Scan barcode
A review by behindmybookcase
David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College by Ed Lin
2.0
2.5 stars
Thank you to Netgalley and Kaya Press for providing me with a digital ARC for honest review
David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets into An Ivy League College follows Chinese-American student David Tung as he competes in his cutthroat high school full of the elite of New Jersey. Vying for a coveted internship, David is asked to a dance by his competitor, popular girl Christina Tau. There's just one problem; David can't date till he gets into an Ivy league college. We follow David through his trials at school, with every other waking hour spent at his family's restaurant, excepting his Saturdays which are spent at the Chinese school where he finds refuge from expectations.
I expected this book to be a light-hearted contemporary romance with hard hitting moments. However, it didn't deliver for me. The book deals with a few important issues, specifically the pressures of school and grades, the idea of being Chinese 'enough' whether this be through being mixed race or living in a gentrified area, and classism in schools. These are all really important things, which made it all the more disappointing when they fell flat. The problem with the book is that it felt like there was no stakes. We're always told how David feels like he's under a lot of pressure, but we're never shown it. This is largely due to the tone David has. He often has an indifferent attitude, which is unusual in someone who is apparently so driven. The other issue with his tone is the air of superiority he has. While I'm someone that does love a problematic character, David's superiority was never really acknowledged as a problem. As a matter of fact, a lot of the time David is a real arse, and he never faces repercussions, often the book celebrates him for being somewhat of a bad person. All this would be redeemable if we saw David grow or develop as a character, but this doesn't happen. David's big revelation is that people still matter even if he doesn't care about them, and even this doesn't feel earned. He has the realisation off the cuff and again is celebrated for showing a glimmer of humanity. The final problem I had with this book was the latent misogyny. The book often objectifies girls, which I could excuse in the beginning as it suited the voice of the teenage boy we were following. However, again there's no consequences for David's view of women, the book almost reinforces a 'boys will be boys' view. Not only are girls objectified for seemingly no reason, but this book falls into the adage of pinning women against each other. It's 2020! Descriptions like: "Betty wasn't as sexy as Christina. She wasn't sexy at all... Betty didn't wear the necessary clothes, jewelry, or beauty products to play that sort of game" just make me roll my eyes. Christina is constantly represented as being vapid and shallow even though she has a higher class ranking than David. The girls in this book exist for nothing more than to give David something to look at.
With all that said I want to make it clear, I didn't hate this book! It was just fine. There was no real plot or point to the book, but it was an easy-going read that did have some humorous moments and some interesting insights into the Chinese-American experience. But unfortunately this wasn't enough to compensate for the problems I had.
Thank you to Netgalley and Kaya Press for providing me with a digital ARC for honest review
David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets into An Ivy League College follows Chinese-American student David Tung as he competes in his cutthroat high school full of the elite of New Jersey. Vying for a coveted internship, David is asked to a dance by his competitor, popular girl Christina Tau. There's just one problem; David can't date till he gets into an Ivy league college. We follow David through his trials at school, with every other waking hour spent at his family's restaurant, excepting his Saturdays which are spent at the Chinese school where he finds refuge from expectations.
I expected this book to be a light-hearted contemporary romance with hard hitting moments. However, it didn't deliver for me. The book deals with a few important issues, specifically the pressures of school and grades, the idea of being Chinese 'enough' whether this be through being mixed race or living in a gentrified area, and classism in schools. These are all really important things, which made it all the more disappointing when they fell flat. The problem with the book is that it felt like there was no stakes. We're always told how David feels like he's under a lot of pressure, but we're never shown it. This is largely due to the tone David has. He often has an indifferent attitude, which is unusual in someone who is apparently so driven. The other issue with his tone is the air of superiority he has. While I'm someone that does love a problematic character, David's superiority was never really acknowledged as a problem. As a matter of fact, a lot of the time David is a real arse, and he never faces repercussions, often the book celebrates him for being somewhat of a bad person. All this would be redeemable if we saw David grow or develop as a character, but this doesn't happen. David's big revelation is that people still matter even if he doesn't care about them, and even this doesn't feel earned. He has the realisation off the cuff and again is celebrated for showing a glimmer of humanity. The final problem I had with this book was the latent misogyny. The book often objectifies girls, which I could excuse in the beginning as it suited the voice of the teenage boy we were following. However, again there's no consequences for David's view of women, the book almost reinforces a 'boys will be boys' view. Not only are girls objectified for seemingly no reason, but this book falls into the adage of pinning women against each other. It's 2020! Descriptions like: "Betty wasn't as sexy as Christina. She wasn't sexy at all... Betty didn't wear the necessary clothes, jewelry, or beauty products to play that sort of game" just make me roll my eyes. Christina is constantly represented as being vapid and shallow even though she has a higher class ranking than David. The girls in this book exist for nothing more than to give David something to look at.
With all that said I want to make it clear, I didn't hate this book! It was just fine. There was no real plot or point to the book, but it was an easy-going read that did have some humorous moments and some interesting insights into the Chinese-American experience. But unfortunately this wasn't enough to compensate for the problems I had.