Hey, everyone! I hope y'all are having a
great day, and today I'll be reviewing I
Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene
Goo. This book--so cute, y'all, it is so cute. I
had never heard of this book actually
before I saw a BuzzFeed article with a
list of YA summer releases to check
out and I'll leave the link to that
article below so that you guys can read
it as well
because there are a lot of really great
titles on it. Like this one! So after I
heard about I Believe in a Thing Called
Love, I was like, "A Korean-American
protagonist? I have to read it
immediately." And so I did. And in hindsight, I
kind of regret doing that because I
really should have saved this book for
later. There are frequently times when I
seriously crave cute contemporaries and
I'm mad there aren't a billion Stephanie
Perkins books out there and during one
of those times is when I should have
read this book. But nonetheless, I'm
obviously so glad I picked up this book
because I adored it. I Believe in a Thing
Called Love is about a senior in high
school named Desi. She is an
overachiever in every possible way--
you know, varsity jock, but also perfect
SAT score, student body president,
involved in like every club ever, so on
and so forth. And although she basically
excels at everything she does, she sucks
at love. Anytime something even remotely
romantic happens to her, she finds a way
to embarrass herself. And so to remedy
that, she studies the Korean dramas that
her father loves to watch and based on
the generic plot lines of those K-dramas,
she writes herself a guide on how to get
a guy to fall in love with her. A lot of
people have been comparing this book to
To All The Boys I've Loved Before by
Jenny Han. They're both YA contemporaries
with a Korean-American protagonist and
although I do think that they would
appeal to similar audiences, and if you
liked one, you'll probably like the other,
that's kind of where the similarities
end. I Believe in a Thing Called Love is
hilarious and cute and funny and sharp
and I basically loved everything about
this book. I love the characters, the
diversity, the silly yet articulate writing, the sense of humor, the fast-paced plot,
the depiction of living in a Korean-American household--
there's just so much to love. Desi is
such an entertaining main character.
She's so funny and I love it. Within
the very first chapter, this book
had me laughing out loud. Desi is so
self-deprecating, almost neurotic, and I
just found it so relatable. Sometimes I
would actually think, "Desi and I are
the same person."
She talks about loving Taylor Swift and
Twilight, I love Taylor Swift and
Twilight. She talks about talking in
this wonky fusion of Korean and English
at home and that's exactly what I do and
my parents tease me for it.
She thinks Messi is the best soccer
player in the world, which he obviously
is and I will fight anyone who wants to
make an argument for Cristiano Ronaldo. I
connected with Desi in a way that
almost blew my mind.
I legitimately felt like I was reading
about myself sometimes. But as much as I
love Desi, she's also the reason why I
knocked this book's rating on Goodreads
from 5 stars to 4. To be frank, she is out
of her mind.
Like, she is honestly so driven to win
over her crush, this boy named Luca, that
she does things that are inexcusable and
it's kind of played off as okay because
this entire book almost relies on a
suspension of disbelief, and Desi is so
likable that her charm is almost enough
to cover up the fact that she's doing
things that are wrong. But in my opinion,
she really does go too far. She just
falls into psycho territory sometimes,
which I'll talk about more in the
spoiler section. Also something that I
wasn't a super huge fan of was just how
predictable the plot was. But compared to
Desi's actions,
the predictability is a little
negligible. But yeah, other than those
things, I loved this book. Again, I cannot
overemphasize how much I loved seeing a
Korean-American protagonist. The things
they ate, the way they acted, it all felt
so familiar, it warmed my heart. I do
remember thinking it was a little weird
that Desi's father calls her Desi at
home, which is weird 'cause Desi is her
American name and most first-generation
Korean-American parents call their
children by their Korean name. That's
what my parents do, my parents have never
called me Sophia at home. That's just not,
that's really not a thing. But I digress. And
what's great is that the diversity
doesn't stop with Desi. There are so
many people of color at Desi's school. For
example, her best friend
Fiona is Latina and she's lesbian.
Maurene Goo, I felt, really put in the effort
to show that Monte Vista's
population is not just one color. A
huge component of this novel is
definitely Desi's relationship with her
father.
They're so playful and they're so caring.
They only really have each other so
there's a really, really deep, sweet bond
there, and it was just so heartwarming to
read about. Now I'm going to go into
spoilers for I Believe in a Thing Called
Love, so if you haven't read this book and
you don't want to be spoiled, first, I
would advise reading this book because I
recommend it, and second, I'd advise
leaving in 3... 2... 1...
