Set in Orange County, America. The story focuses on the Duong family are 'cursed' to give birth to daughters only; this was placed upon them due to an indiscretion by a matriarchal ancestor.

"She promised herself that she would mever turn out like her Mother"
Following this, each woman in turn gave birth to daughters only. The story picked up many generations later...Mai Nguyen sought guidance from a feared seerer Auntie Hua. The Seerer predicted there will be a death, a marriage and a grandchild, and urged Mai to make peace with her two sisters Mihn Pham, and Khuyen Lam and her three estranged daughters Priscilla, Thuy, and Thao.

"She took out her sniper rifle from her mind palace already loaded for this moment"
As families gather, old hostilities and heartache erupts with each loaded phrase, jealousy and unresolved tension. There are many memorable verbal altercations between the sisters - often using their daughters successes as a goal scoring mechanism to save face and assert hierarchy. Mihn has a daughter called Joyce, and Khuyen has two daughters Elaine and Christine.

"There is nothing wrong with having a Vietnamese daughter. It was how the world treated them, that was the probelm".
I loved the following the stories of the Duong Women; the style of narration, how characters interweave with each other and the overlapping dialogue gave me a sense of familiarity and solidarity with women who have messy and complicated lives in the shadow of the model minority trope. Although dark in places, I enjoyed the wry sense of humour created by Caroline Hyung.

This book made me smile often, and I would highly recommend this.