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THE LEFTOVER WOMAN
Jean Kwok
288 pages
William Morrow
October 10, 2023
Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop.org
I desperately wanted to give this five stars. There were many wonderful things about this novel. The story was really engaging. Jasmine, a young woman, arrives in the United States, wanting to reunite with her daughter, who was taken away from her at birth because of China’s one child policy. Jasmine’s husband, a controlling and abusive man, gave away the baby without Jasmine’s knowledge. Jasmine finds out and wants her daughter back. She finds out where her daughter lives, with a couple in New York City, where she is given the life that Jasmine would like to provide. The couple is well off. Jasmine arranges to be hired by the couple as their daughter’s nanny. There are family secrets that result in trouble. I am irresistably drawn to stories about adoption because I was adopted myself. This book had compelling characters, a plot that moved along, and it kept me gripped. So why four stars instead of five?
There were a couple of things. One was that there were coincidences or plot points in the book that seemed contrived (for example, Jasmine finding her daughter’s adoptive parents and being able to be hired so easily as a nanny). That would have been all right. The big thing was that this was a “lean” book. Many books these days are long; often too long. This is one that I thought could have used a bit “more.” There were missed opportunities to show us, rather than tell us, what characters are like. In one part that I am thinking about, Jasmine thinks aloud to the reader about her situation and how it is affecting her. This goes on for pages. As someone who has written fiction, I would have conveyed Jasmine’s mindset to the reader through her situations, dialogue and so forth versus narrative about what she is thinking. In other words, there is too much tell not show.
That being said, the gripping story and interesting characters warrant four stars. One more thing though: this book is touted as a mystery on Goodreads (not on Amazon, though). Don’t be fooled by that. While there is a little mystery at the end, if you are looking for a true mystery, go elsewhere. I would classify this as contemporary fiction with a splash of mystery and historical fiction.
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