Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen

2/3 Stars

I finished this book at approximately 12:38 A.M. and I know that when I read late at night my eyes get a little droopy and my brain doesn't work as well but what in the actual hell was this book. I feel like I did acid or something once I started reading the last 50 pages.

I'm gonna start with the basics. The story follows Ever Wong who's parents want nothing more than for her to go to Northwestern and become a doctor even though she has this undying passion for dancing. They send her away to an "Educational Immersion Program" in Taiwan (a.k.a. the Loveboat) and she ends up doing things like dressing a little more scandalous and sneaking out past 10 P.M . There, she meets Sophie and these two hot men, Xavier and Rick.

This book is overall very tropey and at first, I was kinda into it because I love myself a good cliche romance novel for the soul. It's super cutesy and has all the mushy gushy stuff that anyone that would pick up this book signs up for. The writing was just extremely immature and subpar. But when I say that these characters are some of the most one-dimensional characters I've ever experienced, I am not lying.

Ever Wong: 18-year-old girl who has never dared to go to bed past midnight and would never be caught dead even talking to a member of the opposite sex. Literally the qualities of every quirky, "I'm not like other girls", female protagonist. She loves to dance and most likely makes the honor roll every quarter because her parents push her so hard to become a doctor even though she has no interest.

cue the line in every tv/movie/novel:

parent: but it was your dream

kid: no, mom/dad it was your dream....

Sophie Woo (I'm not even sure what her last name is): friend to Ever, cousin to Ricky, annoyingly boy crazy. That's all there is to her.

Xavier (idk his last name): irrelevant and adds nothing to the plot. Oh yeah, and he has a weird thing for painting Ever. Next.

Ricky Woo: the misunderstood hot male lead that we are all painfully familiar with. Plans on going to Yale on a football scholarship, is in a toxic relationship (that causes him trauma) while he flirts with Ever on the Loveboat. End of story.

Characters lack realistic and believable development which sort of leads me into (approximately) the last 50 pages of this book.

---SPOILERS AHEAD---

My rating from a 4-star book went down to a 2.5-star book after Ever was caught kissing Xavier who is literally the most irrelevant character ever. Sophie was into Xavier and when she saw Ever kissing him she naturally got pissed, but then she leaked Evers nudes to the entire school?? And here's the kicker, EVER WASN'Y EVEN MAD. PLEASE.

Like who in their right mind is just like "oh yeah it's totally fine that you leaked pictures of me where I have 0 clothes on and now everyone has seen me naked. I guess that's what I deserve for sharing a 2-second kiss with a man who isn't even your boyfriend."??

With Ever feeling like shit that everyone hates her after she and Sophie have a falling out, Ever gets upset but then decides to organize this out-of-pocket dance routine for this equally out-of-pocket talent show? THEN THERE'S A TYPHOON? which definitely was just written into the plot so they could have an ending for Xavier to auction off his artwork.

Then, randomly, Ever's dad shows up in Taiwan and while Ever was chasing after him in the street SHE GETS HIT BY A CAR????? BRUH. Then she just gets back up on stage and starts dancing with Ricky again as if she wouldn't have extensive injuries.

Anyways, I had to text Lily and make sure I was reading this book right towards the end. In a nutshell, was very interesting because it was like 2 different books. The majority of the time it was just a simple cutesy little teen fiction novel, but the last quarter of the book was just random and purposeless. Still and trying to comprehend it.

Thank you, Lily, for this very ~interesting~ recommendation.