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A review by chaosandbooks
Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao
3.0
Our Wayward Fate is a retelling of The Butterfly Lovers, a Chinese folktale, as touches on young Asian students trying to navigate the pressures of the predominately white Midwestern small towns which refuse to grow. I thought it was a very apt depiction based on seeing similar situations during my school and college years.
That being said, the book did have some flaws. Since it's a rather compact novel, it features that insta-love connection in order to move the plot along to the actual story. I get why the author did it and I can at least fathom how Ali and Chase felt so out of place among their peers that their connection drove this. It just was still a bit cringe.
I also think that the book pushed itself a bit to be relatable to its teen marketing in order to gain popularity. The obvious example is referencing Noah Centineo. I won't go into the subtle implications of the context of that quote and the movie he's known for; moving on.
I will say the book does capture the subtle racism of small town Indiana pretty well in the way that peer pressure and blissful ignorance of their own privilege, mixed with an POC's need to feel like keeping quiet will allow them to fit in better, is all pretty spot on. I saw some other reviews that actually thought otherwise, but I would say that sometimes it really is like this. HOWEVER, I found it pretty annoying that it took Chase showing up for Ali to say something. She's portrayed as this badass martial arts student, headstrong, and extremely intelligent but she kept her head down and put up with all this for years? Then suddenly flips a switch and snaps on them one day after meeting him? That's a bit much.
Overall, it was a cute retelling with a good moral of the story moment. It had good representation and an interesting train-of-thought style that I enjoyed.
That being said, the book did have some flaws. Since it's a rather compact novel, it features that insta-love connection in order to move the plot along to the actual story. I get why the author did it and I can at least fathom how Ali and Chase felt so out of place among their peers that their connection drove this. It just was still a bit cringe.
I also think that the book pushed itself a bit to be relatable to its teen marketing in order to gain popularity. The obvious example is referencing Noah Centineo. I won't go into the subtle implications of the context of that quote and the movie he's known for; moving on.
I will say the book does capture the subtle racism of small town Indiana pretty well in the way that peer pressure and blissful ignorance of their own privilege, mixed with an POC's need to feel like keeping quiet will allow them to fit in better, is all pretty spot on. I saw some other reviews that actually thought otherwise, but I would say that sometimes it really is like this. HOWEVER, I found it pretty annoying that it took Chase showing up for Ali to say something. She's portrayed as this badass martial arts student, headstrong, and extremely intelligent but she kept her head down and put up with all this for years? Then suddenly flips a switch and snaps on them one day after meeting him? That's a bit much.
Overall, it was a cute retelling with a good moral of the story moment. It had good representation and an interesting train-of-thought style that I enjoyed.