Greeting-card sentimentality and a jumbled plot undermine Greenwood’s otherwise ambitious novel.
In Greenwood’s debut novel, an American trapped in a loveless marriage travels to Vietnam to meet an intriguing woman he met online.
Jack Kendall is born in 1964, just after the start of the war in Vietnam, and grows up obsessively tracking the trajectory of the conflict and equally obsessed with this mysterious, far-off nation. That fascination never wanes, even into adulthood, and his heart aches whenever he thinks about the nuns and orphans who disappeared during Operation Babylift, a colossal evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States. Despite his success as a technology sales professional, he is profoundly unhappy in his marriage to Silvia, a monstrously selfish woman addicted to drugs, alcohol, and intemperate spending sprees. While surveying online dating profiles, he meets Linh Ngo, a 24-year-old woman—he’s 46 at the time—in Vietnam having struggles of her own, both financial and marital. They enjoy a brief online friendship, Jack sends her some money, and they then lose touch; two years later they reconnect, and Jack resolves to visit Vietnam and meet this woman he believes he can fall in love with. Greenwood chronicles Jack’s relationship with Linh Ngo, one that is rhapsodically romantic but doomed from the start. Meanwhile, Jack invests in a water company and contemplates a permanent move to Vietnam. The author intelligently articulates the indelibly destructive imprint the war left on Vietnam, in particular the suspicions the Vietnamese maintain about not only Americans, but foreign involvement in their affairs in general. At one point, Jack is arrested for “unacceptable public behavior,” which essentially means exploiting a Vietnamese woman’s vulnerability.
However, despite the plot’s brevity, the novel still feels unfocused, as it’s splintered into too many incongruent subplots. Jack battles a “slimly underhanded group of lawyers and bankers” with ties to the criminal underworld in China and Japan as well as a child-trafficking ring led by a former military adviser to the North Vietnamese. Next thing you know, he’s desperately trying to find those nuns involved in Operation Babylift. Subplots like these seem gratuitously grafted onto the main storyline—Jack’s love of Linh Ngo, for example. Also, Jack’s infatuation with Vietnam never fully makes sense—he doesn’t seem all that knowledgeable about the nation or its history, nor does he try to learn the language. One can’t help but wonder if his love of Vietnam is closer to a fetish, an exotic counterpoint to his generally dreary life in America. Still, the principal failing of the book is the author’s writing style, which lacks emotional heft despite being clearly designed to pluck the reader’s heartstrings. Jack’s self-musings seem to be written for a teenage readership: “Should I hug her? Kiss her? Shake her hand? I don’t know! I just need to let it happen.” This overcharged earnestness makes it difficult for one to take seriously Jack’s entry into a torrid and illicit international affair. Greeting-card sentimentality and a jumbled plot undermine Greenwood’s otherwise ambitious novel.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2022
ISBN: 9781638299998
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Austin Macauley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A heartfelt look at taking second chances, in life and in love.
Two struggling authors spend the summer writing and falling in love in a quaint beach town.
January Andrews has just arrived in the small town of North Bear Shores with some serious baggage. Her father has been dead for a year, but she still hasn’t come to terms with what she found out at his funeral—he had been cheating on her mother for years. January plans to spend the summer cleaning out and selling the house her father and “That Woman” lived in together. But she’s also a down-on-her-luck author facing writer’s block, and she no longer believes in the happily-ever-after she’s made the benchmark of her work. Her steadily dwindling bank account, though, is a daily reminder that she must sell her next book, and fast. Serendipitously, she discovers that her new next-door neighbor is Augustus Everett, the darling of the literary fiction set and her former college rival/crush. Gus also happens to be struggling with his next book (and some serious trauma that unfolds throughout the novel). Though the two get off to a rocky start, they soon make a bet: Gus will try to write a romance novel, and January will attempt “bleak literary fiction.” They spend the summer teaching each other the art of their own genres—January takes Gus on a romantic outing to the local carnival; Gus takes January to the burned-down remains of a former cult—and they both process their own grief, loss, and trauma through this experiment. There are more than enough steamy scenes to sustain the slow-burn romance, and smart commentary on the placement and purpose of “women’s fiction” joins with crucial conversations about mental health to add multiple intriguing layers to the plot.
A heartfelt look at taking second chances, in life and in love.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0673-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Jove/Penguin
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK TO SCREEN
PERSPECTIVES
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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