The fortunes of jaded women: a novel

Long ago, a Vietnamese woman sought a witch to curse her former daughter-in-law, who left the woman's son to find true love. The witch's spell on Oanh and her descendants robbed them of love, happiness, and sons in their lives. The curse carries on to Mai Nguyen and her family in Orange County. Divorcée Mai has three professionally successful but unmarried daughters: Priscilla, Thuy, and Thao. Priscilla works hard to be rational, refusing to believe in curses, but keeps ending up in failed relationships. Thuy runs away from every seemingly stable relationship while feeling guilty for sabotaging them. Thao runs a business in Vietnam and makes it a point to remain unattached. In her desperation, Mai seeks out a psychic, who tells her that to change the curse, she must restore her relationships with her estranged family members or risk losing it all. Huynh's debut novel explores the dynamics of a stubborn Vietnamese American family with humor and tenderness, ultimately showing how the women slowly find healing, love, and happiness together.

Huynh debuts with an engaging if overwrought saga of a Vietnamese family curse in Orange County's Little Saigon. After Ly Minh Duong gives the family home to her long-lost eldest daughter, Kim, a rift ensues between Ly Minh and her other daughters, Khuyen, Minh, and Mai. A decade later, middle-aged Mai sees a psychic who predicts a death, a pregnancy, and a grandson, who will finally put an end to the Duong curse that prevented the Duong women from having sons, which was placed on an ancestor who married for love. The news spurs Mai to reconcile with her family before it's too late. Meanwhile, Mai, who was forced by Ly Minh to marry for practicality and not love, pressures her middle daughter, Thuy, to leave her good-guy boyfriend, Andy, since he works for a nonprofit. Mai's college-educated daughters also look down on their cousins Elaine and Christine, who help their mother, Khuyen, run a sleazy "coffee shop," where young bikini-clad women serve drinks. A sudden change in tone derails the final third of the novel, littering what was an otherwise strong, character-driven narrative with implausible slapstick and convenient coincidences. Still, as the Duong sisters reunite and reckon with their family's outmoded beliefs, Huynh pulls off an admirable portrait of well-meaning mothers and their children. Despite the bumps, it's worth checking out. (Sept.)

In Other Birds, next from the New York Times best-selling Allen, Zoey encounters a runaway girl, two grumpy middle-aged sisters, a famed writer, an isolated chef, and three ghosts when she returns to her recently deceased mother's apartment in a horseshoe-shaped house on South Carolina's Mallow Island, where tiny turquoise birds called Dellawisps flit (200,000-copy first printing). In Emmons's Unleashed, deep cracks in Lu and George Barnes's marriage become evident once only daughter Pippa goes to college, even as Pippa struggles to retain her budding sense of independence amid loneliness and the California wine country surrounding them all threatens to burn. Cohost of the popular podcast Who? Weekly, Finger sets his debut, The Old Place, in a small Texas town where a reluctantly retired schoolteacher Mary Alice finds her life--especially her friendship with close neighbor Ellie--suddenly in question when a long-buried secret is revealed. In debuter Huynh's The Fortunes of Jaded Women, three estranged Vietnamese American sisters living in Orange County's Little Saigon must find a way to lift a curse placed on their family long ago never to find love or happiness (100,000-copy first printing). Blockbuster author Sparks again takes readers to Dreamland in a book about pursuing one's desires possibly at the cost of abandoning the past.

