerful revelation about the parents’ unspoken trauma from the Vietnam War. This one hits hard."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Intense, visceral, and not to be missed."
—Booklist, Starred Review

“Raw, violent, tender, beautiful: Catherine Dang’s coming-of-age horror encapsulates both the savagery and fragility of teenage girlhood, like if Jennifer’s Body was elevated by a rich exploration of grief and a Vietnamese refugee family’s experiences in America after fleeing war. Dang’s darkly playful portrayal of cannibalism is vivid, funny, real—and a perfectly gruesome metaphor for female rage. It builds and boils, and the final twist had me cheering.”
—Ashley Winstead, USA Today-bestselling author of Midnight is the Darkest Hour