Mini Review: Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen

Goodreads synopsis:

When eighteen-year-old Ever Wong’s parents send her from Ohio to Taiwan to study Mandarin for the summer, she finds herself thrust among the very over-achieving kids her parents have always wanted her to be, including Rick Woo, the Yale-bound prodigy profiled in the Chinese newspapers since they were nine—and her parents’ yardstick for her never-measuring-up life.

Unbeknownst to her parents, however, the program is actually an infamous teen meet-market nicknamed Loveboat, where the kids are more into clubbing than calligraphy and drinking snake-blood sake than touring sacred shrines.

Free for the first time, Ever sets out to break all her parents’ uber-strict rules—but how far can she go before she breaks her own heart?

---

I love, love, loved Ever's story.

Loveboat, Taipei was full of drama, but with someone as lovable (and at times a tad bit relatable) as Ever, its hard not to finish the book in just one sitting. It was fun, it was frivolous and the first half did an incredible job of keeping me hooked.

The second half was a whole nother (yes, that's a word) story.

Wen did justice to the Asian-American experience and really brought something new to the table with Loveboat (aka your one way ticket to hookup central). But ugh the character development was entirely problematic. While I did enjoy Xavier's rather sweetheart transition, Sophie's shift from her narcissistic three dimensional personality was neither believable nor welcoming.

The love triangle managed to keep me on my toes and the unpredictability of it all was what made Loveboat so exciting. If a contemporary romance is what you're looking for, Loveboat, Taipei is definitely for you.

Rating: 4/5