Bye! Bye-bye-bye-bye!
All right, so I really want to talk about
the fact that Desi does a lot of not
okay things to win over Luca. Desi was so
calculating and so ambitious, she kind of
reminded me of Amy Dunne from Gone Girl,
which is a bad sign. However, that being
said, I did mention in my Gone Girl
review that I kind of admired Amy for
her determination and for her
intelligence,
so I admired Desi, too. However, she was a super
stalker, and she would change herself or
change her habits to win over a boy, she
was unbelievably manipulative, and so on
and so forth. And for a long time, I just
kept excusing her behavior. I was like,
"Okay, I guess that's not that bad." BUT!
When she caused
Luka's car accident, I had to draw the
line. If the roles were reversed, if I
were in that position, if a guy put my
life in danger and screwed up my car in
an attempt to win me over, I would have
to cut someone. Because that's not okay,
that's not cute, that's not healthy,
that's not sane. That was just not an okay
thing to do. No matter how badly you like
a boy and want his attention,
you don't put his life in danger. I can't believe
I'm saying that out loud. That just seems
like common sense. I mean, putting his
life in danger was literally a step on her
list, and I was like, "Why. Why, Desi." I wish
Desi would have looked at that step and
thought, "Mmm... okay, that one's a little
too far. That one's a little unrealistic.
Maybe I should cross that one off." I feel
like she's smart enough to know that
that was a really wrong idea, but she
went with it anyway. That made me so mad
'cause this book had so much going for it and I
was so
supportive and so in love with it, and
then, Desi did that and I was like, "Oh my
God. No."
Moving on, when Desi skipped her Stanford
interview to drive Luca to the hospital,
I was like, "Why doesn't she immediately
call the Stanford interviewer and say, 'Hi,
I'm so, so sorry, but I had an emergency
come up.'" Like she doesn't even think to
call the interviewer and then her dad
does it for her and I was like, "Desi,
you are too smart and you are too
professional to not think of immediately
calling the interviewer."
I think Maurene Goo gets a lot of things
right when she talks about the college
application process, but there are two
things that I noticed that weren't completely
accurate. The first is that applying
early actually does usually give you
better odds of getting in, and the second is
that the interview barely counts at all.
Like it honestly doesn't matter. An
interview basically does nothing to add
to your applications except for confirm
that you're not a sociopath. So the fact
that Desi was really inflating the
importance and the effect of the
interview on her application for
Stanford was not really called for. I
thought her decision to go to BU was really
interesting, considering her first choice
was the most competitive school in
America and one of her safety choices
was Cornell, an Ivy League. But I guess it
signals that she truly understands that
her father's always proud of her and she
doesn't need the prestigious name of a
university to make her dad happy. I
thought Luca was so cute. I don't
know if his name is pronounced Luca, it
sounds kind of weird to me. But yeah, I just found him
so adorable, although I do wish that he
liked more than just art. Most people
have more than just one interest. When he
came into that AP English class and that
one girl was explaining what the book
was about that they were reading, and he
looked so disinterested, Desi like
dismisses him in her head and I
supported that. Like, I value people who
value learning. But other than that, Luca
was really sweet. He was really adorable.
I thought Desi and Luca had great
chemistry, they were super cute together.
They made me laugh and smile and squeal
all over the place. I just love them. It
was a good time. I do think that making
each chapter a step on Desi's list made
the plot a little predictable, because
it's kind of like
signal or a forewarning so that you know
what's coming. So it's like, "Oh, this step
is a betrayal," and then you know what the
betrayal is. Or like, this step is going
to be a sacrifice, and you know what she
sacrifices. But I can also see the
perspective of that predictability
reflecting the charm of watching a
K-drama because we all know how the
K-drama is going to end anyway. But yeah, I
loved this book a lot. I already aired out
all my grievances with it, so you know I
don't think this book is perfect
and it's not my favorite contemporary
ever, but it's definitely a book that I
see myself going back to in the
future and rereading when I need
something that's going to make me laugh
and smile. Also, Maurene Goo is definitely
going on my list of authors to watch out
for. I'm so excited to see what her next
project is. So let me know what you
thought of this book I would love to
know. Thanks so much for watching, I hope
y'all have a fantastic day,
and happy reading! Bye!
[outro music: "Summer Moments" by Del]
