Valentina, a Vietnamese-American teenage girl being raised by a single father, has always loved Valentine's Day until she started high school and realized how complicated love can be. This graphic novel explores love, grief, family, and secrets. The only downfall for me were the parts with the spirit of St. Valentine. I didn't love that thread plus the font was hard to read in those parts. Older middle school and high school realistic graphic novel fans shouldn't miss this one.

I have been struggling to write a review of this book that says anything more profound than "perfect." But that's about it for me. This is a perfect book. Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham are both at their very best here and the result is a graphic novel that teens and adults will adore. The panel work is great, the illustrations are lovely, the story is so compelling. I loved the representation of different Asian American kids and I thought the romance was spot on. I will be talking about this book for the entire year.

I really liked this book by GLY and Uyen Pham, two of my favorite authors. It's a cute romance involving Asian Americans teens who Lion Dance. I liked the diversity of Asian characters represented in this story.

Valentine Tran – once a Valentine’s day obsessed child is now a true-love questioning teenager. After learning truths about her parent’s separation from her grandmother, it seems that every member of her family is cursed when it comes to love. She doubts that true love exists while wanting it desperately to be real.

One of the best characters in this story was Grandma Xuan. She always showed up when she was needed most, whether she was invited or not. Thanks to her broken English, I now have a new favorite euphemism for sex ‘sweetheart too much’. Valentine’s parents “sweetheart too much” one Valentine’s Day when they are very young and name their daughter after her date of conception.

I received a digital ARC of this graphic novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is stunning. It tells the story of Valentina and her lifelong relationship with love and Valentine’s Day. Through the story, she also comes into more of her Vietnamese culture, and diverse Asian cultures at large through lion dancing. Every piece of this story is intentional, and the art is equally as beautiful and important.

Valentina is a hopeless romantic, aptly named, whose life quickly spirals as she discovers a hidden truth about her family, getting swept off her feet by a lion dancer, and spends a year trying to decide if love is even worth it. Gene Luen Yang takes us on an adventure full of rich cultures, high school friendships and relationships, and hilarious grandmothers. Original concept and will find a spot in readers' hearts as they explore the ups and downs of what it feels like to lead with your heart.

Advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for honest opinion.

I absolutely loved this story! The art work was beautiful and really brought this story to life. The character development and their journeys felt very complete and well thought out. I really enjoyed learning all about the different cultures in this book and how they celebrate the Lunar New year. I have seen the Lion Dance performed in person, but never new the meaning behind it. This is a wonderful graphic novel for anyone to read, I will be recommending it to everyone at the library!

Valentina used to love Valentine’s Day. She had an invisible best friend, St. Valentine, who would help her create all the cards and a special card to her father from her deceased mother who obviously also loved Valentine’s Day since she named Valentina after it. But on Valentine’s Day her freshmen year everything changes. What she thought she knew about her family and Valentine’s Day comes crashing down, family secrets get revealed, and St. Valentine changes from his cupid form into a creepy old dude promising Valentina she’d be safer if she just gave her heart to him for safe keeping. She turns him down, but St. Valentine shows up again her Junior year when she meets a guy. Valentina wants to believe she has a chance at true love, but Grandma has told her their family is cursed in the love area. St. Valentine gives Valentina one year to decide whether to keep her heart or give it to him so she won’t get hurt. Valentina is hoping against hope that Les is the one. He’s fun, popular, rich, and gets her into lion dancing, and Valentina loves it. But is this really love?

