I enjoy travel romance stories, so I thought I'd give this a read. However, I didn't end up finishing this book.

After reading the first chapter, I felt the character Iris was too self-absorbed, and I didn't feel she'd be a likable character. Plus, the chapter had some too-descriptive parts that turned me off from the book. I never saw "Crazy, Rich Asians" so I can't say if this is a good book for fans of the movie, but it's definitely not a recommended travel-romance book. I've personally seen better travel-romance books.

A fun summer young adult book that I wish had picked up more traction over the last few years! I don’t think it’s too late for this one to take off!

Before I started reading this, I decided to check the rating on Goodreads. Something that I don't do too often because I will then end up reading my friends reviews and that will stay in my mind while I am reading the book. I only looked at the star rating and I was shocked that this had a 2 star average rating. Seeing this, I stayed away from the reviews. I had heard from some booktubers that I watched that they had DNF'ed it and that was it.

So we are following a teenager named Iris. She is Chinese American and she is a very materialistic, narcissistic moron. She has two parents who are not very smart. Her mom is the CEO of an engineering company and her dad is obsessed with Chinese zodiac and getting manicures and pedicures. All her life, she has known that she is cursed because she was born in the year of the Tiger. Tiger girls are cursed and doomed while Tiger boys bring good fortune for the family.

Reading the first two chapters, I had to vlog myself reading this. I was blown out of my mind that this girl could be so ignorant and obnoxious. She didn't get into any of the colleges she applied to, she failed her senior year by not showing up and she thinks the email from her guidance counselor is a request to be Valedictorian. She gets cheated on by her boyfriend with her best friend. She is sent away to China to fix herself and she then thinks that her parents are fake and then proceeds to look into Forbes top 30 in Asia to find her real parents. She has panic attacks about learning and she can't speak Mandarin to save her life.

I really hated Iris, but I believe that she was supposed to be an unlikeable main character. I don't want to fault the book for that, but when the parents also make idiotic statements like the mother asking Iris, has no one ever taught you to stay away from strangers. The dad not really knowing anything about his brother and thinking that the uncle and cousin are dirt poor.

I also could not feel an inch of sympathy for Iris when she got screwed over by her love interest. I know what it feels like to be lied to your face, but girl, for someone who loves attention she needed to pay more attention to the body language of her "lover".

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book was not good. The character was so unlikable there was no way to finish it. The writing however is good, but the characters and plot were not in this case.

I actually was not able to download this book to my device because it was a PDF. Thank you Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to read and review this.

I’m not going to go much into this one but as other reviewers mentioned My Summer of Love and Misfortune has some problems that as I do not feel I have the right to discuss. I will leave that to #ownvoices reviewers and I recommend checking their reviews for more in depth discussions.

I found the writing overtly simplistic in addition to the author not working on getting to the emotional development of the character. I found that they seemed to have a seething hatred for young people. Ironic given this is young adult fiction and therefore they are the main readership. Adult authors should remember who their readership is if they are marketing their books to young readers. Young Adults already have so much put on them by adults. Too often I see the seething hatred adults have for young people and it's laughable to me considering the state of the world. I kept thinking ‘am I supposed to hate her?’ Then I proceeded to think maybe the author shouldn’t be writing this genre? I think this book is more of a case of the author internalizing hatred for young girls more than it is a discussion on character growth. I’m often a fan of unreliable and unlikable characters that develop into this beautiful arc of characterization but this is not that story.

I can't believe I'm saying this again after my last review.. I am all for shouting out my love for Asian authors but I can't, for the love of my sanity, appreciate this mess. I can't even believe that this book was published.

My Summer of Love and Misfortune showed great promise. Seeing the cover and reading the synopsis will make you think, aaahh, this might be the perfect one for me. As someone who read (AND LOVED) Loveboat, Taipei, I was so excited to read a story of another Asian American visiting a country she has never been before but is a significant part of her history.. However, all I felt while reading this book is disappointed, many times frustrated, and sometimes infuriated.

Simply put, this book is my worst read of 2020, most probably.

There's not much plot in the book, which I don't actually have problems with. BUT when a character-driven story has Iris Wong starring the show, I just can't. She is extremely clueless for a graduating high schooler - failing her classes, not getting into colleges/unis, yet somehow imagining she's going to be the class valedictorian? WHAT. Not only in this moment for all the rest of the book, it felt like there's a 10 year old stuck in the body of a 17 year old. This makes me wonder how the author sees young adults, because, nope, they might make mistakes sometimes, but they are not flat out idiots.

Admittedly, the book is supposedly about her character growth and reaching maturity. But, how would I ever deem root for her when it is physically hurting me to turn the pages?

The writing style is so damn juvenile that it gives me secondhand embarrassment. Don't get me started on the support characters, because they will just make you go 'meh' or 'oh, no'.

Overall, I don't recommend this book to anyone. Unless, you're a fan of hurting yourself and torturing your brain, or something.

This was grueling to get to.

