This is a short book by someone who lived through something extraordinarily horrible, and who seems like a great person today. Unfortunately, it's not a very good book at all, and an even worse audiobook.

The Cambodian genocide (Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge) was one of the most horrible things ever to happen in the modern world, and has been incredibly under-reported (both at the time and historically) due to the hangover from Vietnam, among other things. Mao Sim and her family were victims of this, but eventually escaped to the US, and she seems to have had a good (with ups and downs, but overall very good) life in the US.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't go into much depth about the overall Cambodia situation, only her personal experience as a young child. For this book to be stronger, it really needed to present more of the context. It then covered her flight to the US, but didn't go into much detail about the sponsors who rescued her -- I was very interested in the kind of people who were doing this. Then, it goes into fairly normal domestic troubles between her and her spouse, etc., which detracted from the overall message. Another slightly negative thing was the audiobook was narrated by someone who was obviously US native; this would have been much more persuasive in the author's own voice, as it is supposed to be a personal tale.

This book would have benefitted greatly from an editor to make the (fairly obvious) suggestions above, and there was the potential for a really compelling story here. ( )

There is nothing more mysterious than finding the reason for what man does to man, and how then man survives. Nor, anything more horrible than real life. The bravery taken by Mao Sim to write this memoir surpasses what most writers will ever accomplish .
Writing this terrifying story caused her to live it one more time. She is a true heroine.
This book should have award-winning on its cover.
Reviewed in Le Coeur de l'Aritste: http://www.djadamson.com/le-coeur-de-lartiste
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