The Sympathizer

 The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, 371 pages.

The narrator of this political thriller is a communist double agent implanted with a Vietnamese general at the end of the Vietnam war. The story follows him as he flees Vietnam with the general after the fall of Saigon and begins living in a refugee community in California, where political maneuvering continues to happen.

For all that this book is a Pulitzer Prize winner I am sad to say I did not care for it at all. I would think it would be hard for a thriller to be boring, but that is the only word I can use to describe my experience of it. Even events that would normally be very exciting or tense were rendered anything but by the very detached and meandering narrative voice. I'm sure there must be redeeming factors for people to like this book so much, but I personally definitely had a hard time finishing it.