The Sympathizer and The Committed

[unspeakablehorror]

One of the things I value so much about The Sympathizer and The Committed is how absolutely unflinching these two novels are in their examination of war and its aftermath.  A lot of war stories are about winning (or losing) the war, and the story will generally end when one of those two outcomes occurs.  But these stories start at the end of a war, and really peer into the scars such an event leaves on the world.  And they peel away at the lies around the nobility of war.  Nguyen just really rips into all the propaganda and hypocritical justifications about terrible actions not having terrible effects as long as they're attached to the 'right' ideology, but without depicting everyone as equally bad, either.

Also he has an amazing sense of humor.