My Summer of Love and Misfortune is a Young Adult contemporary novel.

I really loved the idea of this book. Iris Wang is a Chinese American teen who cannot speak the language and gets thrust into high society Beijing.

The book is supposed to be funny. The only problem is that the heroine, Iris (17) is a spoiled brat. She is completely selfish and it's completely impossible to relate to her lack of awareness.

This is a hard book to rate. Because the last third was really strong. The book definitely wanted to be Crazy Rich Asians mixed with Sophie Kinsella's Becky Bloomwood (Shopaholic series). But there is a very fine line between the heroine being quirky and misunderstood vs her not caring about anyone but herself. I really struggled with the first half of this book.

The narrator is Iris (1st person POV). She grows up fairly well off. But she spends money like she doesn't have any impulse-control. And honestly she was extremely irresponsible. And pretty unlikable for much of this book. I was really hoping that somehow she would redeem herself. I think that the author was off a bit by making her so self-absorbed. The mishaps would have been funnier if the narrator had been just a little bit relatable.

I did find some of the situations to be funny. But I just wish that Iris had not be so clueless about everything. If she had not been so delusional or entitled I think that what she went through could have been so much funnier.

I really liked the whole idea of Beijing. There were some really amazing things about that part of the story. I loved the whole competitive dog grooming thing. I really enjoyed all of the characters from there (especially her family members). That was a really good part of the story.

There is romance. But it is not really the focus of this book.

Overall, the idea of a teenager out of her element in a different country was a good one. This was a fairly quick read. The last third was actually very strong. And I enjoyed that part of the book a lot.

My Summer of Love and Misfortune by Lindsay Wong is a debut fiction novel about Iris a Chinese-American who's parents send her to China to meet relatives she never knew she had. From the description, I knew that I wanted to try out this book and see what it was like. It sounded fun and interesting.

My problem was that I really struggled with Iris as a character. To me she was completely unlikeable, and maybe that was the point. She is not only irresponsible (drinking, drugs, failing out of school), but I found it unrealistic, how did it get so far that no one knew she wasn't going to graduate from high school? I struggle with really connecting with Iris throughout the book. She came off as selfish, self-centered and self absorbed. I am usually all for a redemption arc, but for me this happened a little too late. Iris did redeem herself, but it took until I had read more than 75% of the book. In the end, I don't even know if Iris actually did redeem herself. Sure, she worked hard and did some things that were a little selfless, but I don't know that she actually changed. I found it really hard to believe that Iris went through all the things that she did in the book, and did not have an "eye opening" experience, or understand herself more.

There were parts of the book I did like. I really enjoyed how Wong introduced me to Chinese culture, which I have limited knowledge, and also explored some heavy issues, including migrant workers and poverty. I wish that there had been a bigger, more obvious change for Iris, and we could have seen her development.

I will give this book 2.5/5 stars. I do look forward to checking out more of Lindsay Wong's novels in the future. I received a copy of this from NetGalley and the publisher for an open and honest review. All opinions are 100% mine.

"My Summer of Love and Misfortune" is lovely and fun. Wong does a great job of capturing how Iris is not deliberately causing harm/emotional distress, rather is a bit mindless and flighty. I was surprised that Iris's neglect of her studies was as far reaching as it was, and that her parents had no idea. I'm not sure if they trusted her that much, or were just oblivious, as Iris doesn't seem like she was making an effort to hide her lack of attention/academic effort.

Thankfully Wong doesn't turn Iris into some dedicated savant when she finally starts to care about learning Mandarin and creating real connections, and, just as thankfully Iris is able to recognize toxic people/relationships and cut them out of her life.
Overall, good, light, with a genuine redemption arc.

Mini review:

I received this e-arc via the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF

I was so happy that I was approved for this title! It sounded right up my alley. Unfortunately I didn't like it.

Iris really irked me! The more I read, the more annoyed I was. I did skim towards the end, and while Iris did improve it was too late for me.

The only positive I have was the ending. It was sweet! Though not enough to save the whole book.

I still recommend. I think others will enjoy it.

