A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

A RIVER OF STARS by Vanessa Hua is a well-written debut novel which tells the story of Scarlett Chen, a young and pregnant Chinese woman whose married employer/lover (Boss Yeung) has sent her to Mama Fang’s Perfume Bay near Los Angeles, California so that their child will be born there and have American citizenship. She and a young teenage mother-to-be, Daisy, make a surprising escape one night and despite some very real dangers end up in San Francisco’s Chinatown. There, they rely on neighbors’ goodwill, street smarts, and hard work to survive. Readers will be amazed at Scarlett’s resilience and (sometimes underhanded) resourcefulness, not unlike the similarly named character in Gone with The Wind. I initially requested A RIVER OF STARS because of its focus on the 21st century version of the American Dream, but parenthood, especially the relationship between mothers and daughters, is also very key and could potentially work as a basis for Junior Theme. Literature circles could definitely consider pairing Hua’s novel with other previously reviewed fictional works on immigration, such as Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran or perhaps Go, Went, Gone (to be read by our Global Voices class this year) or A Radius of Us or Behold the Dreamers.  A RIVER OF STARS garnered praise from authors Celeste Ng ("utterly absorbing") and Lisa Ko ("a riveting story"); plus, it was a LibraryReads selection for August 2018 and the BBC and the Economist featured positive reviews.