{"product_id":"books-stealing-buddha-s-dinner-by-bich-minh-nguyen","title":"Stealing Buddha's Dinner","description":"Beginning with her family's harrowing migration out of Saigon in 1975, Stealing Buddha's Dinner follows Bich Nguyen as she comes of age in the pre-PC-era Midwest. Filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, Nguyen's desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food - Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House cookies. More exotic-seeming than her Buddhist grandmother's traditional specialties, the campy, preservative-filled delicacies of mainstream America become an ingenious metaphor for her struggle to become a real American. Stealing Buddha's Dinner is also a portrayal of a diverse family: Nguyen's hardworking, hard-partying father; pretty sister; wise and nurturing grandmother; and Rosa, her Latina stepmother. And there is the mystery of Nguyen's birth mother, unveiled movingly over the course of the book. Nostalgic and candid, Stealing Buddha's Dinner is a unique vision of the immigrant experience and a lyrical ode to how identity is often shaped by the things we long for. Her typical and not-so-typical childhood experiences give her story a universal flavor. - USA Today Beautifully written. Nguyen] is fearless in asserting the specificities of memories culled from early childhood and is, herself, an appealing character on the page.A writer to watch. - Chicago Tribune Perfectly pitched and prodigiously detailed. - The Boston Globe","brand":"World of Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53670944178449,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780143113034.jpg?v=1781513836","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/books-stealing-buddha-s-dinner-by-bich-minh-nguyen","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}