Paradise of the Blind was a huge success in Vietnam when first published in 1988. Forty thousand copies were sold before the authorities banned the novel for its critical attitude toward the communist government and its revelations of the disillusionment felt by ordinary Vietnamese with the system under which they lived.

In 1993, as the first novel by a Vietnamese writer to be published in the United States, Paradise of the Blind received respectful and enthusiastic reviews. For a New Yorker reviewer, Duong "fashions a vivid portrait that details unfamiliar vistas of Vietnamese life as finely as it evokes the dilemmas of adolescence." In similar vein, Publishers Weekly noted: "Contrasts between young, old, urban and rural, help to convey the full variety of Vietnamese lifestyles."

Several reviewers commented on the strong characterization of the two female characters, Que and Aunt Tam. Jonathan Mirsky, in the New York Review of Books, thought the novel was the best Vietnamese novel he had read "mainly because of its portrait of the heroine's Aunt Tam." This judgment was supported by Xueping Zhong, in Belles Lettres: A Review of Books by Women, who commented on the strength and self-reliance of the two women. But Zhong also saw two sides to this resilience in the face of tragedy: "The novel, however, also conveys a strong sense of ambivalence toward the two women's willingness to endure hardship. The desire to preserve family lineage gives the two women strength, yet also debilitates them." Peggie Partello, in Library Journal, also commented on the author's depiction of women, writing that "we feel the pain of women living in a male-dominated society where they are on equal footing only with servants."