What is the author's tone in the memoir, The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You?

The book's tone frequently shifts over the course of the narrative. In many places, for example, there is a sense of stream-of-consciousness about her writing. More specifically, in several sections it seems as though ideas and memories, insight and intuitions, glimpses of what she used to fear and glimpses of understanding about those fears were all written down as they occurred to her. The chapters recounting the specific stories of other refugees have a clearer sense of focus about them, but for the most part, the narrative’s internal structure, perspectives, and tone all share qualities of free-flow that sometimes veer into free-fall, the sense that the author does not really know where her explorations are leading either her or her reader.

That said, the book’s overall emotional tone is one of anger, as the author frequently gives voice to various resentments and frustrations. These emerge into the narrative most notably in relation to the author’s family. She seems particularly angry at her father, mother, and maternal grandmother, her considerations of the different ways each person shaped her perspectives on herself and on being a refugee frequently coming across as somewhat bitter and judgmental. These comments are sometimes balanced with more compassionate commentary, but for the most part she seems unhappy with, and about, how the choices of her parents and godmother affected her either directly or indirectly.