3.5⭐️

The once-bustling Greenways Mall in Upstate New York now houses several shuttered businesses and is about to close its doors for good.

As the story begins, we meet Tina Huang, Asian American single mother, once an aspiring artist and is now a hairstylist at Sunshine Clips, a salon operating in the mall. Her nine-year-old son Jackson spends his time after school in the salon. He dreams of becoming a magician and avidly follows videos of famous magicians to learn about the craft. One of Tina’s regular customers is the elderly Ro Goodson, a widow who lives alone and who is kind to Tina and Jackson. Ro isn’t quite liked by her neighbors for her aloof yet judgmental attitude. Among her neighbors is Kevin, an employee at the mall bookstore. Kevin is in a mixed-race marriage to Grace, an academic and poet. Once an aspiring academic, Kevin is struggling to complete his dissertation. Parents to twins, their financial struggles have resulted in them moving into a Tiny Home in Grace's mother’s backyard. We also meet Maria, a high school student, working at a fast food joint in the food court of the mall, who hopes to secure a spot in her high school’s production of West Side Story. All of their stories intersect at the mall where they work/visit. The narrative follows these characters through the ten months preceding the mall’s closure.

I found the premise of You Are Here by Karin Lin-Greenberg to be very interesting. The characters are well defined as are their individual stories. The author touches upon several themes in this novel – family, community, financial uncertainty, discrimination and racism among others. Despite a few relatively lighter moments, overall, the novel is a heavy read. This novel reads like a set of interconnected stories with the failing mall at the center of most of their common interactions. Naturally, there are multiple tracks to follow/subplots that are woven into the narrative. I enjoyed the first half of the novel where we are getting to know these characters, their aspirations, their connections and how the impending closure of the mall might affect their lives. But I feel that too much time is devoted to establishing the characters and thereby limiting how deep we can get into what transpires before the mall closes. As the narrative progresses, I felt that these different tracks remained mostly disjointed until almost the end of the novel. There is a lot that is happening in the lives of our characters and while there are some moving, impactful moments in this novel, I couldn’t help feeling that the story suffered from repetitiveness and overall lacked depth.

Overall, this story had potential and while I do appreciate the concept and the characterizations, I wasn’t quite satisfied with the execution of the story in its totality. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Jennifer Aquino, which was satisfying but sadly not engaging enough to make up for the flaws in the execution of the story.

Many thanks to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for the ALC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This novel is due to be released on May 2, 2023.

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You Are Here by Karin Lin-Greenberg is a highly recommended character study set in a closing mall.

A dying shopping mall is the setting for this character study of five individuals who all have connections to the mall. Tina Huang, is the last remaining stylist at a Sunshine Clips. She always wanted to be an artist. Jackson Huang is Tina's nine-year-old son who comes to the salon every day and is secretly teaching himself magic tricks. Ro Goodson is a cantankerous elderly woman and Tina's last remaining regular customer. Ro has the gift of always saying the wrong thing. Ro's next-door neighbor, Kevin, is the manager of the bookstore and stalled on finishing his dissertation. He built a tiny house in his mother-in-laws backyard for his family. Ro judges him harshly. Maria is a high school senior who works at a chicken place and wants to be an actress. She is friends with Jackson.

What follows is a portrait of this diverse group of people that follows their daily lives along with their dreams. All of these characters are portrayed as distinct, fully realized, realistic individuals with strengths, dreams, and flaws. Chapters are told through the point-of-view of individual characters and this is what moves the plot along. You Are Here, however, is much more a character driven novel than a plot heavy narrative. Events happen that involved each character, including life changing events, but the main focus is the inner monologue of these individuals reacting to the events around them.

The chapters are all connected, but they also feel like individual stories collected together to make a novel. The first part of the novel is heavy on the character development with events advancing a connection to all of them in the plot, beyond the mall closing, happening later. I appreciate and relish excellent character development, which is present throughout the novel. You Are Here will be engaging and enjoyed by those who admire strong character development.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Counterpoint via Edelweiss.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2023/04/you-are-here.html ( )

All the lonely people, I kept thinking. And they can’t tell each other their deepest needs and hopes. Mother and son, husband and wife, neighbors. They find connection at the local, dying mall. In their midst is another alienated soul whose act of violence will change their lives.

There is the child Jackson whose mother is a stylist at the mall salon. He is secretly learning magic tricks. His mother Tina had planned to study art before she became a pregnant, unwed mother who needed an immediate income.

Tina’s most loyal customer is Ro, an aged woman trying to change her attitude. Decades ago when black neighbors moved in, she stayed aloof and earned the reputation as a racist. She comes to her Chinese American hairdresser and tries to be helpful towards her neighboring biracial family; the dad Kevin manages the mall bookstore, dressing as characters from children’s books. He has delayed completing his dissertation for years, unable to admit he never wanted to teach literature.

Jackson makes friends with the girl working at the fast food chicken place who dreams of acting. He asks her to be his magician’s assistant for his school talent show.

It was the mall that brought these people into Ro’s life. She is distressed about its closing. She is planning an act of generosity that would erase the legacy of her past actions. But death finds her first.

…if it hadn’t been for the mall, they never would have met. How strange that the mall–such an ordinary place–could bring people together who might not have otherwise crossed paths.
from You Are Here by Karin Lin-Greenberg

Be assured, the story has a happy ending.

I loved this warm novel for its humanity and the author’s love for her characters.

The novel left me wondering, in a time when the malls are closing and churches are shrinking and schools are places of fear, what is left to draw us together as a community? What ordinary place will bring us together?

I received a free egalley from the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased. ( )