A beautiful and devastating novel told through a letter from Little Dog to his aging mother, Hong, who cannot read. The letter traces back two generations to Hong's mother's experience in Vietnam during the war, and shows that legacy brought forward into the family's life in Hartford, Connecticut. Little Dog's story shows the human side of massive American issues from racism to homophobia and the opioid crisis. Some reviewers have commented that the book lacks a strong storyline and meanders into poetic musings, but to me it read as the narrator's powerful, personal plea to have his mother see him for who he truly is, and I didn't mind if it felt like a writer's stream of consciousness at times.