Review: Sunshine Nails
- Megan // thebookishnarwhal
- Apr 11, 2023
- 2 min read
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: Mai Nguyen 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: 04 July 2023
A wonderful and powerful debut from Mai Nguyen! I fell in love with the Tran family from the first page. It’s obvious how much time and care Nguyen put into writing the characters and story. You need to pick up a copy when this hits the shelves in July!
Add this to your beach read list now! Readers be warned, this book does contain anti-Asian racism and threats of violence. I encourage you to make yourself uncomfortable by reading these situations, as they happen more often than you realize.
Meet the Tran family. They run a nail salon in Toronto, Canada. One day, a new salon moves in across the street. Owned by an American company, the arrival of this new salon causes a ripple effect – will the Tran family business be able to survive?
As someone who spent over a decade living in the GTA, I love stories set in Toronto. They really do capture my heart, take me back to my 20’s, and cause pure nostalgia for when Bay Street only had three chain coffee shops between Union and the dreaded Eaton Centre. Oh, and let me know if you’re as mad about Buddha as I am?
The novel cycles through five people’s points-of-view, which brings complexity and nuance to the story. No community is a monolith and thus by including numerous perspectives, Nguyen accurately portrayed how different people can view the same situation through an array of lenses. I also applaud how Nguyen gave the characters relatable life struggles, including DUI’s, cheating, and not getting that raise.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an eARC in exchange for my honest review!
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