Fiction/Nonfiction Quick Reviews: The Hawaii Edition

 The Guest in Room 120 by Sara Ackerman (2025)

Jan Stanford, founder of Stanford University, flees to Hawaii to escape her enemies for awhile, but she is then found dead at a new hotel.  One hundred years later, author Zoe is attending a writers' conference at the same hotel when she feels compelled to solve the mystery of what actually happened to Jane Stanford.  I had mixed feelings about this fictional approach to the real-life mystery of Jane Stanford's death.  I loved the Hawaiian setting and the inclusion of another POV, a hotel worker named Iliahi, brought a unique perspective to the story.  I thought the writing was pretty stilted, though, and Jane was eccentric to the point of being unlikable.  Zoe's storyline has too much going on (a tragic backstory, a romance, and trying to keep herself anonymous while also making friends at the conference, although the "writer" talk was interesting, to learn more about the publishing industry and how to craft a novel), and the addition of some paranormal activities was a little laughable.  I think the book could have worked much better without it, just being a straight mystery.  3 stars

Kuleana: A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai'i by Sara Kehaulani Goo (2025)

Journalist Sara Kehaulani Goo's family was granted a portion of land by the Hawaiian king in 1848, near Hana on the island of Maui.  The ancestral land has remained largely untouched, but one year, a 500% increase in the property taxes puts the family's ability to keep the land at risk.  Sara works with her family to figure out how to overcome this, and she ends up connecting more to her family and culture along the way.  I really enjoyed this mixture of memoir and history lesson.  Goo provides a lot of background information on the history of Hawaii and the struggles that native Hawaiians have had in holding onto their land and culture.  To this, she adds her family's personal story of their ancestral land.  At times it got a bit confusing because there are so many family members and transactions to keep track of, and the timeline didn't always make sense.  But, I also enjoyed learning about Goo's efforts to connect more to her Hawaiian heritage.  4 stars

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