Everything about this was so cute! The cover especially! Will buy this for my shelf. Highly recommend for a book club. 5 stars!

I love the new wave of Vietnamese representation in books. Ten years ago, it would be a miracle if I browsed a book store for an hour and even found ONE Vietnamese name on the spine. Now, books like this exist and they are stories that I have always wanted to be told. Being a Vietnamese woman, I loved the way Huynh captured every side of us. Our passion, our stubbornness, our strength, and our weaknesses. These women reminded me of the own women in my life and I felt the care and heart that went into crafting this work of art. A love letter to Vietnamese women indeed.

This book made me laugh and cry.

Mai Nguyen goes to a psychic to consult her about the fate of her three daughters. Mai is worried about them especially because she knows the women in her family are cursed when their ancestor deserted her husband and ran away with her lover, enraging her mother in law. The psychic says that Mai’s year will be eventful. There will be a death, pregnancy, wedding and baby in her family. The book follows the year to see if all these predictions comes true.

This book was a great read. It is funny, quirky and a little out there, but i didn’t mind. I loved how it explored the complexity of mother-daughter relationships and how it tried to examine whether our future succumbs to fate or the decisions we make. The only drawback is that there were multiple narrators and this sometimes made the book hard to follow. There were also some storylines that were introduced but never resolved. Still, i loved this book and can’t wait to see what the author comes with next.

I received an ARC of the Fortunes of The Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh in exchange for an honest review.

The Duong women are cursed and all of Orange County’s Little Saigon knows it. A Vietnamese witch cursed their ancestor Oanh for leaving her husband and running away to Cambodia for true love. As a result, this witch curses the women down the family line to only bear daughters, never sons. Oanh’s current decedents Mai, Minh, and Khuyen have been estranged from each other and their mother for the last decade. None of them have great relationships with their own daughters either. Desperate for guidance, Mai seeks the help of a psychic in Hawaii who gives Mai an unexpected prediction that may reunite the Duong family.

The Fortunes of Jaded Women is a multi-narrative novel about Viet diaspora and the human condition. These characters are so incredibly flawed, but the reader is still able to relate to them through their sadness, hope, and intense love for their family. On page one the author states that this is a love letter to Vietnamese women and it sure is. The Duong women are messy, loud, dysfunctional, funny, and so very human. I would absolutely recommend this book.

I truly enjoyed this story able family drama, multigenerational diaspora, and the pressures women face from their family, culture, and especially themselves.

Carolyn managed to balanced a large family cast without loosing any closeness. I sympathized with all the characters, and felt their emotional journeys like they were my own.
The humor and dialogue here was fantastic and snappy! Had me laughing out loud many times. And the romance and relationship arcs were effortless to invest in.

There is a lot to love (and relate to) in these pages. I will definitely be reading her next books.

The Fortunes of Jaded Women follows a Vietnamese family living in the SoCAL and dealing with assimilation, curses, and family drama.

There were a lot of characters in this story. I wish it was streamlined to either Mai and her sisters or her daughters. Including everyone ( cousins etc) made the story a little hard to follow at times. I enjoyed the cultural themes and reading and learning about Vietnamese Culture. This is a good story and a fun read, as long as keep up with all the characters.

I couldn’t stop reading this utterly engrossing debut novel. The prose was immersive and the characters were so real and I just wanted to find out what would happen next. I loved the characters and reading about this family made me laugh and cry and rejoice in the reading of each page.

I am a mother of daughters and constantly worrying about how I’m messing up just like my mother did - and this book was just what I needed at this juncture of my life - racing up to an empty nest, each year going by more quickly than the one prior.

This is one of the absolute best books I’ve read this year. Absolutely recommended.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh is an amazing #ownvoices novel about three generations of Vietnamese women. The story revolves the Duong women, who were cursed to give birth to daughters only. In addition, they were cursed to never find true love. Some are dating white men with an Asian fetish; others were unlucky in love. Will the Duong women - all three generations - be able to get rid of the curse once and for all? Or will they be doomed to pass the curse on to the next generation?

Here is a magical excerpt from Chapter 1:

"Everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew the Dương sisters were cursed.
They heard that the curse began in Vietnam when Oanh Dương’s mother-in-law, Lan Hoàng, had gone north to visit the reclusive witch who lived in Sa Pa, at the foot of the Hoàng Liên Sơn mountains. The trip across the volatile terrain was treacherous; only truly diabolical souls who wanted to inflict generational curses on others would be able to survive. Like all slighted Vietnamese women, Lan Hoàng wished for the type of scarring that would make her wanton daughter-in-law and all her future kin ostracized forever. She just didn’t know what that would look like."

