What sorts of communities can you build when the world refuses to see you? Pick a Color reminds me of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: a short novel meandering through the happenings of one single day. However, PPick a Color focuses on the microcosm of a quaint nail salon run by quick-witted, wisecracking Lao women, who build profound relationships in a world of privilege and racially-charged power dynamics. In the mind of Ning, the salon’s owner and a retired boxer, the prose reads like a boxing match, all swift jabs and feints. Through Thammavongsa’s incredible storytelling skills, the reader learns the ways in which Ning and her employees makes themselves known, how they tries to find stability in a fast-paced capitalist world.
Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa, (List Price: $28, Little, Brown and Company, 9780316422147, September 2025)
Reviewed by Catherine Pabalate, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina