Somewhere Only We Know: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

Lucky is the biggest K-pop star around and an unprecedented solo act. After wrapping up her solo tour in Hong Kong, Lucky is preparing to make her North American debut on The Tonight Show. After years of hard work, it finally feels like everything is coming together. And that would be everything Lucky could hope for if she wasn’t dying for a cheeseburger and also wondering when her music career stopped feeling like a dream come true and started feeling a lot like a trap.

Jack wants nothing more than to be a photographer–something he’s pretty sure his parents won’t understand when they could barely get on board with his plan to take a gap year between high school and college. To supplement his paltry income and prove he can make it as a photographer Jack freelances as a paparazzo capturing celebrities in compromising positions. It’s not savory work. But it is lucrative. Especially when Jack runs into a girl outside a hotel wearing slippers and hell-bent on finding a cheeseburger.

Lucky and Jack both have secrets and dreams they’re afraid to share. After one unforgettable day together in Hong Kong they’ll both have to decide if chasing what they really want is worth being honest with themselves–and each other in Somewhere Only We Know (2019) by Maurene Goo.

Find it on Bookshop.

Goo’s latest standalone contemporary is a loose retelling of Roman Holiday with chapters that alternate between Lucky and Jack’s first person narration.

Lucky and Jack both start this story disillusioned, frustrated, and extremely jaded as they are forced to confront all of the limitations that have left them stagnant. Pushed out of their comfort zones for one day away from their typical lives, both teens start to wonder if things can be different while the secrets between them continue to mount.

Somewhere Only We Know is a very character-driven story with most of the focus on Lucky and Jack’s development throughout the novel than on their adventures. Both protagonists have to confront hard questions about identity and achievement as they consider how much they are willing to put on the line to get what they really want–not to mention figuring out if they have been their own biggest obstacles all along.

Somewhere Only We Know is an evocative, fast-paced romance perfect for fans of stories with humor, mayhem, and heart–not to mention vivid descriptions of Hong Kong’s sights, sounds, and foods.

Possible Pairings: Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett; Permanent Record by Mary H. K. Choi; Now That I’ve Found You by Kristina Forest; Just One Day by Gayle Forman; 29 Dates by Melissa de la Cruz; Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins; Seoulmates by Susan Lee; American Royals by Katharine McGee; There’s Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon; This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith; Virtually Yours by Sarvenaz Tash; Frankly in Love by David Yoon; The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

The Way You Make Me Feel: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

Clara Shin is good at two things: getting into trouble and making people laugh. With her two friends, Patrick and Felix, Clara has coasted through her first two years of high school leaving a trail of chaos and epic pranks. Along the way she has also managed to infuriate her nemesis Rose Carter quite a few times. But that’s just a bonus. It’s not like Clara’s an actual bully or anything.

When her latest joke goes too far ending in a fight and a fire, even Clara’s usually laid-back father Adrian knows that things have gone too far. Clara’s plans for a laid-back summer and a vacation with her Instagram-famous influencer mom are cancelled. Instead Clara gets to look forward to working on her dad’s food truck, the KoBra, to pay back the school for fire damage. Worse, she’ll be working with Rose.

Clara isn’t sure how to deal with having actual responsibilities let alone working with uptight, perfectionist Rose whose ambitions and extracurriculars make the Obama daughters look like slackers. But there is Hamlet Wong–the boy who is as earnest and open as a Labrador, really cute, and totally not Clara’s type even if he does think she’s hilarious.

As Clara starts to learn more about the food truck, Rose, and her own family she starts to care about what happens with the KoBra and, more importantly, what other people think of her. After years of treating life as one big joke, Clara might be ready to let herself be more than a punchline in The Way You Make Me Feel (2018) by Maurene Goo.

Find it on Bookshop.

The Way You Make Me Feel is a delightfully funny contemporary filled with food, family, and evocatively described Los Angeles locations.

Clara’s parents are Korean by way of Brazil–a cultural identity that comes through in their personalities as much as in the food that Adrian prepares on the KoBra–they’re also young and not married, things that don’t come through a lot in contemporary YA. While I’m never a fan of stories where the main character pines after an absentee parent the way Clara does with her mother. However Goo handles the inevitable dose of reality well and in a way that makes sense for her character.

