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A review by briannareadsbooks
My Summer of Love and Misfortune by Lindsay Wong
2.0
2.5 stars.
I felt bad for not liking this book as I was reading it, but now that I see the other reviews, I can see I'm not the only one.
There are a few things I liked about this book! I actually love stories about teenagers going back to their home country or the country their parent(s) were born in and exploring their culture. This is why I loved Darius the Great Is Not Okay so much. I think there are so many unique and interesting stories that can come from that, so I was really excited about reading that in this book. I loved the description of life in Beijing, the food, the culture, the language. I also loved how Iris decided to stay in China at the end of the book. We always see stories of teenagers going to their home country, having an ~experience~ and then going back home. But Iris decided to stay and live there! I really liked that.
While I didn't like Iris (which I'll explain later) she did have some admirable traits. I love how she was a free-spirited, friendly, sex-positive, silly girl who unashamedly loves to drink and party and have fun. We don't get enough of girls like her in YA books.
Unfortunately, that's where it stopped. My experience with this book was the way it was because of Iris as a character. She is awful. And I generally try not to judge characters, even if I don't like them that much, because that's just the person I am. But Iris was terrible, and she wasn't redeemed at all in my opinion. She's spoiled and clueless and generally not a good person. She hurts people time and time again and apologizes and does it again. The way she treats the people around her is horrible!! But I thought her personality could be redeemed. After all, if your character starts at the lowest of the low, it really shouldn't be that hard to show some character development. Even Iris becoming a sort of decent person would have been amazing character development. I think the author tried to shove all her character development into the ending when Iris became interested in started that fundraiser, but nothing can make me believe that Iris understands the importance of migrant workers not having a hotel built in their neighbourhood after being explained the implications once.
What I really hated is the entire end scene when Iris has a whole moment with herself where she basically tells herself how she deserves better than Frank/Paul. She doesn't! I honestly did not understand why Iris thought Frank was an evil despicable person at the end. I felt so bad for him! He's actually very admirable! He and his university friends using fake identities to protest a capitalist from building a hotel in the neighbourhood in which he lives in poverty sounds pretty fucking rational to me. And Iris has the nerve to think she's better than him after forcing herself on him and then being mad at him for his "lie" (he was literally living in poverty I-)
Near the end of the book, I really wanted to finish it just to get it over with. This book had a lot of potential, maybe if Iris was just a different person entirely, I would have liked it more.
I felt bad for not liking this book as I was reading it, but now that I see the other reviews, I can see I'm not the only one.
There are a few things I liked about this book! I actually love stories about teenagers going back to their home country or the country their parent(s) were born in and exploring their culture. This is why I loved Darius the Great Is Not Okay so much. I think there are so many unique and interesting stories that can come from that, so I was really excited about reading that in this book. I loved the description of life in Beijing, the food, the culture, the language. I also loved how Iris decided to stay in China at the end of the book. We always see stories of teenagers going to their home country, having an ~experience~ and then going back home. But Iris decided to stay and live there! I really liked that.
While I didn't like Iris (which I'll explain later) she did have some admirable traits. I love how she was a free-spirited, friendly, sex-positive, silly girl who unashamedly loves to drink and party and have fun. We don't get enough of girls like her in YA books.
Unfortunately, that's where it stopped. My experience with this book was the way it was because of Iris as a character. She is awful. And I generally try not to judge characters, even if I don't like them that much, because that's just the person I am. But Iris was terrible, and she wasn't redeemed at all in my opinion. She's spoiled and clueless and generally not a good person. She hurts people time and time again and apologizes and does it again. The way she treats the people around her is horrible!! But I thought her personality could be redeemed. After all, if your character starts at the lowest of the low, it really shouldn't be that hard to show some character development. Even Iris becoming a sort of decent person would have been amazing character development. I think the author tried to shove all her character development into the ending when Iris became interested in started that fundraiser, but nothing can make me believe that Iris understands the importance of migrant workers not having a hotel built in their neighbourhood after being explained the implications once.
What I really hated is the entire end scene when Iris has a whole moment with herself where she basically tells herself how she deserves better than Frank/Paul. She doesn't! I honestly did not understand why Iris thought Frank was an evil despicable person at the end. I felt so bad for him! He's actually very admirable! He and his university friends using fake identities to protest a capitalist from building a hotel in the neighbourhood in which he lives in poverty sounds pretty fucking rational to me. And Iris has the nerve to think she's better than him after forcing herself on him and then being mad at him for his "lie" (he was literally living in poverty I-)
Near the end of the book, I really wanted to finish it just to get it over with. This book had a lot of potential, maybe if Iris was just a different person entirely, I would have liked it more.