The complex and delicate relationships between mothers and daughters is at the center of Thao Thai’s debut novel, Banyan Moon. Towards the end of the Vietnam War, Minh and her daughter, Huong, left Vietnam for America to settle in Florida. Huong’s daughter, Ann, is born there and the three live together in a decrepit mansion called Banyan House until Ann leaves home. Now, Minh ... Read More...
The Many Lives of Mama Love
It's a picture-perfect Saturday in Northern California with soccer parents lining the field and watching their kids play. As the game winds down most mothers go to retrieve their young, but Lara Love hangs back. And surreptitiously lifts cash out of a wallet in one of the handbags left behind in the stands. She moves onto the next before joining her friends and her children. ... Read More...
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult
I’d left off reading Jodi Picoult after disliking her last two books and so didn’t read Mad Honey until two readers I trust said I would enjoy it. I listened to them, but this may be the briefest review of a 4 star novel I’ve ever done. Not for a lack of thoughts, but because the plot twists in this story just keep coming until the very end. Given that each is substantive and ... Read More...
Such Kindness: A Novel
I’ve been craving pace in my reading lately so am surprised to be here with an introspective novel spanning only a few days and very little action. Set in present-day Massachusetts, Such Kindness by Andre Dubus III is a tender, painful look at one man’s reckoning of an expansive life that once included marriage, a son, and owning his own business, but is now diminished to ... Read More...
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
Lisa See’s depictions of the women of China and Southeast Asia have always been entertaining and educational reading so I was pleased to hear about her new novel, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. Set in 15th century China it’s the story of one of China’s first female doctors. Yunxian Tan is a little girl when, her mother dies at the age of 28. She is sent to live with her ... Read More...
Yellowface: A Novel by R.F. Kuang
I’ve contorted the truth into such ways that I can, in fact, make peace with it. THIS. BOOK. Yikes. Ostensibly, Yellowface is about June Hayward, an aspiring writer who has quietly seethed as her friend Athena gets the success and accolades June craves. When Athena dies in a tragic accident June uses it as an opportunity to take her friend’s current manuscript for herself. ... Read More...
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