Kelly Yang is such an incredible writer! She manages to squeeze so many details and so much nuance into her stories, but they never feel preachy or heavy-handed. This book about Serene, Chinese-American daughter of a fashion designer who is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and Lian, recent immigrant from China to Serene's small, very white town in California. Lian wants to be a stand-up comedian, which his parents do not approve of, so he starts a Chinese club as a ruse to appease his parents and give himself some time to practice his comedy. Serene is looking to connect with her absent father now that her mom is extremely ill, so she joins the Chinese club to try to learn more about who her dad might be and where he might be in China. An immediate connection forms between the two and before too long, sparks fly. But this book is so much more than a teen romance. Serene and Lian as such complete characters, flawed, but lovable, and their connection over their culture and the frequent microaggressions or outright racism that they have experienced in their community is so welcome and needed in the YA market. I will definitely be buying and recommending this book!

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this novel. 3.5/5 stars.

I love Kelly Yang's MG novels, but I hadn't ever read her other YA one...so I was curious about how her MG transfers to YA. The premise of this also drew me in, especially with uppity LA and fashion and expectations and the struggle of Serene's mother having cancer. I felt like there were a lot of subplots though, and they got convoluted. Serene is dealing with a horrible boyfriend, bad decisions, patriarchal men, cancer, etc., while Lian is dealing with expectations and parents and what not. I think the plot could have been centered and focused more, but I also think the multiple parts is what made this such a fast read.

I like the relationship between Serene and her mother, but I didn't like how Serene's mother couldn't see the impact the board was having on her life. I also thought Serene's relationship with Cameron was unnecessary, and she went from no feelings to falling in love with Lian way too quickly for it to be realistic. There was also a LOT of emphasis on sexual content, and it didn't serve a single purpose to the plot.

I wish the book had expanded on the ending more as well.

I am a fan of Kelly Yang and her way to make the characters leap off the page for her readers. I love her Front Desk series. She has a way of making her readers part of the story and drawing them in. I do hope she continues to write more books.

This wasn’t my favorite of hers. A strong YA contemporary romance but I officially feel like I have outgrown the genre. I was honestly more interested in her mother’s life than the protagonists.

I adore everything that Kelly Yang writes, so it is no surprise that I enjoyed Private Label! Lian and Serene both have to fight against assumptions and expectations put on them by others, and do that while falling in love. Serene has to handle stepping into a leadership role in her mom's fashion business after a cancer diagnosis and Lian wants to be a stand-up comic instead of an engineer. I liked so much about this book--the serious but not totally devastating way that Serene handles her mom's illness, the challenge of parental expectations that don't align with one's own dreams, the way the romance began as friendship, and how both main characters ultimately stood up for themselves.

A classic mother and daughter relationship is spotlighted in Kelly Yang's "Private Label" with a hetero-romance subplot.
Growing up as one of the only Asian girls in the community, Serene feels disconnected from her heritage and acclimated well to the white-people culture. Her mother runs a major fashion label that is overseen by white male investors, and Serene can't figure out why her mother feels she has to bow down to the investors. Growing up with no knowledge of her father, Serene has always relied on her mother, but after discovering a photo, she wants to learn more about who her father might be. She enlists the help of the only other Asian kid in school, Lian, in order to possibly connect with her father, and something blooms. In the end, Serene ends up knowing more about her heritage, her passions, and who she really wants to be involved with.

Don’t skip this book!

There is no way not to fall for Lian and Serene.

Lian struggles with following his dream and staying true to himself while trying to balance out honoring his parents.

Serene goes through all the high school drama while being forced to grow up and become an adult overnight at the age of 17! From becoming a caregiver to trying to represent her mom to finding her own voice all while finding out harsh truths about her past.

Together giving each other strength this duo melts your heart and has you cheering them on every step of the way!

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for letting me read this early release!

Private Label was a refreshing story of love, overcoming adversity, coming of age and transformation.

