A complex immigrant family story lies beneath the breezy veneer of 'Sunshine Nails'

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel there are several Vietnamese owned nail salons in my area. My favorite one really treated me like family. On a not so good day, I had gone to get a pedicure and started feeling off. Two of the staff took time off to drive me home, make sure I had food with a stop from McDonalds and have given me their personal number if I need anything. The woman who has been doing my pedicures for years has raised a biomedical engineer and another successful adult whose position escapes me at the moment. While they work, they communicate in Vietnamese but to the customers they speak excellent English. I could read the book, but it sounds very similar to my real life experiences.

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Sunshine Nails has been marketed as lighthearted, and it is in many ways — it's funny, some events get resolved too easily to be strictly realistic, and it's a gratifyingly speedy read. But beneath the dust jacket's bright yellows, purples and pinks is a novel of character studies that simmers with questions about work, class, generational divides and the expectations facing refugees making new homes in their asylums."...