Kathryn's Inbox

Carolyn Huynh's debut novel is a beautiful story about generations of cursed women. It is well known in Little Sagon that the Durong sisters are cursed--that the women in the family never find love or happiness, and that their daughters always give birth to more daughters, not sons. Then one day, Mai Nguyen hears a surprising prediction from her trusted psychic, a son will be born into the family at last, lifting the curse. In preparation for this even, she begins reuniting the women of the family, with surprising consequences. This was an amusing, and occasionally heartbreaking, read about a family of women who not only believed themselves to be cursed, but the hardships the encountered in their lives--coming to the United States from Vietnam as refugees, rebuilding their lives and trying to shape better lives for their daughters, all of whom have different hopes and aspirations from their mothers. Parts of the story reminded me a little of The Joy Luck Club, while some of the nov...

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  No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

The collective noun for a group of porcupines is a prickle.

A killer intent on avenging past wrongs is at the heart of this twisty crime novel set in Auckland. Hana Westerman is a Maori detective, and a singly mother, working in the Central Investigations Branch. She has always had to walk a very difficult line between her culture and her work, and even more so when she discovers a link between a number of supposedly unrelated murders and the colonisation of New Zealand. While it would be easy to write Better the Blood off as yet another story about a serial killer whose crimes are investigated by a cop who has all kinds of trouble in their personal life, that would mean totally ignoring one of the finest, and key points of difference in this novel--it's intimate glimpse into past wrongs, Maori culture and the effect those wrongs have in modern day New Zealand.  Initially, I had trouble getting into this one as much of it is quite confronting and I wasn't in a great headspace. However, a second reading, when I was in a better mindset, ...

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  I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am ~  Sylvia Plath , The Bell Jar