The Fortunes of Jaded Women

The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh (2022) 255 pages

Generations ago, a Vietnamese woman, Oanh Duong, left her husband to marry someone else for love. The audacity! Her ex-mother-in-law visited a witch to place a curse on her and all her future children: no sons shall be born into their families. Fast forward to Oanh's great-grandaughter, Mrs. Ly Minh Durang. She has four daughters by two husbands. Her daughters have watched family discord for all their lives; indeed, they haven't spoken to each other or to their mother for a long time. Between them, the four daughters have eight daughters, and they each have their own issues with them, as well. (There is a family tree at the beginning of the book that helps keep all of these women straight.)

None of the youngest generation has found love; they are as jaded as their mothers about the prospect. Circumstances in their youth—several families together in a small house, hearing their mothers fight with their fathers—have not helped them find happiness. However, some of the women are quite successful in business. One has already made her fortune as the head of a computer company. Another is a dermatologist, one is a designer of a clothing line who lives in Saigon, and a couple of them run small businesses in Southern California, where most of the story takes place. As proud as their mothers are of these daughters, there is toxicity in their relationships with them.

Mai Nguyen, one of the daughters of Mrs. Ly Minh Durang, visits Auntie Hua, a fortune teller based in Hawaii, as she has done each year for the past ten years. She is told that this coming year will bring huge changes: a death, a wedding, and a birth of a baby boy in the family. Is the curse to be broken? As temperamental as Mai Nguyen is (it's not uncommon for her to start flinging fruit at her sisters), she starts reconnecting with her sisters and mother and daughters. The result is humorous, poignant, and more than a bit crazy.