Dragon House

Vietnam has seen much upheaval since the fall of Saigon, and this story is born out of the continuing struggle. The characters are all dysfunctional in some way and adversely affected by the modern world, especially the children who live on the streets and attempt to carve out a survival-level existence, at times necessitating less-than-enviable partnerships. Jenny Ikeda, a native English speaker who has a talent for Asian speech patterns, is a refreshing choice to bridge the gap between the American and Vietnamese speakers. Shors keeps the characters to a minimum so as not to overcomplicate the plot. However, outside of the interesting vignettes of Vietnamese life, the book doesn't offer the reader anything new in the way of themes or plot resolution. S.M.M. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

August 31, 2009
Shors's third novel tells an absorbing story weakened by melodrama, sentimentality and exposition. After promising her dying father, a Vietnam War veteran, to take care of his shelter for street children in Ho Chi Minh City, American writer Iris agrees to take along her childhood friend Noah, now a depressed veteran who lost his leg in Iraq. In Vietnam, they find the shelter has drawn an appealing cast of Americans and Vietnamese, all seeking escape and salvation, including two children exploited by a brutal drug addict, and an impoverished old woman whose granddaughter is dying of cancer. Though interesting, most characters never overcome Shors's insistence on telling, rather than showing, their inner lives ("he hurt and hated so much"). Melodrama and mawkish foreshadowing ("I'm taking the risks... and everything's going to be just the way it was meant to be") will prove familiar to anyone who's watched a TV movie. Though frustrating, this is the kind of novel (provocative, polarizing, exotic) that should stir book group discussion.