A contemporary Vietnamese American family in Southern California deals with the fallout of an ancient curse. The three Dương sisters of Orange County's Little Saigon community have a lot in common, from a passion for knockoff Louis Vuitton bags and real jade to a distinct inability to revere their elders as much as they should. They're also estranged--from each other, from their mother, from their grown daughters (who are well on their way to becoming estranged, too). But the alienation isn't random. Long ago, an ancestor named Oanh fled her marriage after falling in love with a Cambodian man, and her husband's vengeful mother put a curse on all Oanh's descendants. Now, happiness is destined to elude them. If they marry, their spouses will be bad husbands, and they will never have sons, an affront to tradition. But when a mysterious psychic tells Mai Nguyễn, the oldest, that the time has come to mend fences with her sisters, Minh Phạm and Khuyến Lâm, changes seem to be on the horizon. The new year, the psychic says, will bring a wedding, a funeral, and, finally, the birth of a son, a bold prediction that scrambles the fates of this sprawling, squabbling family of women. Written with crackling humor and a shrewd, intimate understanding of Vietnamese American family life, the book is full of tart, broad comedy and farcical setups. But first-time novelist Huynh also uses her gift for humor as a tool to tell a unique story about exile and assimilation, highlighting the perils of trying to bend newer generations to ancient traditions and the difficulty of reconciling culture with the messy truths of modern American life. You will laugh along with the Dươngs, but you'll also find yourself cheering for their reconciliation as they learn "there was nothing wrong with having Vietnamese daughters. It was how the world treated them that turned it into a curse." A funny, sharp, and insightful look at family bonds and the effects of tradition on modern life. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Long ago, a Vietnamese woman sought a witch to curse her former daughter-in-law, who left the woman's son to find true love. The witch's spell on Oanh and her descendants robbed them of love, happiness, and sons in their lives. The curse carries on to Mai Nguyen and her family in Orange County. Divorcée Mai has three professionally successful but unmarried daughters: Priscilla, Thuy, and Thao. Priscilla works hard to be rational, refusing to believe in curses, but keeps ending up in failed relationships. Thuy runs away from every seemingly stable relationship while feeling guilty for sabotaging them. Thao runs a business in Vietnam and makes it a point to remain unattached. In her desperation, Mai seeks out a psychic, who tells her that to change the curse, she must restore her relationships with her estranged family members or risk losing it all. Huynh's debut novel explores the dynamics of a stubborn Vietnamese American family with humor and tenderness, ultimately showing how the women slowly find healing, love, and happiness together. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

In Other Birds, next from the New York Times best-selling Allen, Zoey encounters a runaway girl, two grumpy middle-aged sisters, a famed writer, an isolated chef, and three ghosts when she returns to her recently deceased mother's apartment in a horseshoe-shaped house on South Carolina's Mallow Island, where tiny turquoise birds called Dellawisps flit (200,000-copy first printing). In Emmons's Unleashed, deep cracks in Lu and George Barnes's marriage become evident once only daughter Pippa goes to college, even as Pippa struggles to retain her budding sense of independence amid loneliness and the California wine country surrounding them all threatens to burn. Cohost of the popular podcast Who? Weekly, Finger sets his debut, The Old Place, in a small Texas town where a reluctantly retired schoolteacher Mary Alice finds her life—especially her friendship with close neighbor Ellie—suddenly in question when a long-buried secret is revealed. In debuter Huynh's TheFortunes of Jaded Women, three estranged Vietnamese American sisters living in Orange County's Little Saigon must find a way to lift a curse placed on their family long ago never to find love or happiness (100,000-copy first printing). Blockbuster author Sparks again takes readers to Dreamland in a book about pursuing one's desires possibly at the cost of abandoning the past.

Huynh debuts with an engaging if overwrought saga of a Vietnamese family curse in Orange County's Little Saigon. After Ly Minh Duong gives the family home to her long-lost eldest daughter, Kim, a rift ensues between Ly Minh and her other daughters, Khuyen, Minh, and Mai. A decade later, middle-aged Mai sees a psychic who predicts a death, a pregnancy, and a grandson, who will finally put an end to the Duong curse that prevented the Duong women from having sons, which was placed on an ancestor who married for love. The news spurs Mai to reconcile with her family before it's too late. Meanwhile, Mai, who was forced by Ly Minh to marry for practicality and not love, pressures her middle daughter, Thuy, to leave her good-guy boyfriend, Andy, since he works for a nonprofit. Mai's college-educated daughters also look down on their cousins Elaine and Christine, who help their mother, Khuyen, run a sleazy "coffee shop," where young bikini-clad women serve drinks. A sudden change in tone derails the final third of the novel, littering what was an otherwise strong, character-driven narrative with implausible slapstick and convenient coincidences. Still, as the Duong sisters reunite and reckon with their family's outmoded beliefs, Huynh pulls off an admirable portrait of well-meaning mothers and their children. Despite the bumps, it's worth checking out. (Sept.)