“Charmed my socks off.” —David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of Kids of Appetite and Mosquitoland
“A soulful and hilarious debut.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Effervescent.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An earnest, funny, and emotional story.” —Book Riot
An incisive, laugh-out-loud contemporary debut about a Taiwanese-American teen whose parents want her to be a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer despite her squeamishness with germs and crush on a Japanese classmate.
At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies.
With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth—that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.
But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels?
I had rather high expectations going into this based on other's recommendations. My main reasons of picking this up, besides the cutest cover, was my expectation of a fluffy romance and a Taiwanese female lead who stands up to her parents. It sounded remarkable! Sadly, there was minimal fluffy romance scenes (however, I cherished every scene with the two together). And while standing up to her parents was empowering, I felt like a lot of it was glossed over and could have explored the dynamics and emotional break more than it did.
Also, (completely unrelated) shadowing a gynecologist for the day, who sees all clients that you know, is rather scarring. I can tell you right now that becoming a gynecologist will never be in the cards for me either.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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10 January, 2019:
Finished reading
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10 January, 2019:
Reviewed