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A review by mpp_reads
Love, Decoded by Jennifer Yen
2.0
Love, Decoded is billed as an “Emma” retelling, which wasn’t a problem for me. However, there are several issues with the characters and plot in this book that didn’t work for me. The YA rom-com market is very crowded and I feel that it's easy for authors to underestimate their audience. Love, Decoded, despite being STEM-infused was not as “smart” as I hoped.
The main character Gigi is an extremely wealthy girl who attends a private prep school on the upper east side. She lives in a six-story townhouse with an elevator, a private chef, a personal driver, etc… The overwhelming majority of teen readers will find her utterly unrelatable because literally, she is. Furthermore, she tries to “fix” her disadvantaged friend (side character Etta) by taking her to a boutique and then acts confused when her new friend can’t afford a bus fare let alone a 400-dollar sweater. I found it noisome that the author made her characters remark on “metal mouth” boys with bad skin as undatable and “below them” socially. Everyone was very focused on their looks and the conversational depth exhibited by the entire cast of characters was thin as tissue paper. The excessive use of slang and trends will date this book very rapidly. Honestly, I couldn’t ascertain the target audience for this one. STEM girls will want something way smarter than Gigi and her stick-figure crew. All rom-com audiences will want more romance (it was a tertiary plotline) and comedy (it wasn’t there).
The main character Gigi is an extremely wealthy girl who attends a private prep school on the upper east side. She lives in a six-story townhouse with an elevator, a private chef, a personal driver, etc… The overwhelming majority of teen readers will find her utterly unrelatable because literally, she is. Furthermore, she tries to “fix” her disadvantaged friend (side character Etta) by taking her to a boutique and then acts confused when her new friend can’t afford a bus fare let alone a 400-dollar sweater. I found it noisome that the author made her characters remark on “metal mouth” boys with bad skin as undatable and “below them” socially. Everyone was very focused on their looks and the conversational depth exhibited by the entire cast of characters was thin as tissue paper. The excessive use of slang and trends will date this book very rapidly. Honestly, I couldn’t ascertain the target audience for this one. STEM girls will want something way smarter than Gigi and her stick-figure crew. All rom-com audiences will want more romance (it was a tertiary plotline) and comedy (it wasn’t there).