Daughters of the New Year by E.M. Tran is a captivating novel that will resonate deeply with readers who appreciate stories about strong, resilient women, immigrant experiences, and the complex, often fraught relationships between mothers and daughters, as well as those who enjoy historical fiction and literary fiction that explores themes of generational trauma, family, and identity.

I wanted to love this book so very much, but I fear its sale was overly ambitious and not executed/edited to its fullest potential. There were many compelling threads that could have been followed in a more satisfying way, and this felt uneven and unsatisfying. Thank you so much for the review copy!

A novel of generations of daughters in one family going back so far I’m not totally sure where the earliest chapters in time took place.

Based on the prose, it was quite a literary experience although I expected something less and that was a pleasant surprise. Although, I think I just wanted MORE from this beautiful book. I think I could easily be engaged with 100 additional pages of these women’s stories and perspectives, perhaps I wanted their lives to be a little more fleshed out. It makes me wonder if these families were real, because honestly they felt so real to me. Or perhaps that was what I hoped, because I liked them all so much.

This was a beautiful book, with beautiful writing, and beautiful characters. If only it were longer….

Thank you to @hanoversquarepress and @netgalley for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

I ran into some personal issues and was unable to read the book or write a review....my apologies to the publisher.

As you can tell by the synopsis, this is a powerful and complex story of Vietnamese women. The first part of the story is focused on Tran, Trieu, and Nhi, the daughters of Xuan, a Vietnamese immigrant living in the US with her family. The author captures the dynamic between children and their immigrant parents. She also addresses the immigrant experience in a fully fleshed out way with all vulnerabilities laid bare.

The story then dives deeper into Xuan’s history, which helps to understand her better. I’ll never forget the story behind her beauty pageant trophy.

Last, the story addresses the ancestors of the family living under French colonial rule. Daughters of the New Year is very much a story within a story within a story. It’s a thoughtful exploration of intergenerational trauma (I love seeing this featured in books more and more because it is so important). E.M. Tran has weaved a complex, dynamic story of strong women, and I cannot wait to read what’s next from her.

I received a gifted copy.

This book's leaning slightly towards a miss for me. I'm not a fan of reverse timelines, though family sagas are my thing. I just feel the passage of time more, which is why I prefer chronological order for generational stories. I didn't think this was bad per se, maybe a bit lacking. In transition between timelines, in prose, and characterization.

For lovers of FORTUNES OF JADED WOMEN, DAUGHTERS OF THE NEW YEAR follows Xuan Trung and her three daughters - Trac, Nhi and Trieu - as they wrestle with their identities, their responsibilities and their heritage.

Through the lens of the each of the daughters & Xuan, we learn about how the family came to be in America, including heartbreaking and dramatic moments that shaped their family. The writing is extremely introspective - very detailed, and entirely character driven. Unlike Fortunes of Jaded Women, which built to a particular plot point, I found Daughters of the New Year to be much deeper on its characterization of each of the women, including their deepest and most safely guarded interior thoughts.

Thank you to the publishers at HarperVia for the chance to read “Daughters of the New Year.”

I love books that are difficult to blurb, and “Daughters of the New Year” is one of those books. While the book jumps in time - in reverse order rather than chronological - between different female family members of the Trung family, it holds no sc-fi elements. There’s some supernatural happenings but this book is by no means a ghost story or a piece of magical realism. It also jumps around so much in time that it’s not fair to categorize it as “contemporary” fiction.

There’s also no main character per se, nor is there an explicit antagonist, and uses small cues it’s passages to hint at when the POV is taking place. For some, it make this book a frustrating read but for me, it’s what makes the book so refreshing, moving, and deeply thoughtful.

For folks that critique the book for not having more of a linear structure, that to me is the genius of “Daughters of the New Year.” The book’s structure speaks to a meta experience around being a first or second generation immigrant. To be a child of diaspora is to be in constant disorientation, of getting information about your loved ones out of order and often a confusing process when trying to reconcile it with the person they are today.

“Daughters of the New Year” is really for daughters constantly trying to make sense of how intergenerational pain manifests over time. It’s an incisive critique of sexism, racism, and colonization in multiple contexts that is also a simultaneous love letter to Têt and the Vietnamese zodiac.

Of course I would have loved to follow Trac, Nhi, and Trieu into whatever futures they create, but that goes against what the novel is pointing to: that we are all product of the messiness that our ancestors survived through, even if we never got a chance to know them. This is also a book that lends itself to so many rereads, and I can’t wait to see what kind of conversation it inspires as more people read it.

The story starts with all three daughter characters as adults, and we’ll call this the “present.” As we go through the chapters, we learn more about all of the daughters and their mom. The story is also moving backwards through time, though. We progress through their teenage years, see how the family fared during Hurricane Katrina, and move onward to their childhoods. The daughters all have their personal struggles, obviously, but they collectively deal with the pressures of being first generation Americans – like having parents who eat, shop, and speak differently than those of many of their classmates.

The chapters move around between perspectives, too, so we’re also consistently seeing things from the mom’s point of view. And eventually, we get to the parts of Xuan’s life from before she had her daughters – how she met her husband, how she left Vietnam, and the real story behind that beauty pageant trophy she prizes.

