Review: I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo
10:00
Series: None
Author: Maurene Goo
Published May 30th 2017 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Goodreads Synopsis
A funny young adult novel about a Korean-American girl who uses K-Drama techniques to snag the boyfriend of her dreams.
Desi Lee knows how carburetors work. She learned CPR at the age of five. As a high school senior, she has never missed a day of school and has never had a B in her entire life. She's for sure going to Stanford. But-- she's a disaster in romance, and her botched attempts at flirting have become legendary with her friends. So when the hottest human specimen to have ever lived walks into her life one day, Desi decides to tackle her flirting failures with the same zest she's applied to everything else in her life.
Goodreads
Review
In I Believe in a Thing Called Love, our heroine Desi is super smart, but lacks social skills, especially when it comes to flirting and romance. She is notoriously bad at romance, something that's a running joke with her friends, Wes and Fiona, and it's never been a big deal until the new guy, Luca, walks into school, and she can't find herself thinking about anything other than him. Now, she needs to work out how to fix her flirting mojo, and she uses her love of k-dramas as a blueprint of how to act. Will everything work out like a movie, or is real life too complicated?
I liked Desi and her relationship with her family, especially her dad, and with her best friends. She was super clever, but at times I wanted to shake her as I found her actions too unbelievable for her presumed intelligence. She gets with Luca, but by lying and acting differently, which ultimately causes issue and heartbreak for them both. I did think it was important that this happened, because it started to bring the book back on tract. Desi thinking she could throw away everything for Luca was stupid, but at least she came to her senses.
This book definitely read like a movie, and I could see it adapted as one - perhaps by Netflix, but it was a bit ridiculous at times, and predictable. Enjoyable, but not amazing.
Dates Read:
Rating
3 Stars
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