Overall, The Fortunes of Jaded Women is an amazing #ownvoices novel that will appeal to fans of Four Aunties and a Wedding or Crazy Rich Asians. One highlight of this book is that it's an #ownvoices book. As the edior writes in the foreword, it's not often that you see a book about Vietnamese women. In fact, this may have been the first one that I've read. As a reader of Asian descent, I am so happy to support this author.. Another highlight of this book is the humor. There were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. If you're intrigued by the excerpt, or if you're a fan of multicultural fiction, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in September!

I really enjoyed Carolyn Huynh's story of a several-generations-cursed family of Vietnamese women struggling to overcome not ony the curse, but generational trauma. Set in modern Orange County, California, the women are strong, fierce, independent, and yet also injured and yearning for reconciliation. The rich characters and tangled plot pulled me in, with a window into a world I am utterly an outsider to.

Thank you, Atria Books for my E-ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

The Fortunes of Jaded Women was smart, funny, and dramatic. Since their ancestor Oanh ran away from her spouse to be with her true love, the Duong family has been cursed. It follows three sisters and their daughters as they alternate between feuding and fighting with each other while constantly attempting to repair the family and eventually remove the curse. Based on a psychic's prediction for the next year, which includes death, marriage, and the birth of a grandchild.

It vividly portrays how far mothers would go to improve their daughters' lives and reconnect with them when things go wrong. The story of a strong Vietnamese family through many ups and downs is full of laughter, anguish, happiness, and pain. The exploration and description of Vietnamese communities and businesses in Southern California were interesting. There's a wonderful cast of characters, and we get to hear from them all. The shifting narrative is a good idea because each character has their voice. The characters' connections made me chuckle and seemed authentic in their intricate complexity. It was a lighthearted book that had me laugh-out-loud, but it also delivered an emotional hit.

However, I felt like there was so much hopping back and forth between character views in the chapters, which made me feel dizzy and left behind. Overall, The Fortunes of Jaded Women is a poignant story and a fun read. The Fortunes of Jaded Women was about mother and sister relationships, family, and the complexities and importance of each of these connections. I highly recommend it!

The publisher describes it best: It started with their ancestor, Oanh, who dared to leave her marriage for true love—so a fearsome Vietnamese witch cursed Oanh and her descendants so that they would never find love or happiness, and the Duong women would give birth to daughters, never sons.

Oanh’s current descendant Mai Nguyen knows this curse well. She’s divorced, and after an explosive disagreement a decade ago, she’s estranged from her younger sisters, Minh Pham (the middle and the mediator) and Khuyen Lam (the youngest who swears she just runs humble coffee shops and nail salons, not Little Saigon’s underground). Though Mai’s three adult daughters, Priscilla, Thuy, and Thao, are successful in their careers (one of them is John Cho’s dermatologist!), the same can’t be said for their love lives. Mai is convinced they might drive her to an early grave.

Desperate for guidance, she consults Auntie Hua, her trusted psychic in Hawaii, who delivers an unexpected prediction: this year, her family will witness a marriage, a funeral, and the birth of a son. This prophecy will reunite estranged mothers, daughters, aunts, and cousins—for better or for worse.

A multi-narrative novel brimming with levity and candor, The Fortunes of Jaded Women is about mourning, meddling, celebrating, and healing together as a family. It shows how Vietnamese women emerge victorious, even if the world is against them.

This is a story of mothers and daughters and their complicated relationships. The themes of jealousy, competition, family, love and forgiveness prevail in this story. Each woman in the story must go through their own struggles and find out what they really want in life, beyond their mother’s dream for them. It was enjoyable to have a glimpse into a different culture that I am not very familiar with.

Oh I loved this! It honestly felt like a balm for my soul; it's a lovely multi generational story that goes back and forth in time and place, with multiple narrations that just seemed to work (although I think Joyce got a little shorted on her overall story. Liam I hope you're ok). I really enjoyed this although I wish we learned more about the matriarchs life in Vietnam and what happened with Kim; maybe a follow-up then?

I really wanted to love this book.
The Fortunes of Jaded Women follows an estranged family Vietnamese-American sisters and cousins and their Vietnamese-born mothers during a year of immense change. Matrilineal curses, fortune telling, sibling love, and inclusivity? All I could hope for.

The novel had a fascinating premise and a wonderfully eclectic mix of characters spanning four generations of the Dương family. My favorite moments were the flashbacks that occurred as sisters and cousins thought back to the home they once shared. The writing here was simple and beautiful.

Unfortunately, the rest of the novel fell flat for me. With such a large host of characters it seemed like Huynh frequently relied on summary to push through each story. The love interests didn’t pop because I didn’t see enough chemistry between the characters. Conversations and interactions that would make each relationship come to life were swept away in favor of saying that the woman in question had never felt like this before. Meanwhile, the relationships that mattered most— the ones between the women— didn’t seem to have an arc. They gained a moment of clarity one moment; the next they were hysterical again. I understand big, loud families that struggle to show affection. But this constant return to hysteria felt one-note since readers did not have enough specifics about the characters and their previous relationships to make them well rounded people.