You know, it's been a long hard year. And I really, I truly can't stand to read anymore books where the premise is awful character remains awful and is surrounded by a slew of EVEN MORE AWFUL CHARACTERS. I just cannot and won't do it.

Iris is self absorbed and so was everybody else in the book. I ended up quitting around 30%. I just couldn't anymore.

Thank you Netgalley.

The cover of this book immediately drew me in, but unfortunately the story did not keep my attention. The main character was extremely unrelatable and so self-absorbed. The supporting characters were even worse. I hate to say it, but this did not feel like a novel about a high school girl on her way to college. Instead it felt like the ramblings of a pre-teen who's completely self-absorbed and not for any reason that furthers the plot or book. I wish I had better things to say, but unfortunately I don't.

My reaction while surviving the 18% of My Summer of Love and Misfortune that I read can be summarized in one GIF:

The book is that bad, friends. I think at a certain point I started viewing the book from a comedic standpoint just to make things feel a little better for me personally, but LOL, there are better books out there to read. Also, if I could give this book 0 out of 5, I would. But alas, I’ll have to settle with what I settled with.

Let me just talk about all the ways My Summer of Love and Misfortune was Hilariously Awful™.
So we start the book introduced to Iris Wang, who we quickly find out that because she is born as a tiger and has a teardrop-shaped mole under her right eye, she’s unlucky. She’s addicted to Starbucks lattes and expensive makeup, she parties a lot, she shows up hungover to SATs, and she half-asses her college admissions essays like I once half-assed a 10-page paper the day it was due. In other words, she lives up to being unlucky, and she has priority issues. It’s not even that bad yet.

Her credit card bill one day will rival that one person in the movie with a massive credit card debt — was that The Devil Wears Prada? — only, I don’t think Iris Wang will improve. And I have to wonder: do her parents actually notice the usage and teach her how to be responsible with it or do they just let her run wild and pay for it? How in the world do her parents trust her? I’m so confused??? And how are they not pissed about her credit card usage? She’s not even 18; she’s got to be an authorized user.

She knocks off the garage door with a $50K car while drunk after walking in on her best friend and boyfriend having sex. Don’t get me wrong; cheating is awful to experience, and I wouldn’t wish it on most people. But Iris had that one coming for her: she doesn’t remember her boyfriend’s birthday, and she didn’t even know her best friend Samira is capable of writing articles or that she volunteers. How… how do you not know your boyfriend’s birthday, and what kind of friend are you if you don’t even know your best friend is capable of writing articles? Hell, she thinks best friends are supposed to be an identical reflection of each other. So in the words of my mom, Iris Wang deserved what she got.

Oh, she also thinks no one uses the postal service anymore, and to top it off, she doesn’t understand what global warming is.

How… how do you not know this.

Basically, Iris Wang thinks the world revolves around her, and only her.
And here I was once told that I was in my own world for wanting to be an astronaut. The only difference is, I was in preschool at the time, so at least I had the Little Kids are Cute factor going on.

She thinks you can be voted in as valedictorian and salutatorian. LMAO Iris never studies, how the hell would she be top of the class? I’d be surprised if she’s not at the very bottom. Let’s not forget she showed up hungover to the SATs, either.

But anyway, let’s backtrack to where she knocks off her parent’s garage door with a very fancy car. The incident ends up as the last straw for her parents, so they decide to send Iris off to Beijing in the hopes she’ll get her act together. She wonders if her parents even love her for doing so, going so far as thinking they must not be her parents; her parents must be super rich, and they can be found in a Forbes list. She thinks she’s a genius for looking for what she thinks are her birth parents on Forbes.

Okay, but here’s what killed me, friends. Iris is in the plane’s bathroom for long enough time that people are in a line waiting for her to finish, she accidentally drops the contents of her purse into the toilet… and wonders if she should flush it all away. If you’re not supposed to flush paper towels down the toilet, why the actual fuck would you…?

And when she gets off the plane and tries to turn on her phone to no avail, she thinks she can bake her phone in the oven so it can work again. LMFAO, more like starting a fire if the entire oven doesn’t explode.

This book just wasn't for me. I had a difficult time investing in the main character. I struggled to finish this because I did not care what happened.

This title was fun, but very very choppy. The writing needs some editing to make topics and change of scenes flow better. It felt a bit disjointed at times.

My Summer of Love and Misfortune is the debut young adult novel from Lindsay Wong, told in the humorous, clumsy voice of 17-year-old Iris, whose quirky character along with the comedy in her story are the highlights of this book.

Well, it's not a good.
The main character is so unrealistic, like, why she did all that stuff for nothing?
I just couldn't care less for her.

First off, Iris Wang is such an unlikable character in this story. I did feel like she deserved some of the things that happens to her because she brought them on herself. At the same time the chaotic events set in motion act as a wake up call. She’s selfish, spoiled, self absorbed, and it’s until she is shipped off to Beijing that she has the sudden realization that she has messed up big time.

