In the following review, Joanne Hyppolite's novel, Seth and Samona, is called an unusually ambitious first novel about a Haitian-American family, showing promise for Hyppolite as a writer though at times the novel is overly burdened with subplots and complications.

An unusually strong cast populates this ambitious first novel, set in Boston. Narrator Seth Michelin, the youngest of a closely knit Haitian American family, has spent two years trying in vain to distance himself from Samona Gemini, the kooky, flamboyant daughter of a free-spirited poet who happens to be a friend of Mrs. Michelin. The warmth—and the strict codes of honor and propriety—that bind Seth's family prove a powerful attraction to Samona, just as they will to the reader, while Seth's fresh voice adds witty counterpoint. Hyppolite errs, however, in adding too many complications. Seth's older brother, for example, serves essentially as a mouthpiece for...