Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Private Label by Kelly Yang

5 reviews

atamano's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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maple_dove's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Private Label by Kelly Yang @kellyyanghk is a YA  realistic-contemporary about two Chinese-American teens trying to find their place in the world. One of them is Serene (She/Her/Hers), whose passion is fashion like her mom. One night, she finds out her mother has pancreatic cancer, and everything changes. The other is Lian (He/Him/His), who enjoys doing stand-up comedy.  He moved to from China to a mostly white southern California area. He doesn't fit in at school, and kids mispronounce his name. His parents are traditional Chinese parents and don't care about what he wants to do, pushing him to do MIT.

For me, I loved how relatable this was in terms of being Chinese-American. A lot of this resonated with me. WeChat is a real app btw!

Favorite Quotes:
I look up at my mother, appreciating her empathy, but nauseated by my stupidity. She didn't get to where she is by making mistakes. She got to where she is by being in control. Never letting a weak moment get the best of her.
Mom gets up and goes to her room. "I want to show you something."
She returns with the framed sketch from her desk. It's a picture she drew of women in the Victorian era wearing various lavish, colorful dresses and evening gowns. I always thought she was paying tribute to Little Women, one of our favorite movies. But Mom tells me, "See those colorful dresses? Before the Victorian era, it was extremely expensive to dye fabrics. But then one day Walter Henry Perkin Jr. accidentally mixed oxidized aniline with wine. That's how synthetic dye was created."
Mom puts a hand to the picture.
"I keep this on my desk to remind myself, it's OK to make mistakes. Some of the best innovations in fashion came as a result of desginers daring to experiment."


I hate that even when a guy threatens to do something totally demeaning, a girl still feels like she has to be nice in order to get the guy to not do something illegal.

"Because she doesn't make me choose between two things I love, she accepts all of me! That's what love is, it's not expecting perfection and punishing flaws. It means being for them always."
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klutzykara's review against another edition

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  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I love how Kelly Yang weaves her own life experiences into her work, while still creating a unique story and characters. There is so much heart and joy in her writing. I loved the core of this story: a strong bond between a mother and daughter (through hard times), the pressure of growing up and figuring out what you want to do/want to be, young love between two people helping each other to dream big and to never give up. I also liked the ending of the book.

I did not like: Cameron's horrible, douchey existence. Men like that do exist in high school (everywhere :/), but his character took away from the the important themes and arc of the story and should have been removed. The sexual comments, nudes, revenge p*rn, and general toxicity from him was randomly inserted in a way that dragged down the story and my rating. I wanted more from other characters. & tbh the dialogue from the teenagers was pretty cringey to me at times. I'm not a teenager anymore, but the teenagers here seemed to interact with each other like caricatures/clichés of current teenagers rather than realistic ones. So while I like Kelly Yang's writing overall, the writing needed to be better in these instances. I would probably recommend Parachutes and/or her Front Desk series (a middle grade all ages can enjoy) over this one because of this reason, although the story here is a good one overall.
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maggies's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

There was so much going on in this book—cancer, abandonment, revenge porn, parental pressure, racism and microaggressions, and of course romance. At times, it felt like too much, but most of the time it was handled with remarkable care. Serene and Lian were such sweet protagonists, and the voice actors reading their perspectives were amazing.
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bookwormbullet's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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