Serene has let others label her, her white peers, her moms’ judgmental staff. All of that changes when her mom is diagnosed with Cancer and Serene is forced to come to terms with who she is and who she is to become. Lian has always been labeled as the perfect Asian, ignored by his white peers and the aloof Serene, Lian learns to navigate this American culture by perfecting his craft—aspiring comedian. The author crafts a lighthearted story of these two Asian teens helping each other navigates friendships, family and love. The difference in these two Asian teen experiences gives the reader a glimpse into two worlds that initially collide but with the possibility to meld into something special.

I really really enjoyed Parachutes by Kelly Yang so I was thrilled to receive an ARC of Private Label. While I definitely enjoyed Private Label I don’t think it was done as beautifully as parachutes. Private Label had all the makings to be an excellent coming of age immigrant story. I think it was unrealistic for the dad to be as good as he ended up being. I also didn’t think the nudes storyline added anything to the story. Overall, I enjoyed Private Label and would recommend.

3.5 stars
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
Private Label is Kelly Yang’s second YA novel, and her most romance-leaning work to date. As such, I had high hopes for this one, which it mostly delivered, with Yang exploring the complexities of the Chinese-American parent/child dynamics from the perspectives of two people who find comfort in each other.
Serene has a close relationship with her single mother, and her mother’s cancer diagnosis really shakes her, with Serene having to take over her mom’s fashion business. In the process, she does carve out a niche for herself, and it’s nice to have a generally positive relationship, to contrast with the other parent/child relationship in the book.
Lian, meanwhile, has recently moved from China to California, and his parents have really intense expectations for his future, which don’t fit what he wants to do, which is to become a standup comedian. His mother is pretty intense, and she doesn’t seem to grasp that while Serene may be playing a role in helping him come out of his shell, Lian is his own person making his own decisions, rather than a hormonal teen under the influence of a girl.
This book is super subplot-heavy, and at times, I did wonder at the relevance of some of them. Serene’s quest to find her father felt extraneous, coming up, then being forgotten about when convenient. The circumstances of the parents’ relationship is a big reveal that pertains to the plot and Serene and her mother’s larger circumstances, but I don’t know if it truly felt like an earned reveal.
I also have really mixed feelings about Serene’s relationship with her toxic boyfriend, Cameron. At a few points, it seemed like he was strung along in the background for the sake of drama, particularly this one plot point that occurs quite late in the book where things have finally come to a head, and he decides to get revenge.
While I do have some issues, this is a pretty solid book from Kelly Yang. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys multicultural YA contemporaries.

4 stars

As a devoted Kelly Yang fan, I was thrilled to be able to read this latest YA effort, and while it was (to be totally transparent) not my favorite of her works, it's still a strong YA contemporary with a solid dose of romance and family drama included. Yang fans, as well as general readers of good YA, will enjoy this experience.

The main character and joint perspective duties are shared by Serene and Lian, who both live in a swanky town, attend the same high school, and come into each other's lives at just the right time. Serene may be a bit unrelatable for some at first because there is a lot of focus on her mother, a famous fashion designer, and Serene's incredible experience to work at her mother's company. Between this particularly fortuitous circumstance and the financial means Serene appears to have, it seems like she has it all: too much, even. However, Serene also has three other factors that provide incredible challenges: a trash bag of a boyfriend, a totally absent parent, and a parent dipping into crisis mode. Lian's circumstances may be more relatable as he has somewhat recently come to this new town with his family from China, he's having some social challenges, and his parents are utterly overbearing. Serene and Lian seem like an unlikely pair to be sure, but they grow closer as their circumstances become more challenging, and their journey is one to watch.

As is always the case with Yang, one of the great strengths of this novel is the coverage of so many issues. The characters struggle with their own internal challenges, but wow does Yang pile on the external factors here, too. Pick up this book to learn and grow with them.

Private Label was underwhelming. The book is marketed as a YA romance, so I expected ✨ sparks ✨ to fly off the pages. Instead, the relationship between Serene and Lian was surface level. Throughout the entire book, I felt lukewarm about their relationship and found myself wondering why they were together in the first place. It felt like their relationship came out of nowhere.

