A River of Stars is a bright debut brimming with hearty potential.

Scarlett is an expectant mother living in Los Angeles with a community of women who all want American birth certificates for their future children. Sent by her paramour (and boss) from China, Scarlett is at once a plucky and resourceful tenant compared to the other women. In a house that is beginning to feel like a prison rather than a retreat, she takes a leap and escapes the watchful eye of her landlord and guard Mama Fang, along with a younger teenage Mother.

The story at once weaves in ways I wasn’t expecting. Scarlett commandeers the mission, but soon comes to depend on her gutsy sidekick. As they settle in a small squalid apartment in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the father of her child begins his own journey of finding his heir. Just like Scarlett, A River of Stars barely takes a moment to breathe. Her fear of discovery by American authorities and by her and her lover Boss Yeung are always at the back of her mind and fuel her motivations as she finds her way in the city. Hua gracefully braids together themes of parenting, immigration, modern survival, and son preference, along with other nuanced observations under Scarlett’s curious and watchful eye. I found her brief flashbacks of home particularly bright, though unfortunately infrequent.

It’s in Boss Yeung’s intermittent perspectives that the novel falters. As a reader it was pure fun to see my opinion of Boss Yeung shift as the story progressed, but I felt his presence was overwrought when he carried the story. Scarlett and Daisy held a realness that bolstered the narrative; their friendship and sacrifices were tangible, unlike Boss Yeung’s slow and complicated journey to get back to Scarlett.

A River of Stars ends just as Scarlett is catching her stride. In a brief and sudden halt, a few important themes are forgotten in it’s conclusion, which very neatly ties up most aspects of the story.

I was really enjoying this timely Asian-American novel about all kinds of immigrants, all kinds of mothers. But then a truly bizarre third-act twist left me kind of disappointed. A very important read, however, which will appeal to fans of The Leavers.

Vanessa Hua's first novel is wonderful. I enjoyed this novel about Scarlett Chen, a Chinese woman factory manager who is impregnated by her rich lover boss. He sends her away to Perfume Bay, a place in America where Chinese women are housed and where they can deliver their babies. The goal ofcourse is to have a baby with automatic American citizenship. Scarlett is really a very interesting complex character and I admire her pluck. There are many themes that bring this novel together such as mother-daughter relationships, motherhood, Chinese culture, community and struggles of being an immigrant. It is a thought provoking novel that presents the hot button topic of illegal immigration. I think this would be a great book to discuss for a book club.

I really wanted to like this book. My interest was peeked when one of my favorite book bloggers put it on her list of top Summer new releases and the premise grabbed me immediately. Unfortunately, despite its promising synopsis, the novel never really found its rhythm and the reader is left to slog through a couple hundred pages of fairly boring and frustrating material.
I was so excited to dig in to the dynamic of Asian immigrant culture and get a front row seat to the emotional struggle and progression of a new mother in a foreign country. But the book never quite came together. I was frustrated with the unlikeable protagonist and the back and side stories of most of the secondary characters (who I just didn’t care about) and couldn’t really get invested in. This made for a very long book where no character could really make a substantial amount of progression and most people are more or less the same as they were when I started the book. The middle was particularly long only to come to a manufactured and perfect end. I did appreciate the protagonist’s resourcefulness and resilience and I loved reading about Chinatown in San Fransisco, but in this case the pros didn’t outweigh the cons.

'Mama Fang held everyone’s wallets, passports, and their cash in the safe in her office, part of her pledge to take care of every detail. That meant Scarlett couldn’t pay for the fare and couldn’t leave the country. And if she asked Boss Yeung for a ticket, he’d refuse.'