An ARC of this novel was sent to me by NetGalley for reviewing purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was excited to read this book because a Chinese-American main character! I felt that I got too excited to read this book and I ended up not liking it- Iris, as fun as she is, isn't easy to relate to, and I feel that I have read better books with a Chinese-American main character.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I loved the inclusion of the Mandarin phrases. It was really interesting to read about the culture difference of always considering your family in your actions vs. living your independent life. Omg though. Iris. Holy crap this girl was super vapid and every time I read about her misfortunes I would literally cringe. So much misfortune happened to this girl because of her actions and her not thinking things through. I thought she was a great example of the ditzy, spoiled, airhead stereotype but at least she went through some character development by the end of the book. At the end of the book her personality reminded me almost a bit of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde because she was still the peppy sorority girl at heart but was smarter and cared about social issues. I have to applaud the author for her writing skills though because I felt like I was reading this book straight from Iris' brain.

Iris has found herself in some trouble after a series of bad events occur. Her parents send her to China to stay with family and go figure herself out.
There are some very funny scenes in this book that I really enjoyed. I liked reading about a girl from a culture different from my own. I must say, Iris is a highly annoying character. Don’t get me wrong, I think that is the point and I certainly think she very realistically represents some of the teenage population. She is just a baffling character that causes you to yell at your book and roll your eyes.
This is very much a story of selfishness, not realizing how your choices effect others, and growth.
I was happy with how this book ended and the choices Iris made. They didn’t feel too unrealistic to me and I am always curious to see how authors will end a story.
I enjoyed diving into the Chinese culture and learning some new things. I wish there had been a bit more history in it, but if you read this story you will understand why there isn’t lol. An interesting story that was entertaining. I am glad I gave it a shot.

Well, got to 60% through this book and can not continue. There was zero character development, no real plot lines, just a lot of the exact same sentences and observations over and over. Thought this might be a good story but was disappointed.

<I> Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me of an eARC of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is currently set to be published in May 2020. </i>

So, to be honest with you all, this is not the first book that I have read by Lindsay Wong. I previously completed <u> The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family</u> and did not care for it at all...1-star rating level of did not care for it at all. That book, however, was a non-fiction memoir piece, so I decided to give Wong's attempt at YA fiction a chance. The writing and story in this one was much improved, but I am still debating whether to give it 2 or 3 stars.

<u> My Summer of Love and Misfortune </u> is DRAMA-FULL. The summary compared it to "<u>Crazy Rich Asians</u> meets <u>Love & Gelato</u>" which I can kind of envision, but it was like forcing myself to eat a Costco party-sized pound cake long after the desire for anything sweet had left my system. I enjoyed the drama of <u>Crazy Rich Asians</u>, but it did not feel anything like this.

The bare bones of the story line itself was gripping - Chinese American girl really messes up (drugs, drinking, sex, parties, fails high school & SATs, rejected from every college application...you know...every parents' nightmare) and gets shipped to live with her newly discovered family in Beijing? Awesome! I loved the setting and references to history, culture and food. The writing-style was solid, I was captivated by the story, all of this should have added up to an amazing review. But then you meet the protagonist, Iris Wang.

Iris Wang was honestly the reason this novel came apart at the seams. Not only was she unlikable - I can get passed unlikable characters - but she was disgustingly vapid, spoiled and self-absorbed to the point of being unbelievable. She did not develop or grow as a character at all throughout the ENTIRE novel. How is that possible? How was there nothing to redeem her even after the lessons of hardship others attempted to impart on her? Iris' next-level selfishness and lack of awareness was nausea-inducing. She was unimaginably thoughtless and persisted in her willful ignorance, even though Wong tried to absolve her at the end through a vaguely compassionate act (in reality Ruby's idea) that STILL did not reconcile all of her previous thoughts and actions. I refuse to believe that anyone can be this dense and unteachable without being deliberately malicious. I hate saying this, but I repeatedly wanted to scream at her for her stupidity and blindness. It was such an intense feeling of revulsion that it detracted from the overall story. There definitely needed to be more balance and growth when it came to her personality, and for that I cannot say that I would recommend this novel to others, even though it was an easy, fluffy read.

This was reminiscent of Loveboat, Taipei and I would even go as far to say that the first half might have even been a bit better. What disappointed me was the ending. Frank and Iris’s relationship ended way too abruptly for me, and I didn’t really get an impression that Frank was all that bad. I felt like what they had was mendable and that Frank still seemed like a genuine guy, so I was a bit confused with Iris’s choice. If a story’s ending doesn’t satisfy me, it can definitely drag down the rest of the book and unfortunately that’s what happened here. Now I’m not saying everything should be happily ever after—I appreciate how the author deviated from the cliche storylines—but I think it could have been taken a whole different route that might be more satisfying.