Worth A Read Yes
Length 304
Quick Review A Chinese woman arrives in the U.S. to give birth to her baby, but due to circumstance stays to make her way in the face of adversity in Vanessa Hua’s A River of Stars.
Reading books about immigration is important right now. It’s easy to talk about immigrants as a group or an other, but when you’re faced with stories of struggle, despair, children, and the humanity of it all, it’s hard to think of keep them separate from ourselves. The political climate in the U.S. is very …interested in immigration right now. We need these stories. Even though, A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua is a novel, it is very much grounded in reality for millions of men, women, and children living in fear and unknowns here in the U.S. and around the world.
Scarlett is a 37 year old Chinese woman who arrives in the United States to give birth to her bosses baby. She stays at a home for pregnant Chinese women, but it feels more like a prison filled with gossipy, rich ladies. Scarlett runs away with Daisy, a well-off, pregnant, teenage. They end up in San Francisco’s China Town scraping by, giving birth, and figuring it out, while the clock on their tourist visas keeps ticking away. They make friends and learn to lean on one another for help and companionship.
There are four fundamental characters in A River of Stars: Scarlett, Daisy, Boss Yeung, and Mama Fang. Chapters randomly alternate perspective allowing each of these characters to tell their side of the story. It humanizes each of them, and shows their motivations, misunderstandings, feelings, and more. If the story had followed just Scarlett, it would have been vastly different. The immigrant story is not one sided but multifaceted and complicated. Everyone is searching for something, and at the core it is a search for identity and belonging. Hua also makes use of transliterations instead of using just English. The Chinese infusion is a lovely addition to the story because immigration stories usually include a language hurdle. Motherhood is an essential element to this story. Without it, the narrative kind of falls apart. Emigration is often heavily influenced by existing children or future children. Parents want the best for their kids. It’s a fairly fundamental emotion.
Vanessa Hua does a great job of creating an interesting story that is both fun to read and right on the nose for the political climate in her debut novel A River of Stars. It’s perfect for the upcoming summer months.
Memorable Quotes
“Daisy didn’t realize that you might share the same bed, but dream different dreams.”
“She didn’t yet realize aunties specialize in contradictory advice.”
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Title: A River of Stars
Author: Vanessa Hua
Publisher: Ballantine Books (Random House)
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9780399178788