Scarlett Chen becomes pregnant by her lover and owner of the factory she works for, Boss Yeung. A self-made successful business man with three daughters and a wife yearns for what men in China want, an heir, a son to carry on his success. Daughters always end up being more like their mothers, belonging to them, then to another family. “When told they were having a boy, Boss Yeung had bowed his head and clasps his hands to his mouth, speechless.” When an ultrasound reveals Scarlett is carrying a treasured boy, he sends her to America so that his son will be born free, with every opportunity Americans have, a limitless future! Scarlett knows that she can’t risk telling her own Ma, who works at a family planning clinic that she, an unmarried woman, is pregnant. Not when one-child policies are enforced, pregnancies tracked. She would lose her job, the very job that despite its bitterness, afforded Scarlett and her mother a living, survival.

Through an arrangement with Mama Fang, who has her own entangled history, Scarlett stays at Perfume Bay with other expectant mothers eating terrible food, fighting with other women and thinking about Boss Yeung and her child’s future. Then a new sonogram gives her shocking news that she fears will change any love Boss Yeung has for her ending his support, it is vital she escapes before she gives birth, or the future she imagined will go up in smoke. One night she escapes, only to discover teenaged Daisy, another unwed mother, in the van she steals. Daisy, born in America but returned to Tawaiin when she was 2 months old, is suffering her own broken heart, kept from her child’s father William whom she met in Teipei during a summer language program. She wants nothing more than to get a message to him, being kept apart by her parents. What if, however, he never really loved her as much as she believed? Daisy is educated, and seems priveladed but her own reason for running is just as desperate. Despite their differences, both of their fates hinge on their cultures and the demands of others- both need each other desperately. In a sense, Scarlett mothers Daisy, and does everything she can with an interesting cast of characters to keep their American dream alive. It takes more than intelligence and hope, it takes humility and hard work, and the aid of strangers, a sort of make-shift family. They begin with nothing, invisible to people in San Francisco, fighting for their place within the community of Chinatown, where not everyone is eager to aid their own people. Old Wu and Scarlett build a unique relationship, which I really enjoyed more than her relationship with Boss Yeung. Scarlett using her own terrible cooking to persuade Wu to help her is funny. Always appeal to a man’s ego. Who knew food cart wars could be so dangerous, but when you’re hiding and can’t call attention to yourself for fear of deportation, well… Something that made me laugh and cringe with its pettiness was the flyer placed next to her food cart, a picture of her with wet hair, a photo of a blurry rat beside her and the accusation of ground rodent meat. You have to laugh at the inventiveness of street competitors, maybe as cut throat and fierce as big businesses.

Mama Fang isn’t one to crumble nor fall when any of her businesses collapse. Naturally Boss Yeung is shocked to find out the state of the place he had sent his lover, and find her missing. Mama Fang’s back story is maybe more heartbreaking than both Scarlett and Daisy’s. A woman as strong as her always has more ideas waiting in the wings, always several steps ahead of the game, the only way she has survived for so long. Boss Yeung has his own story of betrayal, and his daughter Viann born to a successful father has her own goals, certainly it doesn’t include being usurped by a bastard son? Everyone has secrets, rich and poor alike, each trying to outmaneuver equally wily foes. What if one’s enemy is a lover, family or best friend?

The criminal acts expose how immigrants in desperation put their trust, all their money and faith into the hands of dubious people. How those with power manipulate and abuse those with none. Certainly the world is full of opportunists that target immigrants as cash cows and see them not as real people escaping horrifying bleak futures. You can’t outrun those with money and power, despite what continent you are on. Each person wants nothing more than to build a life for themselves and their family, and even if people like Scarlett’s Ma or even Mama Fang don’t agree with the morality of their job, sometimes there is no choice but to comply. Whether it’s Boss Yeung coming up from nothing to become a wealthy man in his own country, or Scarlett changing the trajectory of her own life, each changed their fate. The ending is not quite as I expected, I think I expected more shock after all the build up but it’s a solid novel. There were slow periods but things always picked up. This is a story about cultural obligations and the immigrant experience, which is varied and can end in tragedy or glorious fortune. It’s strange to think about the lives of others, continuing alongside our own, that remain invisible for the most part. A River of Stars is just one such experience, a drop in the ocean of many.

