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A review by valpyre
Loveboat Reunion by Abigail Hing Wen
Did not finish book. Stopped at 74%.
not the book i was expecting it to be. i really, really enjoyed loveboat, taipei, so this has been on my TBR for a while now. unfortunately, it lacked all the charm of the first book for me. i was intrigued enough about xavier and sophie (despite sophie's actions in LbT) to really keep trying to get through but ultimately, this just didn't hold my attention. i actually found myself skimming parts of the book instead of actually taking them in.
i think there was just too much going on, to be honest -- i don't mind a dual POV, but each character was juggling so many things. the intricacies of xavier's struggles with his family on top of his school project on top of him accommodating his dyslexia was so much going on at once. sophie felt like an entirely different character from the first book, and her college compsci class felt so unrealistic. why was she groveling and working so hard for a class she wasn't even paying for? that combined with the interpersonal drama of the ocean campus loveboat students was just too much drama that could have been avoided. how are you going to have sophie saying "oh i'm not organizing this random reunion" and then have her allow anyone and everyone onto xavier's private plane?
i really tried to hold out hope for this -- i found the underlying plot with the xavier family business, particularly concerning xavier's aunts (named by number, which, really?) intriguing, but it got lost in everything else.
i think there was just too much going on, to be honest -- i don't mind a dual POV, but each character was juggling so many things. the intricacies of xavier's struggles with his family on top of his school project on top of him accommodating his dyslexia was so much going on at once. sophie felt like an entirely different character from the first book, and her college compsci class felt so unrealistic. why was she groveling and working so hard for a class she wasn't even paying for? that combined with the interpersonal drama of the ocean campus loveboat students was just too much drama that could have been avoided. how are you going to have sophie saying "oh i'm not organizing this random reunion" and then have her allow anyone and everyone onto xavier's private plane?
i really tried to hold out hope for this -- i found the underlying plot with the xavier family business, particularly concerning xavier's aunts (named by number, which, really?) intriguing, but it got lost in everything else.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Physical abuse and Sexism