Ultimately, I was more interested in learning more about Serene's mother, Lily, who is diagnosed with cancer. We learn that Lily founded her own label, Lily Lee, in America using the $250,000 "hush money" Serene's father gave her to get out of the picture. As context, Serene's father is married and his wife found out about his affair with Lily. That's not all, we also learn that Lily's first angel investor, Julien Pierre *suggested* Lily to erase her Chinese identity for the sake of appealing to Americans. "It'd been his "suggestion" that Mom use Lee, just as it'd been his suggestion that Mom start getting highlights and honey-brown eye contacts. Lighten, lighten, lighten. It was all part of his rebranding of Mom — an all-American designer for all Americans — which started when I was twelve and never stopped." While I liked how the whitening and erasure of the Asian-American identity is highlighted in Private Label, I ended up struggling to finish the book.

Private Label has a lot of potential (fashion design and stand-up comedy, need I say more?), but this was a miss for me.

Adored. This. Book. Such a sweet and powerful ya story. Teen romance told in two person pov with amazing characters that keep you emotionally invested and rooting for them the whole time. I could not put it down. Truly wonderful.

This was my first Kelly Yang book I've read. I enjoyed the story overall. The targeted audience was for older young adult and I thought for this target audience, the story was perfect.

I loved the dynamic between mother and daughter. Loved how Serene and her mom had such a strong bond since her mother was a single mom. The struggles of being a single mother and making it into the fashion world was so fun to read. When their world was turned upside down because of her mom being diagnosed with cancer was well expressed.

I also thought the dynamic of Serene trying to fit in with the "cool" kids was very representative of a lot of first generation immigrants trying to fit into affluent America. Being less ethnic and more "white" to fit in was a huge focal point of Serene's high school life.

Lian, I loved his character. Loved how Kelly Yang introduced him and his family dynamic. I thought she painted a very accurate picture of what it is to grow up in an immigrant house hold, where all that mattered was when your achievement was one upping your mom's friends and family. What I didn't like about him was that he supposedly moved to the US the year prior from Beijing but understood all the American slang and idealism. To me, that seemed so unrealistic.

I thought the friendship between Lian and Serene was so sweet and pure. I hated how their love story seemed so abrupt.

The ending was sweet although a bit anticlimactic. I felt it was a little rushed when there was so much build up.

Overall, sweet and fun read. Would recommend if you're looking for a sweet read.

Thank you publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

I was excited to read the second book targeted to older teens written by Kelly Yang and it didn't disappoint. This book is about a Chinese-American high school girl in California being raised by a single mother who is an extremely successful fashion designer. She attends a high school with very few Asian students. In attempt to find out more about her absent father, she befriends the seemingly only other Chinese student at the high school to help her learn some Chinese. He is struggling with his parents' expectations of going to MIT when he really just wants to be a comedian. At its heart, this book is a typical teen romance/problem novel but the addition of the Chinese-American issues makes this book more interesting than many. I still prefer Yang's books for middle grades but I am glad that she is also writing for high school students. (This one is probably appropriate for grades 8 and up.)

Serene's life is thrown into a craziness no one ever wants to be a part of, she needs someone to understand, and she needs to make adult decisions about the future of her Mom's company all while her heart is breaking. Lian is trying to find his way in this world while trying to please his Chinese parents. When their worlds intersect, could it be fate?

I LOVE the connection between Lian and Serene-but most of all the love between mother and daughter!

This was my first Kelly Yang book and I enjoyed it. While it may not have checked all my boxes, it was definitely a nice, sweet read.

What I like about the book:
1. It is well written. It has an easy flow and it’s entertaining with all of Lian’s jokes.

2. I really like Lian. He is probably the sweetest male character I’ve ever read, and I want to see more characters like him in the future.

