A mouthwateringly delicious read; it also snaps with irresistible wit. This could have remained a slender coming-of-age tale. In fact, it develops into one of real substance

Family secrets, first love and teen betrayals all make up the novel's classic menu

Piercingly eloquent...richly drawn characters...captivating pace

Southern cadences resonate, imbuing Bitter In The Mouth with a warmth and wit that form a perfect foil for the Southern gothic undercurrents that propel it towards its gorgeous, heart-warming resolution

A revelation of wit and heart and stunning talent. Truong shades her classic coming of age tale with a magical ferocity that recalls Doctorow and Nabokov....a soulful hymn to the hands we fashion with the cards we're dealt

Truong's pen is a scalpel, laying perfect words down along that nerve until even the happiest reader understands what it means to forever stand apart from your family and the larger society you inhabit...The novel's end is neither bitter nor sweet, but the perfect combination of both

If you liked The Shaking Woman by Siri Hustvedt, you'll love Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong... a tale of friendship, loyalty, love, family, and above all, the mysteries that make us who we are

With a heroine who literally eats words, Truong is amply aware of the power of them... she wields her narrative like a quarterstaff, knocking readers' expectations right out from under them

Monique Truong creates a world so subtle, mysterious, moving and sensory that it heightens our consciousness of those qualities in our own. Bitter in the Mouth is the rare novel that makes one life story unique and universal at the same time

Be prepared for a full range of tastes of life in Bitter in the Mouth: friendship, loyalty, love, family, and above all, the mysteries at every corner of one's history that make us who we are. Monique Truong is a great observer and a beautiful writer

A terrific writer... She's changed my perception on life

A classic of contemporary Americana... variously funny and horrifying and finally, quietly, terribly moving

A book that should join those few that every literate person will have to read

A novelist who knows what a proper story is . . . [Tyler is] not only a good and artful writer, but a wise one as well

In her ninth novel she has arrived at a new level of power