A review by novelvisits
A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

3.0

My Thoughts: In a summer of terrific debuts, Vanessa Hua holds her own and is an author I will definitely be looking for more from. In A River of Stars she tells the story of Scarlett Chen, Chinese, pregnant, alone in the U.S., scared, and driven. Scarlett had been sent to Los Angeles by the father of her baby in order to secure U.S. citizenship for the son she carried. Things quickly went awry and Scarlett fled in a stolen van, taking a 17-year old pregnant stow-away, Daisy, along with her. The two reluctantly agreed to work together, winding up in San Francisco’s Chinatown where they hoped to become anonymous. I loved the touching story of Scarlett and Daisy struggling to make lives for themselves and their babies. Unfortunately, I liked much less the parts of Hua’s story that focused on secondary characters such as Boss Yeung, the father of Scarlett’s baby and Mama Fang, who ran the home Scarlett fled from. I just wasn’t invested in these characters and found myself skimming their parts. In the end, A River of Stars was a book that really made me think about immigrants and what it must be like for those families where a child born here is welcome, but his or her parents are not.

Note: I received a copy of this book from Ballentine Books (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review. Many thanks!

Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/summer-mini-reviews-clock-dance-lululemons-bankers-wife/