• He respects Serene,
• he doesn’t brag about his relationship accomplishments,
• he helps his sister to realize her dream on his own dime,
• he helps Serene and his sister appreciate their culture,
• he carries his coat in case Serene gets cold,
• oh my god! That pendant contract was everything!,
• he asked if he could kiss her (that is so high school sweet!),
• he printed and mapped out on his bedroom wall the Great Wall of China so he could “take Serene there” as his grand gesture, and
• he is downright hilarious! Seriously, his comedy is what kept me reading and wanting more of the chapters in his POV.

3. There is a revolving theme of assimilation and not being welcomed because of who you are. I felt the author did a very good job of highlighting some of the messed-up stuff non-white people go through in America. I appreciated the deep thoughts around how different people dealt with it and how the strongest character, Lian, helped Serene and others see that being yourself is most important at the end of the day.

What didn’t do it for me:
1. I really wanted to like Selene, but she just fell flat for me. She had sweet moments, especially when she acted really mature with her mom’s illness and taking care of her. But there were a couple things about her that bugged me.

She spent way too long being in a relationship with Cameron and arranging her life to try to make him/his group of friends happy when she even realized she didn’t really like him all that much anymore.

I also felt she was really hypocritical of her mom. In one breath she’s pissed that her mom changed her name from “Li” to the more Americanized spelling “Lee”, but then she’s changing everything about herself to fit in at school too. At the end of the day, be you, not who others want you to be and don’t be a hypocrite.

2. I felt this book should have had a wide range of emotions and it fell short of that goal. Going into this book, I wanted to be devastated with her mom’s illness, and I wanted to be in love with Serene’s and Lian’s love story. Neither of these happened.

While her mother’s illness was a focal point to the story, the points where real emotion could have been interwoven in were highly glossed over. At no point did I want to cry, and this should have been a book to wreck me.

As for Serene’s and Lian’s love story, it just felt…abrupt. One second Serene doesn’t know who he is and the next she thinks about kissing him instead of her boyfriend. It also seemed strange how fast they recognized the other as their “best friend”. They barely knew each other…

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins Children's Books, Katherine Tegen Books, and Kelly Yang for the opportunity to read this ARC. The opinions expressed above are my own, honest opinions.

3.5 stars!

Serene, the daughter of a fashion mogul and intern at her mother’s fashion house, is being groomed to take over the business, much to the displeasure of her mother’s senior designers. Lily Lu has terminal pancreatic cancer, and it’s always been her and har daughter against the world, and the white-bred California suburb where they live.

Lian is a new immigrant from China who faces micro-aggressions and outright bullying at their high school. He starts an afterschool club for students interested in learning Chinese, and Serene joins in the hopes it can aid her in connecting with her estranged father. Although Serene has a boyfriend, she begins to fall for Lian, who becomes her rock when things are rapidly going south.

Both Serene and Lian are coping with what their mothers want for them–and the gap between that, and what they want for themselves. Racism and sexism meld with fashion and Chinese culture to produce a novel with a lot of depth. The alternating point of views work well; the teen voices are authentic and unique. The cover art is lovely. The cancer details are all too real. This is a well-written and timely tale about the immigrant experience that will both tug at your heartstrings and have you cheering for the characters.

I received an advance reader's review copy of #PrivateLabel via #NetGalley.

Writing from personal experience, Yang has written an honest and moving portrayal of having a parent with cancer as well as the struggles of being a first gen immigrant. While her characters here aren’t always likable, they are realistic teens making choices that aren’t always the greatest. Recommended for fans of YA realistic fic like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before or Tokyo Ever After.

As a fan of Kelly Yang's work, I was excited to read her new book, Private Label. Even though I am not interested in the fashion industry, I was blown away by the story and the dynamic between the mother and daughter relationship and other family struggles revealed through the various characters and subplots. I think this will be relatable to readers who come from an immigrant background and feel the pressures put on them to succeed. This book explored many different angles and covered several hard-hitting topics. I am impressed by Kelly Yang's storytelling and her ability to draw on her own experiences to inspire her writing.