This is a definite 5 star read, and an amazing debut. Loved all the characters and the wonderful interplay between Ky and Minnie, her childhood friend, during the harrowing aftermath of Denny’s brutal killing.

A very relevant story - this supposed global world still sees colour before anything else and the inherent prejudices still prevail to todays youth and culture. Tracey Lien writes beautifully and I will definitely look forward to reading her other works. Highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers, HQ, for this ARC.

I love reading books by new authors or on subjects I've not discovered before. And this book was no exception. Amazing characters, gripping story line. Really was a great read

A great debut, very haunting and thought provoking. Look forward to more from this author.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

A tragic, sometimes difficult yet powerful read. Such deapth within the story. I was profoundly moved by this book and I think it will stay with me a long time

All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien is a marvellous debut novel that totally consumed me.
The story is set in 1996 in the Vietnamese community in Australia. It is very powerful and totally heart-breaking.
Much of the community fled Vietnam for the safety of Australia. They fled for a new life but were met with persecution and prejudice. “The looks she got… the way they saw her skin before they saw her.” The people were judged before they were known. Parents took low paid jobs and stressed the importance of education to their children, so that they could rise up out of poverty.
The streets were dangerous places to be. There was much drug related crime.
We follow a character as she searches for answers to her brother’s murder. Witnesses appeared struck blind and dumb as there was fear of retaliation if they talked.
The reader hears the back story to the main characters. We see the hand of kindness and generosity offered to one whose life had known only cruelty and neglect. A friendship rose up and then something happened – the reader can only guess at what as we work our way through the book.
There is sibling love. A closeness as young children drifts apart as lives take different paths.
We see characters consumed by guilt. Guilt drags lives down but changes nothing.
Everyone deals with death differently. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. We have to do what we can to muddle through.
We follow the lead character as she tries to find out what happened that night. My heart went out to the ten year old girl – her story was heart breaking.
All That’s Left Unsaid was a powerful read that really played with my emotions. It was absolutely heart-breaking on so many levels. I can thoroughly recommend it but you will need tissues. I look forward to much more from Tracey Lien.
I received a free copy from the publishers. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

Wow, an unflinching look at how refugees assimilate and adapt to a new country. Trying to fit the old life in to a new place. New generations feel the expectations to succeed but within the older customs and ways.
S very powerful and poignant novel

Ky is a young Vietnamese woman, raised in Australia after her parents fled the war in Vietnam. She is a trainee journalist, living in Sydney and returns home for the funeral of her brother, killed in a senseless act of violence. Her parents ask her to find out what happened, as they feel they are being stonewalled by the (white) police force.
But this is not so much of a murder mystery as an exploration of relationships and expectations- between friends, within families, and between cultures.
The story delves into Ky’s childhood, and her relationship with her best friend Minnie. They saw the world as having very low expectations of them, and react very differently to this, with far-reaching effects.
The story moves at a very slow pace, and asks more questions than it answers.
Well written, and a relatively easy, though not entirely comfortable, read.

Ky Trans returns to her hometown of Cabramatta in the wake of her younger brother’s death after he was brutally murdered inside a restaurant. Ky discovers that not only do the police have no idea what happened, but every witness in the building also claims they saw nothing. Determined to find out what had happened, Ky is forced to recount her childhood as her own investigation will have her return to the community of Cabramatta, a place so buried in her past that the truth might never be free.

Ky’s story will resonate with many children of immigrants, families whose lives were uprooted and planted in a foreign nation and left to survive in a community that doesn’t want them. The real Cabramatta is home to many Vietnamese families, and Lien incorporates the history well into this tale of a young woman desperate to find the truth. Her parents can barely speak English, so navigating the system is already a hurdle that only she can help her family with. When she realises finding the truth will be hard as people begin to suspect her brother was involved with the local gangs. She is forced to investigate the roots of her communities and face the harsh realities that she left behind. Intergenerational trauma, racism, addiction and poverty are just some of the hardships that Cabramatta faces. And Ky has to return to the roots of her parents, her brother and her childhood friend, who she had lost connection with years ago.

