“A young woman finds love, and herself, when she decides to forge a path outside her parents’ expectations.” the donut trap
WHITE ON WHITE
has so far failed to meet. But when Jasmine’s best friend, Linh, posts a photo with her boyfriend’s new roommate, Jasmine is shocked to see that it’s Alex Lai, the hottie she met once in college and never saw again. When Jasmine starts dating Alex, it ignites her desire to make more changes in her life—including expanding Sunshine Donuts’ clientele enough that her parents can afford to hire someone else. But when they resist her changes, a disastrous family dinner puts her relationship on the line, and an old flame reappears, Jasmine’s plans might go up in smoke. Readers expecting a sweet-as-glaze rom-com will be disappointed. While the romance between Jasmine and Alex features heavily, it’s the least interesting aspect of the book. Alex is a good match for Jasmine, and readers will root for them, but there isn’t enough spark to justify the lightning-speed progress of their relationship. Where Tieu’s writing really shines is in her explorations of complicated family dynamics—particularly for the American-born children of Chinese refugee parents—and overwhelming post-college ennui. The dialogue between Jasmine and her parents is often funny and sharp, and Tieu tackles their fraught relationships
Sava�, Ay�egül Riverhead (192 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 30, 2021 978-0-593-33051-7
y o u n g a d u lt
A doctoral student in art history strikes up a relationship with a mysterious painter. When an unnamed graduate student receives a fellowship to conduct research on medieval art, she needs a place to stay. Seeing an apartment advertised through her department, she arranges with the owner, Pascal, a professor of medieval studies, to rent it. Pascal’s wife, a painter named Agnes, has a studio upstairs; she will be in the city “from time to time.” But when Agnes arrives, early in the student’s yearlong stay, she shows no signs of going anywhere. At first, the student is glad for the company and intrigued by Agnes and her art, both of which are characterized by their “restrained elegance.” But as their friendship unfolds, Agnes reveals herself, both through visits to her studio (where she works fretfully at an all-white painting) and long talks, telling increasingly confessional stories about her relationships: with an old friend, an ex–au pair, with her parents, her children, and her husband. As the student is put more off-balance by Agnes’ intensity, she wonders what it is that is really going on behind Agnes’ facade. Despite the thriller-ish underpinning of the novel and the propulsive unfolding of the relationship at the book’s heart, Savas’ graceful and intellectual prose is the star of the show here. It makes air-light what might otherwise be a novel ponderous with weighty questions: What is the nature of art? Does it reveal or conceal? What is the nature of human connection? As Agnes says, “It wasn’t often…that we could present ourselves to others, like a self-portrait. More often, we made portraits of the people around us, guessing at their features from occasional glimpses.” Like a prism, this novel brilliantly illuminates the human spectrum of connection and longing.
THE DONUT TRAP
Tieu, Julie Avon/HarperCollins (368 pp.) $15.99 paper | Nov. 2, 2021 978-0-06-306980-0 A young woman finds love, and herself, when she decides to forge a path outside her parents’ expectations. Jasmine Tran is a 22-year-old recent college graduate with no career prospects, no boyfriend, and no clue what to do next. She knows she’s lucky to have a job at her parents’ shop, Sunshine Donuts, but she’s loath to imagine a lifetime of waking up at 5 a.m., boxing dozens of underpriced pastries, and butting heads with her parents, whose high standards she |
kirkus.com
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fiction
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1 october 2021
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19