As we progress further, we start to see things from the perspectives of Xuan’s mom as well… and then her mom, and even further back. Most of these earlier generations are really only represented in the last quarter of the book, though. Here we learn about how their family was rich and respected in Saigon, and how they got that way.

I enjoyed this story, in both the New Orleans and Saigon parts. I also found the mom’s obsession with her daughters’ signs fun. (I should point out that she uses astrology based on the Lunar year, and not the Western kind many of us might think of first.) I did kind of wish that we knew more about what happens to the characters when we first meet them, though. For example, one is a contestant on a “Bachelor“-like program… but then we move back in time, and never know what happens to her on the show. It’s such a small thing, though, amid a very rich story.

Read if you like: multigenerational family sagas.
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This is a story about the Trung sisters and their female ancestors as they navigate their Vietnamese American identities, immigration to the US, and life in war-torn and colonial Vietnam.
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The book goes backward in time, starting in the present day, then goes back to the sister's mother's experiences in Vietnam during the war, and then her maternal ancestors. This was really interesting. I loved the explanation of the astrological signs based on the Vietnamese new year. The only thing is I wanted to know more about the women in the past!

Wonderful story of family, mothers and daughters interwoven with culture, humor and through time. I loved this! Such a good book! Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy! It was wonderful!

4.25 stars

I am grateful to Harlequin Trade Publishing for sending me an advanced copy of this book for review.

I feel like this is the type of book that you can read over and over and still appreciate new things each time. This multigenerational story about the Asian American experience for these women belong to this family was done masterfully by the author. The strongest part of this story is the way the author wove in and out of the different timelines, creating a tapestry of this family's history. This story spoke about the experience of womanhood, of trauma, of familial relationships, immigration, and identity.

I often find in stories like these, that when there are multiple perspectives and multiple timelines you do find that some stories are more interesting than others, and some characters’ lives are just less appealing to read about. However, the author managed to balance this very well and each character in the story had a very compelling storyline that pulls the reader in. I enjoyed the different vivid settings, and the anchoring of the storylines within their specific time periods with historical events. I also appreciate the way the author tied this all into the concept of horoscopes. I don't personally find horoscopes that interesting, but the use of horoscopes proved to be a very solid backbone for the structure of this story and added a level of intrigue and interest to it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and I would recommend it to fans of cultural stories, multigenerational family stories, and stories with themes of family and identity.

Daughters of the New Year is a stunning debut about the lives and stories of five generations of a Vietnamese family, particularly the women of the family. Using the culture and history of Vietnam, E. M. Tran has painted a complex, rich portrait of the way our past and generational trauma impacts our lives and our decisions. It was a mesmerizing, immersive read about identity and family, and the only thing I wished for was getting more closure and resolution with certain characters - something that fans of open endings definitely won’t mind. I loved that the author decided to switch the usual order of telling a story - this one starts with the youngest generation, and works its way backwards to their ancestors. I was also impressed by how Tran managed to give all of her main characters (and there’s a lot of them!) unique, individual voices and personalities. Overall, it’s a fantastic novel and a must read for anyone who loves stories about the immigrant experience, history, and family dynamics.

This had a lot of fascinating vignettes, but never really came together as a novel. I was interested in each scene and each new character, but the book doesn't really resolve any of the conflicts and character decisions these scenes bring up before jumping to another one, so it never really made a whole story for me.

I love a family saga that traces generations (Homegoing being my favorite example), and while this isn't necessarily a comp to that title, I enjoyed it very very much. The sisters in this book were real, flawed, raw, and absolutely wonderful. This story is one I will remember for a long time. The writing is evocative and a very very strong debut!

I enjoyed this book, although the ending was somewhat unsatisfactory for me. I think E.M. Tran did an excellent job showing how difficult things are for first generation immigrants. Poignant

This book is split into two parts, the first one following a Vietnamese-American family in New Orleans, their family dynamics, particularly between the mother and the three daughters, and all of their individual lives. The characters were all believable and different from each other, and I was invested in the story. The second half of the book delves more into the ancestors of this family. I liked the first half of the book, and when it switched to the second part of the book I was a little bit confused until I realized who these new people were. I felt that the first half was not resolved or finished, and that is a bit frustrating. The second half of the book was interesting in a different way, but the transition was jarring and I didn't feel as connected to these ancestors. I feel the book might have worked better as a series of interconnected short stories, in a more chronological fashion.

Daughters of the New Year was an enjoyable family saga built off of the Vietnamese zodiac signs. I liked the alternating points of view as well.

This was an interesting story as the premise centers around a multi-generational Vietnamese family with mothers obsessing over zodiac signs and their meanings. It was also told in a reverse timeline from multiple POVs of each woman in the family. But despite the promising premises; it did not engage me in the ways I had hoped. I love stories full of family secrets and learning about deep-rooted family history, but the storyline and characters felt incomplete. I felt a sense of detachment from the characters as it seemed like we were kept at arm's length from them. I wished we got to see the daughters' interactions with their mother--trying to understand where the other is coming from and learning/ unlearning together; rather than ending part 1 the way it did.

this was a fine read, but not a memorable one for me, unfortunately.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.