Less a novel than an exercise in niche marketing.
Two debut novelists depict work and romance as experienced by three young Asian-American women.
M.J. Wyn is a sportswriter. Alex Kwan is a lawyer. Lin Cho is a stockbroker. They’re all young, and they all live and work in New York. They have difficulties in their male-dominated professions. They often clash with their tradition-minded, immigrant families. And, of course, they’re unlucky in love. In telling their stories, Yu and Kan never deviate from the conventions of chick lit. Anyone who has ever seen a screwball comedy or read a contemporary romance will realize that M.J. finds her quirky colleague Jagger so very annoying that she has little choice but to fall in love with him, as soon as she gets over the country-club jerk who dumped her in high school. Likewise, Lin seems destined to be with kind, earnest Stephen the moment she thinks of him as “so dorky”—never mind her infatuation with a handsome weasel named Drew. The authors’ respect for convention wouldn’t be a problem if they wrote with the kind of fizz and sparkle that animates the genre’s best. Unfortunately, the prose here is painfully pedestrian. Characters think and say such things as “Talk about a blast from the past” and “Sounds like a plan.” And it’s not just that no one will suspect that the banter between M.J. and Jagger has been lifted from a Howard Hawks film; rather, it’s that it barely registers as banter at all, and the dialogue between the other characters and their men isn’t any better. The issues that these young women have with their Chinese-American families are distinct and interesting—M.J.’s family is unashamedly aghast when she’s pictured on Page Six dancing with a black basketball player, for example—but the authors never explore these matters in any depth.
Less a novel than an exercise in niche marketing.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2007
ISBN: 0-312-36280-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2006
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Agreeably credible lovers and a neat piece of home-restoration compensate some for the hokey hauntings on the bayou. Loyal...
A gumbo seasoned with ghosts, love, and murder on the bayou.
When 30-something Declan Fitzgerald of Boston, a successful lawyer and a member of a large and loving family, breaks off his engagement to very suitable Jessica, he knows he needs to change his life. Lawyering is not fun anymore, so, recalling Manet Hall, an old deserted plantation house he once visited with law school classmate and New Orleans native Remy, he buys the property and moves down south. Declan is also a gifted craftsman, a born decorator, and very, very rich. Soon, he meets beautiful Lena, who’s visiting her grandmother Odette, Declan’s friendly Cajun neighbor. Declan is as certain that Lena is destined to be his wife as he was that Manet Hall would become his home. But, surprise, Lena has a troubled past (like the house) and is determined to resist Declan’s courtship. While he suits Lena and works on the place, Declan experiences troubling dreams. It seems he’s actually reliving the novel’s parallel story, which took place in 1899. In that year, the maid, Abbey Manet (from whom Lena, coincidentally, is descended, and who married wealthy Lucian Manet), was raped and murdered by her brother-in-law Julian as she nursed her baby daughter. Her body was dumped into the bayou by her mother-in-law, who despised her. And grief-stricken husband Lucian, away at the time, being told that Abbey had run off, committed suicide. Now, in an unconvincing twist of gender and reincarnation, it’s Declan who hears a baby crying , experiences childbirth and rape as the reincarnation of Abbey, while Lena is Lucian. The two accept all this with equanimity, and, Manet Hall’s secrets revealed, it becomes the setting for predictable and much foreshadowed resolutions.
Agreeably credible lovers and a neat piece of home-restoration compensate some for the hokey hauntings on the bayou. Loyal fans will enjoy.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14824-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
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