That said, I enjoyed the examination of the American dream and the ultimate reveal of how the family had really been “cursed”. If you’re looking for quick read with light intergenerational drama,

So much to love about this book! There is an amazing cast of characters and we hear from all of them. The shifting narrative is really well done as each character has their own voice which is impressive as there are so many characters. Also, so many funny/relatable moments. I'm not Vietnamese-American, but as the child of immigrants, so many details rang true for me. And loved all the descriptions of food. There was nothing predictable about this story, but so many things to enjoy: a curse, fortune tellers, lots of family and relationship drama, and other surprises I won't mention because of spoilers. Some of the family reunion scenes made me laugh out loud.

The Fortunes of Jaded Women: 4.5/5 ⭐️

The Fortunes of Jaded Women is an amazing debut novel by Carolyn Huynh. This book truly is an ode to the first generation women of the Vietnamese diaspora and their daughters.

Huynh’s writing is humorous, metaphorical, and vivid. She has a captivating way of making each scene so easy to imagine. While some parts of the book were a little predictable, overall The Fortunes of Jaded Women is a poignant story and a fun read.

I especially loved that Vietnamese culture including the language was such a central tenant in this book. The pacing of the book is phenomenal. I was drawn into the story on the first page and by the end I couldn’t put it down because of all the plot twists and drama!

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to read contemporary fiction!

This is a cute story with some wonderful insight into Vietnamese culture. I enjoyed reading about the family so much! However, sometimes the amount of characters was a little difficult to keep up with. I think this would make a wonderful series, with less characters in each book.

The book has a little bit of everything - laugh out loud moments and serious, emotional moments. Overall, a great read!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC. All opinions expressed are completely my own.

Overall, I rated this book a 4/5 stars. There’s a lively cast of characters and the pace and feel of the book (the tea runneth over!) reminded me of CRA with much less label/name dropping and much more relatable characters. In fact, I’m convinced there’s a character for everyone to relate to in this story since they’re all so diverse yet approachable. No one is perfect, nor do they claim to be, yet that didn’t stop them from loudly expressing their expert opinions on everything to everyone.

The book can be repetitive at times, but in this case, it was beneficial for me to get the characters and their many entangled relationships sorted out.

While some themes resonated deeply with me as an AA woman, they are also themes that other people can easily relate to: parental disapproval of one’s partner, differing expectations for success, unfulfilled relationships/careers, and duties to familial ties. The deep cuts for me as an Asian woman though include the concept of the model minority, racial identity conflicts, and the lingering mental health effects of war atrocities, not to mention the harsh truths that aunties and mothers can deliver…to your face!

It was a fun read that literally made me laugh out loud, but it did pack an emotional punch. Plus, having lived in Southern California for a very short period of time, it was cool reading about the different neighborhoods/landmarks and getting a particular vibe for the setting.

I can definitely see how this is “a love letter to Vietnamese women” because the heritage/culture is so meticulously written. And the jaded/jaded reference? Chef’s kiss, perfection!

*Thanks to Atria Books via NetGalley for the ARC*

The Fortunes of Jaded Women follows the women in a Vietnamese family who has been cursed to only have daughters. Mai receives a prediction from a fortune teller that there will be a death, a wedding, and a pregnancy within the next year but only if she gets her family reunited. Thus sets off a chain of events to restore the bonds that had been broken years before.

I liked parts of this book, including a lot of the characters. However, I felt like there was so much jumping back and forth between character perspectives in chapters that I was never able to connect with one character as much as I'd like. I also felt the epilogue didn't resonate with how the book ended before that. If you like family drama books though, this is a good book to read.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this character driven story about the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters and sisters. I have to admit though, that this really isn’t my style of book. I prefer fast paced, plot driven stories. I think I would have preferred if this was a series, covering a few of the women per book and delving deeper into their stories, instead of condensing the stories, complications, and drama of a dozen women in one 270 paged novel. The last quarter of the book moved at a better pace and was really good. A lot in this book made me sad, some of it made me angry, but the end had my laughing.

Thanks to Net Galley and Atria Books for this digital arc in exchange for my honest review which is not affiliated with any brand.

#NetGalley #TheFortunesofJadedWomen

Have you ever wandered into another culture or wondered what it’s like to grow up in America as a person from a different culture? Or visited a psychic? Or wondered why you have bad luck? Or even fallen in or out of love? All of this is in this tremendous book about Vietnamese women and their lives in the United States. Infused with tender insights into the Vietnamese culture—many that you may not know. It is a story of women across generations, of family, of love and of the struggle to assimilate into a new culture. Spanning several generations and a sweeping saga of mothers and daughters and the men who love or almost love them, the book will hold your attention, make you want to know Vietnamese women, and certainly wear some jade jewelry and laugh and weep. A definite five star read.