Publication Date: August 14, 2018

Random House

Ballantine Books

Daisy and Scarlett meet in an unusual place. The place is for pregnant women. They are bordered there. They are not free to leave. Daisy is an American citizen. Scarlett has been sent there by het lover. She is there on a visa from China. Both women are trying to escape their prison. And one nigjt they are able to steal a van from the clunic and escape to California. The mothers only want what's best for their baby's. Daisy is trying to find her baby's daddy. Scarlett is running from her baby's father, because he will take it from her.
This is a story of motherhood, friendship, immigration, and the American dream. Very well written.
5 Stars

Scarlett is living in a home for pregnant Chinese women waiting to give birth in America so their children can become citizens. Placed there by her rich married lover, Scarlett escapes and tries to make a life for herself in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The story line was interesting, and a Scarlett was a strong character but the book did drag in places.

SOLID 3.5. I really wish I could round up, but cannot. I expected more from this novel. At times I quite liked it, other times I thought it dragged. Though I didn't particularly like the somewhat pat ending [no spoiler alert necessary], I loved the epilogue!

Setting: A "...debut novel about motherhood, immigration, and identity, a pregnant Chinese woman [Scarlett, 36] makes her way to California and stakes a claim to the American dream." Scarlett is the mistress [and deputy manager] of a factory owner in China with three daughters who thinks at last--he's having a son! Boss Yeung sends her to Perfume Bay, a baby farm in Los Angeles for Chinese women so that his offspring will have U.S. citizenship. Perfume Bay is owned by Mama Fang, a woman who is skilled at reinventing herself--and what a character she is. Scarlett hooks up with Daisy, a teenager sent to Perfume Bay, under totally different circumstances. Daisy is a privileged ABC--American by Birth) in love with William, a Chinese-American student at Cal--her parents in Taiwan are keeping her from him; her stay at the home [and after] centers around finding him.

The "fun" begins when Scarlett hijacks a van [where Daisy has hidden]. They make their way to San Francisco and a whole new cast of characters and situation is introduced. And the twist of course, Scarlett discovers she's not having a son, and how will she hide this/keep from Boss Yeung?! Their struggles to say afloat with virtually no money and no papers is the heart of the novel.

What I liked the best:
Capturing Chinese culture--sons vs. daughters, red envelopes, descriptions of Scarlett's growing up, her mother's job in the communist society, and more.

Many of the characters were vividly drawn--especially Mama Fang, Uncle Lo, Old Wu, Viann. And to some extent, the Celestial Goddess -- said to resemble "...Imelda Marcos turned into an interstellar ambassador, with flowing purple robes and a diadem twinkling on her forehead like a third eye"--or, at least her followers [one being Boss Yeung's wife]. And I loved Mama Fang's story and especially her reinventions.

The book was well written--often, the descriptions captured me. Other times, the sentences revealed so much more of the story.

Some examples:
"her dark-rimmed eyes with the furtive look of a racoon"
"Scarlett draped her hand on her belly, where her daughter was drumming out the song of her arrival"
"the bills, damp as tofu skin..."
"...daughter heartily nursed, her jaws pumping like a piranha's..." [breastfeeding]
"Sister Fan was as genial as an electroshock patient"
"heat coming off him like an iron" [fever]
"back of her hand, which resembled a mountain range crossed by rivers of blue veins."
"his gelled hair like the prow of a ship" --one of my favorites.

And many, many more.

Ultimately the story of survival--immigration, clash of cultures, friendship, and values. Hua kept it going though I kept seeing the foregone conclusion of how it might all tie together. She did it well [enough], but I wanted more.

