Review: Sunshine Nails: A Novel by Mai Nguyen

My Interest

Honestly? I just liked the sound of it! I loved the few times I had a professional manicure! I’ve never wanted fake nails or nail art, but I truly loved having a nice French manicure for a few law firm events in the late 90s. And, the family brought to mind all of the incredible Vietnamese refugees I worked with in the mid- to late-1980s.

The Story

“Jessica never understood the power of gossip until she worked at the nail salon. It gave people who had nothing to talk about a reason to engage with one another, to create closeness through the exchange of closely guarded information.”

Vietnam immigrants, “Debbie” and “Phil” [they took the names to simplify their lives] were “boat people” after the Vietnam war. They settled in Toronto and eventually started a nail salon–Sunshine Nails. Their son, Dustin and daughter, Jessica, assimilated and started careers. Recently, they sponsored a niece, Twee, to immigrate from Viet Nam to Canada. But now, Jessica is home her big romance and career over and reluctantly starts working at Sunshine Nails Dustin is working unhealthy hours at company booming on the strength of it’s happiness app, so why does he delete his company’s own app?

When a very up-scale nail salon invades their neighborhood, the Tran family and Sunshine Nails are thrown for a loop. As problem piles onto problem members of the family try their own solutions. Will any of their plans work and save the salon?

My Thoughts

I loved this family! The way the parents kept working to keep their now adult children in touch with their culture and the way they just continued to work–period. It was inspiring. I loved that even though Debbie and Phil have been together for so long, have endured so much, they still enjoyed making love–a rarity in books (and told with no “ick”). Debbie’s endless ability to forgive and move on, to clean up the mess–she really was a Badass as a mom and as a wife. And, that, my friends is a good thing!

The lengths they each went to try to keep the family financially going was pretty amazing. Ok, one story was a little far-fetched, but hey, it’s called fiction for a reason! 

I could have done without Dustin and Makenzie’s very brief, trendy ick scene, but it was not even a nanosecond. Dustin’s soul-crushing job, his awful Ted Talking boss–a bit too real today. Jessica’s journey from flying high in California to [no spoilers] was even more inspiring than her brother’s journey. 

This book was just right for our times today. Corporate CEO greed, workers never seeing a raise, gentrification– LEGAL immigrants enduring microaggression upon macroaggression, it was all there. But over it all was this family. Family loyalty and traditions–very important threads in the fabric of any society. 

The final few sentences of the book reduced it slightly for me (No Spoilers). 

My Verdict

3.75

I listened to the audio book