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A review by jackiehorne
Clean Breaks, Volume 3 by Ruby Lang
4.0
ARC from Netgalley
Dr. Sarah Soon, "maker of lists, taker of names, kicker of asses," has just finished being treated for Stage 2 Melanoma. Before her illness, Sarah was a hard-driving, take-charge, always-in-control kind of gal. But since her cancer diagnosis, she's been strangely unmotivated and lethargic, unable to bring herself to return to the OB part of her OB/GYN practice.
Enter Jake Li, a friend of her older brother's, a guy who had been a constant in the background of Sarah's life for years until she left home after high school (after being slut shamed by her peers and her parents for a fairly mild sexual incident). Jake's just been amicably divorced, and is eager to strike up a new kind of relationship with fierce Sarah, whom he's always found appealing but feared he was too geeky to attract. Sarah's interested (Jake has grown up into a hot, as well as a kind, man), but she's also fearful, fear which expresses itself via crankiness, snark, and unexpected bursts of anger. Said anger only increases when her parents, whom she hadn't told about the severity of her illness, discover the truth through Jake's father and come to town for their first-ever visit. And of course stay with her. And clean her house. And tell her how to act...
A lot of reviewers are having a hard time relating to Sarah, in large part because of her anger (and because by contrast Jake is such a sweetheart). I, for one, love angry romance heroines, because they are far too rare in the genre and because they validate my own moments of frustration and striking out because of it. The story doesn't belabor the fact that Sarah's acting in large part out of fear—fear of lack of control, above all fear of dying—but it is there as a subtext if a reader is willing to hear it.
The details of Sarah's break with her parents are a little underdeveloped plot-wise, but the severity of the break makes sense when you understand it as a generational culture clash, not just an individual problem between a girl and her parents: the hard work required of first generation immigrants, which can leave them less time to spend with their children than American culture tells said children is only what they deserve, can leave many second generation immigrant children feeling unloved. And the perfectionism that many immigrant children feel, to prove themselves both to their parents and to American society, that they do belong here, which often can shade into psychological burden rather than healthy spur to ambition.
Lang also challenges stereotypes about the lack of sex appeal of of Asian men, even while she has Jake defending what his friends/the culture at large tries to push on him as the "right" way to be a recently-divorced male ("Jake," Winston said soothingly, "I know Ilse hurt you and you want to get back in the saddle. There are lots of ladies out there—" "why do men keep saying this to me? Why do we keep saying this to each other? We keep talking about saddles and riding along. I'm not a cowboy, and you are a dentist." [1881]) And the gendered difference in parents' treatment of brothers and sisters. And the gendered judgment differences when a man wants to be married, vs. when a woman wants to be married. All with humor, wit, and verve.
I applaud Lang for her brave, honest, and deeply feminist depiction of Sarah's struggle, both in coming to terms with her own mortality, and with finding her way to a romantic relationship in which she can still be herself, porcupine spines and all.
Dr. Sarah Soon, "maker of lists, taker of names, kicker of asses," has just finished being treated for Stage 2 Melanoma. Before her illness, Sarah was a hard-driving, take-charge, always-in-control kind of gal. But since her cancer diagnosis, she's been strangely unmotivated and lethargic, unable to bring herself to return to the OB part of her OB/GYN practice.
Enter Jake Li, a friend of her older brother's, a guy who had been a constant in the background of Sarah's life for years until she left home after high school (after being slut shamed by her peers and her parents for a fairly mild sexual incident). Jake's just been amicably divorced, and is eager to strike up a new kind of relationship with fierce Sarah, whom he's always found appealing but feared he was too geeky to attract. Sarah's interested (Jake has grown up into a hot, as well as a kind, man), but she's also fearful, fear which expresses itself via crankiness, snark, and unexpected bursts of anger. Said anger only increases when her parents, whom she hadn't told about the severity of her illness, discover the truth through Jake's father and come to town for their first-ever visit. And of course stay with her. And clean her house. And tell her how to act...
A lot of reviewers are having a hard time relating to Sarah, in large part because of her anger (and because by contrast Jake is such a sweetheart). I, for one, love angry romance heroines, because they are far too rare in the genre and because they validate my own moments of frustration and striking out because of it. The story doesn't belabor the fact that Sarah's acting in large part out of fear—fear of lack of control, above all fear of dying—but it is there as a subtext if a reader is willing to hear it.
The details of Sarah's break with her parents are a little underdeveloped plot-wise, but the severity of the break makes sense when you understand it as a generational culture clash, not just an individual problem between a girl and her parents: the hard work required of first generation immigrants, which can leave them less time to spend with their children than American culture tells said children is only what they deserve, can leave many second generation immigrant children feeling unloved. And the perfectionism that many immigrant children feel, to prove themselves both to their parents and to American society, that they do belong here, which often can shade into psychological burden rather than healthy spur to ambition.
Lang also challenges stereotypes about the lack of sex appeal of of Asian men, even while she has Jake defending what his friends/the culture at large tries to push on him as the "right" way to be a recently-divorced male ("Jake," Winston said soothingly, "I know Ilse hurt you and you want to get back in the saddle. There are lots of ladies out there—" "why do men keep saying this to me? Why do we keep saying this to each other? We keep talking about saddles and riding along. I'm not a cowboy, and you are a dentist." [1881]) And the gendered difference in parents' treatment of brothers and sisters. And the gendered judgment differences when a man wants to be married, vs. when a woman wants to be married. All with humor, wit, and verve.
I applaud Lang for her brave, honest, and deeply feminist depiction of Sarah's struggle, both in coming to terms with her own mortality, and with finding her way to a romantic relationship in which she can still be herself, porcupine spines and all.