Clara’s first person narration is acerbic, sarcastic, and often laugh out loud funny. She is used to not being well-liked and she doesn’t care as long as it doesn’t impact the persona she has created for herself. One of the only people to call Clara on her attitude and her bad behavior is Rose, an overachiever trying to balance dance classes, school, and her punishment on the food truck. Rose is also struggling with anxiety–the one chink in the otherwise perfect image she presents to the world.

While there’s some romance with Clara and the always adorable Hamlet, the main event in this novel is friendship as Clara and Rose start to understand and, much to their own dismay, appreciate each other the more they’re thrown together.

The Way You Make Me Feel is a funny, smart, and utterly entertaining story that reminds you it’s never too late to make a few changes. A novel that’s guaranteed to make you laugh and leave you smiling. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo, Serious Moonlight by Jenn Bennett, The Heartbreak Bakery by A. R. Capetta, Unclaimed Baggage by Jen Doll, I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest, It Started With Goodbye by Christina June, The Secret Ingredient by Stewart Lewis, Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke, Save the Date by Morgan Matson, Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills, Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous by Suzanne Park, The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe, Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks, Bookish Boyfriends: A Date With Darcy by Tiffany Schmidt, Your Destination is On the Left by Lauren Spieller, This Time Will Be Different by Misa Sugiura, Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian, Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner, Pride by Ibi Zoboi

I Believe in a Thing Called Love: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

“Unexpected things happen,” I said into the microphone. “But it’s how we react to them, how we learn and evolve from these things that shapes us into who we are.”

Desi Lee is known for a lot of things. Like being Student Government President and getting straight As and being solidly on track with her plan to go to Stanford. That’s not even counting her knowledge of engines thanks to her car mechanic dad or her large and varied list of extracurriculars (Arbor Day Society anyone?).

There’s one other thing Desi is known for, at least with her best friends Fiona Mendoza and Wes Mansour. Desi has never had a boyfriend. In fact, thanks to her spectacularly disastrous attempts at flirting (Flailures. Get it?) she’s never even come close.

When Luka Drakos (AKA the hottest guy she has seen in her entire life) breezes into Desi’s high school she knows she’s a goner. But she’s also motivated. And, thanks to the Korean Dramas her father loves, Desi has a plan.

All she needs to do is follow her “K Drama Rules for True Love” to convince artsy Luka that they’re perfect for each other. Desi’s path to true love is filled with disasters (both manufactured and otherwise) and the kind of charming mayhem that might be impossible to resist in I Believe in a Thing Called Love (2017) by Maurene Goo.

Find it on Bookshop.

I Believe in a Thing Called Love is Goo’s sophomore novel.

Desi narrates this standalone contemporary in her singular voice. Inspired by actual K Dramas (featured in a list at the end of the novel) Desi’s story takes on the structure of her “K Drama Rules for True Love” with each chapter following one step as she tries to use them to win Luka over.

Desi dreams of becoming a doctor. She is athletic, driven, and she doesn’t have an artsy bone in her body–something that becomes all too clear as she tries to bond with Luka over his art. Luka, meanwhile, is a sensational artist without much interest in school or sports. While the pairing seems unlikely at first, these two complement each other well throughout I Believe in a Thing Called Love while effortlessly flipping some traditional gender roles seen in romantic comedies.

Desi’s story is an unapologetic love story–just like the K Dramas she comes to love. But this isn’t just a story about a girl pursuing the boy of her dreams. It’s also the story of a girl trying to do the absolute best she can for a father she adores and the story of that father adjusting to life in a new country–especially after his wife’s sudden death. It’s a story about dreaming and also realizing that sometimes dreams change. And that’s okay.

I Believe in a Thing Called Love is filled with madcap adventures, romance, and an abiding admiration and respect for all of the forms love can take. Don’t miss this striking story. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira, Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant, Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum, 29 Dates by Melissa de la Cruz, 10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han, When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon, Simone Breaks All the Rules by Debbie Rigaud, By the Book by Amanda Sellet, My So-Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma, Windfall by Jennifer E. Smith, Girl Against the Universe by Paula Stokes, Lucky in Love by Kasie West, The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*