However, I did feel like there could’ve been a better distinction between the flashbacks of the past, as those scenes tend to blend into one. The mystery aspect of the story doesn’t hold up well, so in terms of suspense, I felt like it wasn’t strong enough to keep me on my toes. Nonetheless, Ky’s story is still heartbreaking and powerful.

Overall, All That’s Left Unsaid is insightful and emotional. Lien has a strong writing style that compels me to look forward to future releases. A crafted story that brings forth a touching tale about community and survival while also a snapshot into the lives of the Vietnamese community in the 90s.

Ky is 22 and trying to uncover the truth behind the murder of her younger brother, Denny, who died while celebrating his high school graduation. This at first seemed like a murder mystery, but it is so much more than that.
It's a story about Vietnamese immigrants and their issues settling in Australia. It's a story about family, about the friendships we make in our childhood. I loved the way the relationship between the two siblings was portrayed. It's also a story about police issues in a place with a big drug problem.

The structure alternates between Ky's and other characters' points of view, which I thought was well done and kept me interested as we heard more about the people she's talking to in order to discover the truth.

Definitely a new author to watch.

The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is that at parts I was a bit confused between whether the part I was reading was a flashback or part of the current story. Maybe some separation between the two would have helped (but it's not a massive deal).

The more I read of this novel, the more hooked I became. It shows that dealing with acceptance is something that can affect anyone, and that challenges can come from many different aspects of our lives.

A thought-provoking read that was very moving.

This book is set in Australia, in a suburb of Sydney, which is home to a Vietnamese community. Ky is 22 years old and returns back there following her younger brothers murder. Ky had been working as as a journalist. The book is a murder/mystery but it does give a glimpse into the life of Vietnamese immigrants and some of their challenges. Denny was a top achieving high school student. Ky wants answers as to why Denny was murdered and she sets about asking questions that no one wants to answer, In the course of her investigation Ky has to look hard at her culture. There are flashbacks to her earlier life, these weave well into the story.
It would be a spoiler to say more.
I liked the book and wanted to hear more, even after finishing it. I hope in time I can find more from this author or other Vietnamese authors. I will hold an open mind to whether this book reflects a specific immigrant experience of refugees that had fled Vietnam and ended up in a specific area of Australia.. It's definitely something I want to know more about.

This book drew me as I read more and more of it. It showed how being accepted is not a given for anyone moving to a new country and having their own history to deal with. The challenges that face them is beyond what you can imagine and the conflict it causes within families and the community is highlighted along with the dismissive nature of the authorities assuming the worst.

I found it moving and hope that things start changing.

Ky is a Vietnamese Australian woman working in Melbourne when she receives a phonecall from her father telling her that her younger brother, Denny, has been killed. She returns home to Cabramatta to discover the police have a complete lack of interest in Denny's case. She finds out that he was beaten to death in a popular Vietnamese restaurant where none of the diners will admit to seeing anything. Ky figures that if she can speak to the customers and staff, all Vietnamese, she might find out more than the distrusted police.

This novel has two clear themes, a murder investigation and an exploration of Vietnamese culture and norms set against Australian society and its treatment of Asian people. The family dynamics between Ky and her parents are fascinating. Culturally they are very different. Ky regards herself as Vietnamese Australian whilst her parents still regard Vietnam as their true home. Ky's frustration with them, particularly her mother, is never far from the surface.

The characters in this very cleverly written novel are well realised and the pressures placed upon them by both cultures are intelligently explored.

Many thanks to NetGalley and HQ Stories for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Also received physical copy, thank you.

I read All That’s Left Unsaid for book recommendation site LoveReading. I’ve chosen it as a LoveReading Star Book and Debut of the Month. Please see the site for the full review.

I really liked this book. Ky Tran was brought up in the Sydney area of Cabramatta, a predominantly Vietnamese quarter. When her brother is murdered in a restaurant, and nobody seems to have seen anything, Ky decides to investigate herself. Interspersed with stories of her upbringing, the story gives a good insight into the life of Vietnamese immigrants, which I particularly liked. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

This is a fantastic book. The protagonist, Ky Tran is a character desperate to fit in, who believes hard work will somehow help her achieve her dreams no matter the odds.

