My Summer of Love and Misfortune by Lindsay Wong

Welcome Back, Booklovers!

You ever pick up a romance book that you think you'll adore because the cover is super cute? And then it winds up being one of the worst books you've ever read?  That's how I felt about My Summer of Love and Misfortune. Doesn't the title just sound like it will be a light and carefree romance? This should've been the perfect beach read!

I've never read an Asian contemporary romance but I have noticed more releasing this year than usual in part because of the success of  movies like Always Be My Maybe and Crazy Rich Asians. When I read that the lead character Iris Wang would be spending the summer in Beijing I thought it would be a very interesting story about experiencing a new culture. And after To All the Boys I've Loved Before overload it's nice to see a YA book with a fully Asian cast.

I actually initially liked that Iris Wang was so different than the stereotype we have of Asian girls. That being said she's such an airhead that at times it felt like she was a caricature. How does one obsess over their boyfriend think their birthday is 6 months later then it is? She deserved to be dumped for that alone. Granted he seemed to be using her for her money. Which brings up another point. Iris and her family seemed to be well off. Not on Crazy Rich Asian status but pretty wealthy if she could buy a dress that's over 6,000.00 without any additional thought. Or the way she casually buys plane tickets for Paris. And her family had a nice house and luxury cars. Yet other times she would talk as if they were a regular suburban family. Anyway Iris likes to smoke weed and party and shop. She tanks her SATS yet only applies to top colleges so of course she doesn't get in. That part was really unbelievable to me. How could her father be hopeful she'd get into Yale when it was clear she was a horrible student who didn't get straight As. Does he know the type of students that get into Yale? I blame her idiot parents for the trainwreck she is. Though in the story there was a lot of blaming that she is a zodiac tiger instead. 

I could go on a whole rant about how her parents failed her. I can get over them not teaching her Chinese or about her culture. It's hard to be immersed when you don't live in a community of your people. I cannot bypass how they didn't even have her on track to get into a state school for college. I can even get over the reckless dress purchase since I remember at that age stupidly running up an enormous data bill when I didn't even have a job and my mom could barely afford it. But that she's just so selfish really says something about their values. I've never read a book with a protagonist with such reckless disregard for her family and friends until now. 

I couldn't even get behind the romance because I didn't feel like Iris had any chemistry with her tutor Frank. And she was throwing herself at him in desperation which ain't cute. I wanted to like the family scenes but they all felt very surface level as well.

All the descriptions of tasty Chinese dishes was probably the best part. And it seemed to be the only part of Chinese culture Iris cared about. Sure she visited Tiananmen Square and briefly touched on the protests and she almost ruined a painting at the National Museum of China but Iris didn't care about exploring anything beyond the shopping malls.  I kept waiting for her to start growing as a person but realized all hope had died for that when I was more than halfway through the story and she seemed to be getting worse.

There was a twist that ended up falling flat for me because I just wasn't invested in this tale.