This is a wonderful novel and I eagerly await Vanessa Hua's next effort. Except for the Epilogue, which wraps everything up too neatly for me (I would have liked to have used my imagination), Hua scores high marks for the plot, the setting, and most of all, her characters. She tackles some big issues, including the meaning of family and motherhood, paternity and fatherhood, immigration, the wide gap between the very rich and the very poor, the perils and rewards of entrepreneurship, and the value of friendship, and more, and she succeeds in bringing each to light, each unfolding slowly as the story unfolds. We care about her characters, especially about Scarlett and Daisy but also about the men and women who help them as well as those who got them into their predicaments, because she paints them so vividly and lets us into them in ways many other novelists can only try. Scarlett and Daisy are unforgettable, strong, determined, and clever women who find themselves with newborns in circumstances they did not imagine experiencing. Hua's ability to portray her settings places them on an equal level to her characters: the smell of roasting fatty pork and burning plum sauce, the permeating smell of duck, the steamed buns, the studying children, each connected by IV to a magic genius concoction, the maternity home and more all come to life under her skillful pen. River of Stars sparkles.

I'm sorry, but I wasn't able to finish this book. It just didn't grab me, so I decided to let it go.

Beautifully written and the story flies. A story of two pregnant women from China who connect at a home for Chinese women to have their babies in the US. They are very different in age, immigration status and their relationships to their families and fathers of their babies, and yet form a deep connection. The story was so readable, and reads so quickly, that the themes explored resonated later for me: motherhood, feminism, relationships with parents that change over time, Chinese history and much more. Their solution to getting a green card is poignant and humorous. These women and their children are survivors, generous, gritty and forgiving.

I enjoyed reading about the Chinese culture. The book provides some insight on what immigrants had to got through. The book focuses on motherhood, which mother could related, however, I felt the book dragged here and there.

Lives up to all the hype on Goodreads. I don't know a better way to describe this than to say that it's utterly readable. I didn't know what to expect going in at all but I kind of feared from the first chapter that it would be an entire book describing the subtle and not-so-subtle power plays between the women in the pregnancy house. Luckily that turned out not to be true. It took a turn I didn't expect at all but which started off a great adventure. I like the parallel development of Scarlett and Boss Yeung as well as the secondary characters. I wish there'd been more from Daisy's own perspective but I imagine the author was trying not to let all the characters run out of control.

My one beef with this book is how easy it makes it seem to have an infant. I was astonished when I got to the "about the author" section and learned that the author has twin babies, because I couldn't imagine she'd ever spent any time around babies much less had her own. I mean, she tells us that Scarlett and Daisy struggle with their babies but I don't feel it. The babies are well-behaved and conveniently sleep or stay quiet whenever their mothers need them to. Lucky! Still, the babies aren't the focus of the story, just a catalyst for personal development, so I can forgive this.

This is a spectacular first novel. I will definitely keep an eye out for future books by Vanessa Hua. Highly recommended!

I don't like to give 3 stars but I found this book confusing and hard to follow. I felt empathy for Scarlett but I guess I was expecting more from her based on the theme and synopsis of the book. There seemed to be a lot of jumping around and I thought it could have flowed a little better. I loved the concept - just not how it turned out.

This is an incredibly timely book which delves into the Chinese culture and the industry of having women come to America to give birth so that their children will be citizens.

We follow the journey of Scarlett, bearing the child of Boss Yueng. Due to an error, the plan goes awry, but spunky Scarlett has her daughter Liberty and sets out on a new life.

The reader learns a great deal about Chinese culture and values. It is a good reference to understand the rapidly changing face of China, while the internal workings remain the same as centuries ago.

I didn’t enjoy this book, the only reason I finished it was to see how it ends, I found the story confusing, sometimes it was hard to tell where the events took place, China, Hong Kong,, America.?
Was it in he present time? Cell phones were the only indication that it was probably in present time. I did have empathy for Scarlett, who was a strong character trying to make a life for herself and her illegitimate daughter in America. Overall, this book was a disappointment for me.