Pao Moua, the main character of Soul Caller by Ana Peters, takes you on a personal as well as group journey as he and his clansmen leave the war in Southeast Asia behind and move to America. From the beginning, Pao is trying to find his place within his village. He wants more than anything to be a shaman like his uncle, even to the point of doing something drastic to bring it about. Pao is also struggling with his love for a young woman from the next village, who will continue to haunt his thoughts and dreams years later. Unfortunately, life in the villages is threatened by the Vietnamese soldiers moving into Laos so the villagers flee for their lives across the Mekong River to Thailand. After several years in a temporary camp, Pao’s family, or what’s left of it, moves to St. Paul, Minnesota, with the help of a church group. Difficulty with the language and unfamiliar American customs challenge Pao’s family and the other refugees and some have a hard time coping. Will the old lessons fit in with life in America or will Pao and his family have to forsake what has worked for them in the past to make a successful life in their new home?

What a wonderful portrayal of the struggles of a group of people! Each character is clearly unique and the depth of their soul searching is inspiring. Ana Peters has wonderfully depicted the intense hardships of the Hmong villagers who were forced to leave the jungles of Laos in the mid 1970s. Vivid descriptions of people, places, daily life and individual emotions bring the lives of Pao Moua and his fellow refugees into clear and startling focus. From the primitive life of the villages to the modern streets of an American big city, we feel the joys, pains, sorrows and doubts of a group of people with limited options. While some make the most of it, others are at a loss, and the brotherhood that once worked at home may not help in these new circumstances. Soul Caller is an excellent story that is well written and quite compelling.

Ana Peters’ The Soul Caller is a profound, moving story of young lives caught up in the trauma of war, escape, refuge, and the struggles of a new start in a new land. Pao Moua are young Hmong men growing up in the jungles of Laos. Both are intrigued by and love Zoua, a girl who has the power to bring a dead bird back to life. Driven from their land of Laos, their families flee to Thailand and both end up relocated in the very different world of Minnesota. There Pao continues his hope of becoming a shaman like his uncle Van Kai – so that he too can commune with the souls of the dead and beseech their help for the life traumas of others. He finds his soul through painting while Lue gets caught up in the brutality of American gang life. Both change and begin to find their place as their friendship grows.

Peters shows great insight and understanding of the plight of the Hmong people. The characters are immensely real and the reader is drawn right into their lives to experience the fear, sadness, and confusion they go through. The story unfolds in a very natural and believable way, and the author uses descriptive language to great effect. I loved the use of the characters’ ‘flash backs’ to fill in and move the story on as this contributes to our understanding of their inner conflicts and growth. This is more than a very well-written and moving story: as the young characters learn to live with awareness, hope and authenticity, this offers the reader strength for his/her own soul too.

Mystic and adventurous, The Soul Caller by Ana Peters is an awe-inspiring tale of two men trying to live their lives with the consequences of the Vietnam War. Pao Moua, a young man from the Hmong tribe in Laos, longs for the beautiful Zoua. Despite the fact that the soldiers have destroyed her village, she chooses to remain behind and this has haunted Pao every day. To feel close to her, he creates breathtaking paintings of her. His father is drowning his grief in alcohol and his mother is grieving for her sons that are lost to the war. Pao wants to achieve the coma-like sleep of shamans, but that has evaded him.

Lue Vang, another man from the Hmong tribe, has forsaken his village and American soil for life in a gang. But things are not as he expected them to be. He has two choices; take the lives of other people, if not; he will be killed by his “friends.” When he refuses to do something too immoral, he runs for his life and in the mix he puts Pao in danger too. Now both men are in danger. Can they escape the death penalty and live their lives as they wished they could?

Not many novels get this kind of praise from me. The Soul Caller was simply magical and I’m glad that I choose this novel to read. The writing was so subtle and amazingly clear. Ana Peters showed that you do not need violent words to show violence. Granted, some names were too hard to pronounce for me, but each character felt like a friend. Pao, especially, was a joy to read. It was as if I was seeing him mature right in front of my eyes. This novel deserves five stars and many more.

In The Soul Caller by Ana Peters, Pao Moua's family, many families of the Hmong tribe, were forced by the war to abandon their homes in Laos and flee into the forest. The families trekked day and night through the forests and across mountains and harsh rivers, leaving behind their homes and their dreams, and losing dear ones along the way. The losses suffered on this journey would stay with them forever and their lives would never be the same. Finally, Pao's family made it to America and in this strange new land they started to build their lives once again with sad memories from home still haunting them. For Pao, these memories included a beautiful girl by the river, left behind in the chaos of the escape. However, it was not only Pao that the girl with beautiful hair haunted; Zoua Lee's face was also forever alive in the memories of Lue Vang and these memories would bring the two boys together in this new land.

The Soul Caller by Ana Peters is a sad and very emotional story. The depth of the story and the character development are simply amazing. It was very easy to connect with the characters and feel their struggles and their deepest sorrows. Ana Peters perfectly brought their emotions to life from the start of the story and through the whole book as the characters struggled to learn new ways and survive in this new land while desperately trying to hold onto the old ways. Their emotional dilemmas could easily be felt from one chapter to the next. The Soul Caller by Ana Peters is a truly captivating tale of an emotional journey, and an exciting read.