[Review] Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune

Rating: 3.5 stars

Published: June 11th 2019

Goodreads Synopsis:

At the news of her mother's death, Natalie Tan returns home. The two women hadn't spoken since Natalie left in anger seven years ago, when her mother refused to support her chosen career as a chef. Natalie is shocked to discover the vibrant neighborhood of San Francisco's Chinatown that she remembers from her childhood is fading, with businesses failing and families moving out. She's even more surprised to learn she has inherited her grandmother's restaurant.
The neighborhood seer reads the restaurant's fortune in the leaves: Natalie must cook three recipes from her grandmother's cookbook to aid her struggling neighbors before the restaurant will succeed. Unfortunately, Natalie has no desire to help them try to turn things around--she resents the local shopkeepers for leaving her alone to take care of her agoraphobic mother when she was growing up. But with the support of a surprising new friend and a budding romance, Natalie starts to realize that maybe her neighbors really have been there for her all along.

Natalie returns home, following the death of her mother, and in her memory, works to revitalize her corner of San Francisco's Chinatown, by reopening her grandmother's restaurant. Natalie has had an estranged relationship with her mother, who suffered from agoraphobia. With the help of old neighbors and friends, Natalie hopes to rekindle her passion for cooking and return to her roots.


I wish I liked this book more, but even though it was short, a good portion of it dragged for me. The writing was beautiful, but also unmistakably slow, dropping detail after detail to build and develop the world in the beginning. 100 words were said, when sometimes all that was really needed were 10. I know being told to 'show, don't tell' is juvenile writing advice, but we were told so much about Natalie's backstory and personality and relationships without fleshing them out on the page.

My doubts billowed as dark as the clouds overhead. An ominous rumble echoed in the distance, the briefest of warnings before the rain descended. Fat droplets pelted my hair, soaking my white sundress and leather sandals. Unrelenting droplets heaved from the sky, soaking everything in sight, the gutters, the newly formed cracks in the sidewalk, painting everything in tones of gray. - p. 165

Dusk's veil failed to hide the increasing number of converted office buildings and upscale, big-name chains moving in were bodegas and apartments used to be. These builds used to be small businesses that housed hives of families. I'd read that the boom in the real estate market in San Francisco, fueled by the tech industry, had created a housing crisis for those with low and middle incomes. Ma-ma had been lucky the she owned our building, otherwise she would have been prey to the mass evictions that occurred. Growing up, I was accustomed to an insular neighborhood where the faces were as familiar as my own, but with more and more, the demographics were changing. Gentrification was devouring Chinatown. Even knowing this, I hadn't expected the neighborhood to change so much in seven years. - p. 9

It was even a tad bit too dramatic.

"I was entropy's handmaiden, bringing destruction to every life I touched. - p. 201

Once unmoored from such lengthy descriptions, I did find myself enjoying Natalie's quest to charm her neighbors and fulfill their wishes through her cooking - even though that didn't go exactly to plan.

This was more or less a book about finding oneself and rebuilding connections in a community. I think once we moved past the drama surrounding Natalie and her meddling with her neighbors' affairs, this story became bittersweet, as we shifted focus towards discovering the truth about her family. It even made me cry.

I do wish that I was able to have all those relationships featured in the beginning. The mental health discussion was something that, honestly, should have came to light earlier. Natalie talks frequently about how her mother's agoraphobia affected her, but it was only until the end when we see how it affected her mother.

Overall, it was an okay book that hit home in the latter half of the story.