While spending time in Beijing with her uncle’s family, Iris has a hard time grasping reality. She faces a big dose of culture shock and feels removed from her own Chinese culture growing up in America. She doesn’t know how to speak Mandarin, is unfamiliar with Chinese customs, and has trouble connecting with her family. This proves to be an eye opener for Iris and she reflects on the past and how she’s acted.

The more Iris starts to open up the easier it is for her to connect with readers. But I still had trouble liking her as character and connecting to her story. Her spoiled brat nature was a big issue for me when reading this book. It was a big turn off for me! Her superficial ways have hurt many of the people in her life. Iris slowly tries to better herself throughout the course of the story, but I felt like it only redeemed her character a small bit.

I did enjoy all of the travel aspects of the novel. The writing was so descriptive. It felt like you were able to to smell the food stalls that lined the markets, walk through the shops of the malls, and feel the hectic bustle of traveling via subway. But ultimately I just couldn’t get over how terrible of a person Iris was and that was the downfall for me when reading this book.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. I wanted to like this book and finish it but it wasn't for me. The main character, Iris was very self absorbed and snotty and I didn't want to invest any more time with this character.

Disclaimer: DNF

I have been trying to finish this book for months, but just can’t seem to do it.

Two main things bugged me enough to DNF.
1- the main character was SO unlikeable! I am all for a redemption arc where the character starts off pretty rough and turns it around. But this was just too much. She was so selfish and lacked self awareness to an extreme. I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be funny or not with how extreme it was.

2- the constant similes were annoying. Every few sentences it was “this” was like “this” as a descriptor. It was just too much for me.

On the plus side, it was a very refreshing dose of diversity. Asian American MCs are very underrepresented and I enjoyed seeing it.

I also like books set in different countries and reading about lavish lifestyles is always fun.

Overall I was super disappointed but I did go into it with high expectations.

I wanted to love this book so much but I just could not. Iris is one of the most annoying and immature protagonists I have ever read. I almost DNFed at several points but I wanted to give her the chance to grow up but oh boy did she not. She starts to show some self awareness around 30% but that’s all it ever amounted to, thoughts instead of actions. I ended up skipping most of the middle and skimming the end to see if she matured but she did not. They throw money at a social injustice problem and ~ta da~ it makes everything better.

The characters were poorly written and flat, the pacing was all off, the major plot points were dull and cheap. I would not recommend this book to anyone and I’m annoyed I wasted my time on it.

My Summer of Love and Misfortune is the funniest book I've read so far this year. It's bright and snappy and heartfelt. However, if you do not like YA that actually reads like YA, you know, for actual teenagers, you won't like this book. Iris gets sent to Beijing after failing high school and being a general mess, which lets be honest wouldn't really happen. I think, in reality, her parents would A. force her to either repeat her senior year or get her GED in the US and B. Wouldn't send her to live with relatives they knew little about.

There are a lot of unrealistic things in this book. Iris is a dreamer, fantasizing about having different parents, a different life, etc, but she just wants to impress everyone. This book is full of rich descriptions of the Beijing high life. So many of the scenes reminded me of my own time in China.

Yes, this book has issues. Iris is vapid and silly, but that's kind of the point. She thinks like the irrational teenager that she is! There is a full character arc, which I appreciate. Frank has a motive, but we don't really get to see him as a full character, just kind of as a cute prop. If there had been more focus on Iris' education, and working on persuading Iris from the beginning, I might have felt more for his plight. The end solution comes a little too quickly. I wish there had been more building up to the fundraiser. Ruby was an interesting character, and I think she could have benefited from more depth. The ending just came so quickly that we didn't get to see her transformation.
Overall, this book is hilarious and sweet. If. you liked Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians, you'll probably like My Summer of Love and Misfortune.

This fun debut YA from author Lindsay Wong presents the reader with protagonist Iris Wang. Iris is a high school senior in New Jersey, has an AmEx on which she's run up an extraordinary debt - especially since she bought two tickets to Paris to surprise her boyfriend for his birthday - and is happiest shopping. But when all hell breaks loose in the form of her boyfriend cheating on her (with her best friend, no less!), her parents learn she's not only not gotten into any colleges, but she has failed her senior year of high school. Their solution? They decide to send Iris to stay with her father's half-brother and his family in China - a family Iris didn't know she even HAD.

But when she gets there and discovers how wealthy her uncle is, she's ecstatic and even wonders if Uncle is actually her father. But things don't turn out quite as Iris expected them to, and in a wonderfully plotted storyline, Iris grows and changes from the superficial shopaholic who landed in Beijing to someone with way more depth.

Having been to Beijing myself once upon a time, I loved Wong's depiction of Iris's experiences in a country that is her heritage, but that she really knows nothing about. Her character arc is beautifully written and I was happy for Iris when I finished the book and saw her growth. Iris is like a bull in a china shop in so many ways and that adds to the comedic effect of the book. I very much enjoyed this book.