The book was harshly criticized by Sody Lay, co-founder of the Khmer Institute—a site that describes itself as "a web-based information resource on Cambodia and Cambodians"—for historical inaccuracies and cultural inauthenticity, accusing the author of back-filling details about her childhood in 1970s Cambodia using modern-day memories gleaned during a later visit to the country.[4]
Reflecting on this negative review in an article for the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, Dr Bunkong Tuon acknowledged Lay's criticisms, while defending Ung's work. Instead of dismissing Ung's text outright, Tuon argued that scholars should read First They Killed My Father not to garner historical facts about the Khmer Rouge, but to experience its emotional truth and to consider its subjective, narrative gaps and fissures as a signifier of trauma and a testament to the destruction perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge.[5] The article abstract reads: "Offering emotional truths as a complement to the historical truth toward which other Cambodian genocide narratives strive, Ung's text testifies to the brutality of the Khmer Rouge while laying bare the author's subjective experience of struggling to work and write her way through a traumatic past."[6]
Richard Bernstein of the New York Times wrote in his review that the author was an "intelligent and morally aware" writer whose work gives the bare statistics of the genocide "far greater psychological force" with its "wrenchingly particular" first-hand account.[7]
An unnamed review on the website Publishing Weekly called it "skillfully constructed", saying it "stands as an eyewitness history of the period, because as a child Ung was so aware of her surroundings, and because as an adult writer she adds details to clarify the family's moves and separations... this powerful account is a triumph".[8]
Also, noted quotes include: “Pop always found a way to find food for us, but I'd never ask him where it came from."