I really like Gene Luen Yang’s books and I love LeUyen Pham’s art, so when I saw they were coming out with a graphic novel together I was thrilled. I like how they mixed in aspects of Vietnamese American, Chinese American, and Korean American cultures into the story. I learned more about lion dancing than I ever knew there was to know, and gained an appreciation for how much training goes into it (and the different forms it takes in different cultures). The trip Valentina takes with her Grandma and the other older ladies from her church to Rome is hilarious. But what I liked most was the message of this story. Is the risk of loving people worth it? It sounds from the synopsis like it is just about romantic love, but there’s also aspects of familial and friendship love to the story. Valentina has to decide whether she can risk her heart with family figures who have hurt her. (A guy named Jae in the lion dance group is figuring this out too.) She also learns a really important lesson about what a solid romantic relationship should and should not look like (her best friend Bernice also learns important things in this area). And the ending includes a lot of beautiful healing and healthy steps for so many characters in the story. It’s a beautiful and meaningful Valentine’s/Lunar New Year story. Highly recommended to YA readers and libraries. I need to get a couple copies for our library.

Notes on content [based on the dARC]:
Language: I don’t clearly remember, but at most only a very few minor swears.
Sexual content: Only a couple kisses on page. Valentina’s Grandma tells her how she was conceived when her mother and father “sweethearted too much” on Valeninte’s Day when they were teens (that’s exactly how she puts it and there’s nothing else added). There’s a bare butt on a statue.
Ethnic diversity: Valentina is Vietnamese American, Les is Chinese American, Jae is Chinese/Korean American, Bernice is white (nothing more specified).
LGBTQ+ content: Valentina learns later in the book that their female lion dance teacher has a wife.
Violence: Two half-hearted punches (done in an effort to diffuse a situation, it feels comical). The real St. Valentine’s historic, violent death is recounted.
Other: One parent in the story is an alcoholic, another dangerously close, but both get help/are on better paths by the end. St. Valentine gets kinda creepy after Valentina’s freshman year and Valentina talks of being haunted by him. Another character is visited by a possible ghost of a dead relative.

I received an ARC of this title from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a departure from Yang's stories in more ways than one. And it's wholly unique.

There are heavier doses of religion in this story that combine with the Asian Lunar New Year celebration too. There are stronger, deeper feelings of family connections especially as Valentina realizes that her mother isn't actually dead as she's been led to believe all of her life, but that she didn't stay with the family and her father thought it best to keep her away for good. This is combined with the understanding that her father has a dysfunctional relationship with his mother that as Valentina gets older and the grandmother visits, Valentina comes to understand both her family history, especially her father but it doesn't make it easier to forgive him. This backdrop combined with the ghost of St. Valentine are the underpinnings of a romance-- Valentina seeking romance, she's got one year to find, or give her heart to St. Valentine and admit that she (and her family) are just unlucky in love.

It's quirkier. It's got a misguided romance and finally a fated moment of clarity. All as Valentina explores her love of lion dancing too.

I'm curious about the audience because it's so much more than a romance. It's a cultural touchstone, it's a family history, it's a "ghost story". Complex indeed.

Thank you to NetGalley and First Second Books for a free E-arc in exchange for my honest review. Lunar New Year Love Story follows a young Val who used to have St. Valentine as an imaginary friend, but has since discovered that her family is unlucky in love. Not only is it a story of her search for true love, but one of friendship, familial expectations, and culture. The illustrations are gorgeous and contrast the lucky reds and yellows with dark blues and greys. Beautiful coming of age story.

This graphic novel is beautifully illustrated and deeply moving.

Graphic novels are accessible to the most reluctant readers, and (in typical Gene Luen Yang fashion) this one packs a powerful punch wrestling with hurt within families, tension within religion and culture, with the fear of never finding love.

Valentina's fear of never finding true love is so relatable. From page one, you see that she's such a romantic that you can't help but want her to have the romance she's always dreamed of. I loved how this story starts showing Valentina's love of Valentines Day, how she made valentines for everyone in her class and for her dad, and she feels this kinship with cupid. There's an innocence you can't help but want to protect.

But time has revealed some harsh truths to Valentina, and she doubts true love exists. She's all but ready to hand her heart over to Saint Valentine to protect it when she attends a Lunar New Year Festival where a paper heart appears out of the lion's mouth. A sign.

The portrayal of Val searching and questioning and doubting her fate and relationship is relatable and believable (at least from my memory of being a high school girl). There's so much uncertainty and hope.

