Hello! Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen. The tour is being hosted by Fantastic Flying Book Club.
I am excited to share my review and favorite quotes. This was the first time I read anything from Abigail and I heard some amazing things about the book so I was happy that Fantastic Flying Book Club gave me the opportunity to be part of the blog tour.
Loveboat, Taipei (Loveboat, Taipei #1)
By Abigail Hing Wen
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: January 7th, 2020
Genre: Young Adult, Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Travel, Asian Literature
Synopsis:
For fans of Crazy Rich Asians or Jane Austen Comedy of Manners, with a hint of La La Land
When eighteen-year-old Ever Wong’s parents send her from Ohio to Taiwan to study Mandarin for the summer, she finds herself thrust among the very over-achieving kids her parents have always wanted her to be, including Rick Woo, the Yale-bound prodigy profiled in the Chinese newspapers since they were nine – and her parents’ yardstick for her never-measuring-up life.
Unbeknownst to her parents, however, the program is actually an infamous teen meet-market nicknamed Loveboat, where the kids are more into clubbing than calligraphy and drinking snake-blood sake than touring scared shrines.
Free for the first time, Ever sets out to break all her parents’ uber-strict rules – but how far can she go before she breaks her own heart?
Find It: Goodreads, Amazon, Bookdepository, B&N, Kobo, iTunes, Google Books
Review
Rating: 💜💜💜💜💜
I don’t usually read contemporary novels because I have never found ones that kept my interest to continue to read them before but this year I have found several books that I really enjoy and Loveboat, Taipei is one of those books.
Loveboat, Taipei is about self-discovery from all of the characters but mostly Ever Wong. She was forced to go a summer camp in Taiwan, her parents sent her there so that she could learn Mandarin to be better prepare for college to become a doctor. Even though Ever doesn’t want to become a doctor, she wants to go to school for dancing but to honor her parents tradition she is foregoing her dreams. Ever isn’t the only one who struggling with going after what they are truly want in life or do what their parents’ and tradition want them to do.
I thought that the characters were well-developed, Wen wrote them so that we can feel their angst, tension, see the sacrifices their families, and their struggles coming to term on what they want to do and what tradition dictates for them throughout the book. Loveboat, Taipei is an relate-able to all readers that struggle with what expectations their families want for them and finding out who they are truly want. All of the characters show a lot of growth from when they first came to camp and when they left especially Ever.
Loveboat, Taipei being Wen’s debut novel, it was a really good debut. I am looking forward to see what else Wen comes out with.
Favorite Quotes
“He’s tall and leanly buff – I’ve never seen a real-life guy with so much prime real estate in arm muscles.”
“It’s that six-degrees of separation thing. Only for Chinese Americans, it’s like, two degrees, know what I mean?”
“In the mall back home, heads sometimes turned when I walked by with my family, but now, my Asian-Americanness is invisible, erased like a shaken Etch A Sketch. It’s an unexpected relief.“
“Nerd camp with Wong-family level regulations. Everything about the Dragon – including her Hokkien accent and short, permed hair – reminds me of Mom.”
“As I lunge and whirl my bo staff, dancing to the ancient drum beats, I feel all the parts of myself coming together: glad that a part of me is Chinese, a part of me is American, and all of me is simply me.”
“We are powerful. We can be anymore we want to be – daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, citizens, human beings. We showed Taipei that tonight. And in the days to come, we will show the world.”
About the Author
Abigail was born in West Virginia to a family of immigrants: Her mother is from the Philippines and her father from Indonesia, and her grandparents emigrated to those countries from Fujian and Shandong provinces in China.
Abigail grew up in Ohio and graduated from Harvard University and Columbia Law School. She worked in Washington DC for the Senate, as a law clerk for a federal judge, and now in Silicon Valley in venture capital and artificial intelligence. She also earned her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
In her spare time, she enjoys long walks with her husband and two boys, and hanging out with friends and over 100 family members in the Bay Area. She loves music and dances to it when no one is watching.
Find Abigail here: Goodreads, Website, Twitter, Instagram
Check out all of the rest of the blog tour for this awesome book!
Tour Schedule
Please enter the giveaway (below link) to get chance to win 1 of 2 copies of LOVEBOAT, TAIPEI by Abigail Hing Wen (US only).
GIVEAWAY
Start: January 1, 2020
Ends: January 15, 2020
Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to check out the other bloggers tour post s and enter to win!