It’s easy to feel sympathy for Ky. A daughter of immigrants from Vietnam, she’s worked hard to earn her internship at the Herald Sun in Melbourne, and continues to push herself in ways none of her colleagues do. But then she gets a call from home that she initially ignores. Her parents usually ring to ask her something stupid and she’s in no hurry to go back to Cabramatta, the poor and crime-ridden area of Sydney she grew up in.

Then she listens to the call…

Her brother was killed at a restaurant on the night of his high school graduation. Ky had persuaded her parents to let him go out.

In a desperate attempt to find out what happened that night, and why her well-behaved, clever, brother was killed, Ky is forced to investigate the complexities of Cabramatta and the realities of her own past in ways she has thus far managed to avoid. Racism, addiction, poverty and the hardships refugee families face, slowly unstitch her approach to her parents, her brother, and her childhood friend, Minnie, with whom she fell out all those years ago when she started hanging out with the naughty crowd.

It’s one of those books that makes you see things afresh. It’s a gripping, hard-hitting, and thoroughly necessary story not just of Sydney in the 1990s, but for today. I definitely recommend this novel and look forward to reading what Tracey Lien writes next.

Ky comes from a family of Vietnamese refugees who fled the Communist regime to make a new life in Australia. Her parents constantly remind her that to succeed, she needs to work hard, get a good job and marry well, but they themselves miss their own country and struggle to fit in. Ky is glad to escape, to university and then to a job as a journalist, but then her mother telephones to say that Ky’s brother Denny wants to celebrate his high school graduation with friends at a restaurant, and she urges her mother to let him go. Tragically, Denny is beaten to death that night, but everyone present claims to have seen nothing, and it is left to Ky to find out the truth. This poignant novel highlights the difficulties faced by immigrants, under pressure from parents embedded in their own culture but not really accepted into the society they are growing up in. Racism is everywhere, from teachers mispronouncing Asian names repeatedly and schools sending letters home only in English, to the police who assume Denny’s death is related to drugs, even though he is a model student at the top of his classes, and who bring in groups of Asian teenagers for “loitering.” The poverty some of the families live in and the suffering they have endured in their country of origin often results in domestic violence, alcoholism and neglect, resulting in turn in their children turning to truancy, crime, and addiction. It is an incredibly sad story, with Ky learning the hard way to look beyond surface appearences and to understand the vicious cycle which has perpetuated the injustice in her community. It does end with a glimmer of hope for the future, but remains a hard-hitting and powerful book which raises important issues.

Absolutely loved this book, well written and fantastically woven story. Read it!
You will love the time that you gave to the unfolding of this story.

I was intrigued by this book after reading a short excerpt a while ago. The story revolves around Ky, a young woman trying to find out what happened on the night of her brother's death. It sees Ky trying to make sense of her own memories of growing up, her relationship with her family and the community she lived in. The writing is good and the characters are well rounded however at times the pacing felt too slow and my attention drifted. I am interested in seeing what Lien writes next. (Copy received from Netgalley in return for an honest review)

This is a difficult book to categorise as, although at it's heart it's a 'whodunnit and why'? story of a brother who is brutally murdered and a sister trying to find answers for herself and her parents; there is alongside this, complex, difficult insight into immigration and the challenges associated with trying to fit into a new country and culture.

Ky Tran is a young Vietnamese journalist living and working in Melbourne, Australia and she returns to her home town of Cabramatta, a suburb of Sydney when she hears of the death of her younger brother. Cabramatta is described as a dangerous place and certainly seems to be devoid of hope in the 1990's when this story is set.

It's at times a heartbreaking read as we are taken on the journey with Ky as she confronts her past relationships with family and friends and her guilt over persuading her parents to let her brother go to the meal where he was killed. We also see their reliance on her to get them the answers they've been unable to get from the police. There is beauty in the pages and overall I found it to be a decent read. Where I struggled was in the sometimes longwinded dialogue back and forth.

Thanks to NetGalley and HQ for the opportunity to preview this debut book.