I adored the inclusion and importance of the lion dancing. And the artwork is rich and beautiful. This is a comforting story about the hope and power of love.

Thank you NetGalley and First Second Books for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The story begins with teen crushes, friendships and drama. But underneath all that is a layer of melancholy and uncertainty of finding love. This is expressed by both the teen and adult characters.

I love the representation of the culture and how it is embraced by the new generations as they find themselves in the world.

Thank you NetGalley and First Second Books for giving me the opportunity to read this!

I loved LeUyen Pham art work. It was expressive, and the colorist really enhanced the mood in emotionally intense scenes. Gene Luen Yang writes a charming teen romance that has good twists and a great supporting cast of family members and friends. It's a must buy!

5 stars

If First Second is publishing it, I'm trying to read it, and that's exactly how I came to this new effort from an already beloved writer in this genre: the remarkable Gene Luen Yang.

Valentina, the m.c., has (like many of us) a complicated relationship with love. Nothing brings her more childhood joy than Valentine's Day. She GOES IN with the preparations and celebrations, even to the point of teasing and alienation in some cases. One of the sweetest elements of this celebration is the way she honors her parents. I'm keeping this intentionally vague because it's so moving, and readers should experience this small but powerful reveal for themselves.

As Valentina grows up, her relationship to romance and even platonic love becomes much more complex. She experiences heartbreak in more ways than one, but she also learns and grows from these challenging encounters.

There is a really beautiful mix of romantic and platonic love, family relationships, culture, and fate versus free will happening throughout this exceptionally illustrated and engagingly presented graphic novel. Readers familiar with this author will enter with high expectations, and those will be met if not exceeded.

This is another banger from Gene Luen Yang AND from First Second.

I remember back hearing Gene Luen Yang share about how excited he was to be writing this book with LeUyen Pham. And it was definitely worth the wait. It's a fabulous book about love and loss and embracing ones heritage.

When Valentina was younger, the anonymous valentine cards she got combined with her name lead her to love Valentine's Day more than anything. After an unfortunate incident her first year of high school, she turned her back on Valentine's Day and believes the legends of her family's curse to always have romance end badly. She makes a deal with the spirit of St. Valentine to find true love in one year or give up her heart to him completely. As she starts opening herself to the possibility of love, she finds much more than she expected, including lion dancing and the true story about what happened with her parents. Highly recommended for grades 7 & up.

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating.

Thank you for this ARC.
This book had me from the 2nd page. Wonderful artwork. The colors pulled me into being a teenager again in a field of magic and journey. There's a nice touch of mystery in the words in this story. Pick up this book and enjoy Valentina's story. Two worlds coming together with a nice touch of church/religion to appreciate.
Enjoy the rise and fall of this beautiful story.
I just reviewed Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang. #LunarNewYearLoveStory

Excellent collaborative work with a main character with depth. Valentina is likeable in her innocence at the start and how she grows to love herself and her family, with all their faults and misunderstandings. There's definitely some suspension of disbelief required around the mother not being present in the daughter's life despite their proximity, but the familial conflict works well as opposed to a miscommunication trope. Bonus points for cultural relevancy,

Thank you to #NetGalley, Gene Luen Yang, and the publisher of the book for an eARC copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Valentina was named after Valentine's Day. Her favorite holiday of the year until she learned the truth about her parents. That causes Valentina to not believe in true love. Not believing in true love is amplified when she meets the spirit of St. Valentine who tells her that if she doesn't find true love in a year, she will have to give him her heart and she will never find true love again.

Jae loves lion dancing. It brings him peace after the passing of his dad. Jae soon notices Valentina (Val) at the Lunar New Year festival and hands her a paper heart. Jae is interrupted though when his cousin Leslie swoops in and starts dating Val. What is Jae going to do?

A sweet and moving YA graphic novel. Being Catholic, I also enjoyed the tie to the church throughout the novel. I loved all the characters, especially Val's grandmother who added humor to the story.