Sunshine Salon
I picked this book up as it was recommended to me after I had finished Family Trust by Kathy Wang. This was billed as much of the same type of Asian-American/Canadian family drama but from a vietnamese family perspective.
I can see the similarities and have to give the AI credit where its due. This book is much like Family Trust in that it deals with a vietnamese family of 4 (dad, mom, daughter, son) much like family trust did (dad, mom, daughter, son) , there are some differences like this book has a FOB niece vs a step-mom, but at least the setup is more or less the same.
Both books are also each authoress’s freshman effort and that’s about where the similarities stop. As the title suggets Sunshine Nails deals with the vietnamese disapora of disproportionately owning most of the mom-and-pop nailcare market and the family in the story owns such a salon. It goes into all the wonder and not so wonderful storyline of owning a small family store (income is not reliable, keeping a customer base is difficult, competition can be stiff) and tries to marry that into the backdrop of whats happening in each person’s life.
Like Family Trust, the chapters are arranged into each person’s POV, but unlike Family Trust, there’s not quite enough chapters on each person’s POV to establish a rapport and understanding of each character. the book is about 1/3 the length of family trust so there’s some pros and cons here.
Either way, I think the book was interesting enough to finish reading, and left me feeling unsatisfied with both the way the book ended and how things played out. The drama in the family in this scenario is almost all external. The family itself are quite loving and taking care of each other in this sense and there’s none of the intrafamily conflict you see in Family Trust. The book does end on a sort of sad note, with some drifts of uplift that might happen in the future, but all in all, I guess its like real life, you never know what the future might bring.
3 stars is appropriate and that’s with the 0.5 star freshman effort bonus. =). I doubt I’d be reading more from this authoress unless the aggregate goodread reviews warrants the effort unlike kathy wang’s which I downloaded her second effort immediately.
There’s also the possibility that my bias is there because Kathy Wang writes about silicon valley stuff which might resonate more with me than a toronto nail salon, but i feel like the book suffers a bit too much from meanderingness without enough meat to carry the book.
not really recommended unless you’re itching for a quick 3.5 hours read.