Rooney Gao is anonymous conceptual artist Red String Girl whose works center around the Chinese legend of the red string of fate tying people together. Jack Liu is a NASA scientist who stumbles across Rooney and her work on a trip to New York and spends the day with Rooney not knowing she is behind the art. When Jack has the opportunity to help select an artist in residence for NASA he suggests Red String Girl and he and Rooney are reunited. Jack is a man of science who strictly does not believe in fate, but is interested in Rooney’s belief and the pair spend time together learning about each other’s philosophies.

Both of Lauren’s books (this and Lunar Love) are wonderful celebrations of Chinese culture and interesting tales of the traditional elements the younger Chinese-American characters choose to embrace. I do thing Lunar Love worked a bit better for me, but I still enjoyed Red String Theory. I personally am not a big believer in fate so I was happy that this book was dual POV and I could see my views reflected in Jack. I do think the book got bogged down by the repetitive philosophizing about fate and I did find myself skimming sections. I absolutely loved the side characters and would happily read whole books about Jack’s grandfather and Rooney’s mother. I love the works of Christo, and was lucky enough to see one of his installations in person so I had context for the type of art Rooney was known for and enjoyed the artist aspects of the book. This book does come with discussion questions and recipes which would make it a great book club book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Red String Theory (eARC) — 4 ⭐️

𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: January 9, 2024

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 —
🔥 Slow Burn Romance
🔐 Closed Door Romance
🥰 Feel-Good Story
👀 Multiple POVs
🗽 Based in New York

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐢𝐟 —
🍨 You enjoy unique ice cream flavors
🚀 You want to work for NASA
💪 You prefer to be independent
🖼️ Modern art speaks to you
💞 You believe in soulmates

𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 & 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: After devouring Lunar Love last January, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the author’s next book! One of my reading goals each year is to read diverse books, and this author is known for Chinese representation! I’m always learning new aspects about Chinese traditions and culture from her captivating stories, and she is quickly becoming an auto-buy author for me.

While Red String Theory is a contemporary romance story, the main focus of the book was science and fate. This topic took up most of the main characters conversations, and while it was super interesting and well-written, I wish there was more romance in their dialogue.

This love story is perfect for readers who like squeaky clean romance, witty banter, and characters with strong work ethics! Plus, if you loved the main characters in Lunar Love, you’re in for a little surprise… just trust me!

𝐓𝐖: abandonment

Thank you, NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing), for providing me an eARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Read This Book If…Invisible String is your favorite song by Taylor Swift!

Please note: this was an ARC provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Red String Theory by Lauren Kung Jessen

Genre: romance
Series: standalone but in same world as Lunar Love
Spice Level: 1/5🌶, just kisses
Setting: NYC & California
POV: dual, 1st person, present tense
Tropes: one day to fall in love, star-crossed lovers, forced proximity, workplace romance, opposites attract

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this read! It was slower paced and lower stakes, so a nice way to ease into the new year. I thought the discuss of fate vs. choice was interesting, although this MMC was annoyingly stubborn. Overall, very cute and sweet!

Memorable Quote: “Love is so unknown, and I need to know the unknown.”

I will start by saying that Serendipity is one of my favorite movie. This book embodied that and more. I loved every second of this fucking book. I cried. I laughed and I loved both Rooney and Jack.

All the layers of this book were perfect for me. I would not change one thing. I want to continue talking about my love for this book but I will be talking in circles. So bye, I love this author with all my heart.

I got an e-are of this book on NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I loved Lauren Kung Jessen’s debut last year, Lunar Love. Red String Theory is similarly sweet and lovely, weaving in fate, tradition, and science in a beautiful love story between Rooney and Jack. I inhaled this book and adored it!

“Our lips touch gently, like a whisper. It lasts two seconds, maybe three, but it’s all I need to know that this man is meant to be in my life more than just tonight.”

Red String Theory will make you look at the night sky differently, want to eat dumplings after midnight, and pursue your own creativity. Kudos to Lauren for a stellar followup to her debut.

Plus, Olivia and Bennett from Lunar Love make an appearance - that part was one of my favorites!

I received an advanced reading copy, receipt of which did not impact my review.

I have heard such great things about this book, but ultimately, it just wasn’t for me. I read Lauren Kung Jessen’s debut novel, Lunar Love, and loved the biracial representation but the story fell flat for me. I had hoped that this second novel, Red String Theory, would be a bit more developed, but unfortunately, I found this one flat and not compelling as well. To me, Kung Jessen’s characters read as caricatures rather than fully developed people. Each character represents a stark philosophy with little nuance. I recognize I am in the minority, but Red String Theory just didn’t land for me.

I love in a romance when two characters have a magical time together, they’re not telling each other everything, and then they separate for the night hoping they’ll see each other again. But something goes wrong, so they have a hard time finding their way back to each other. The Red String Theory follows artist Rooney and NASA scientist Jack as they find their way back to each other despite a few hurdles.


I really enjoyed their story. It’s a slow burn that’s maybe a bit too slow for me. But I really did like that they communicated about everything when they could. I also like that both of them had time to come into their own before coming together, and they wanted that for each other.

This is how I finally find a balance between my cynic self and my magic-believer one: Love is the result of choices we make every single day, big and small, but without a little bit of Fate, nothing could be possible.
In other words, for my fellow University students, you can study how much you want, but luck is always welcome in taking a test.

It’d be incorrect for me to say this is the story of how Rooney and Jack met, locked eyes and fell for each other - and not just because I don't believe in love at first sight.
Essentially tho, this is exactly what happens: they met, they lost each other, and for what can be described as a weird coincidence (or Fate), they meet again. There's no complicated troupe nor a plausible reason for which they can't be together: they're just two people, careful about love because of their past and beliefs.

So why do I sound like I'm thinking about love for the first time in my life, you may ask? Well, because I'm a hopeless romantic.
And because I am, in fact, thinking about love as what it really is with new eyes: choices and Fate. Think about it: every troupe you've ever watched or read, even in most “Hallmark” movies, starts because they meet out of the blue and then fall in love.
Rooney tells us her journey back to Jack as if it was all meant to be from the start - and her pov it can also be right -, while Jack tells us every time he chose Rooney over something else because it was his choice. Would Rooney still think is Fate if she’d never seen Jack again after the first year working together? Would Fate intervene if Jack stopped saying yes to Rooney?

Love is everywhere around us, and not only as two people falling for each other: that best friend you met in school, and then you kept texting for your lifetime? That was Fate and choices combined.
So open up your eyes for any cute guy at the coffee shop or for the hot girl you've met online but remember: it's up to you to decide if it can be Love or just a meteor.

Thanks to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

After absolutely loving Lunar Love last January I was so excited to kick off another year with an amazing book by Lauren Kung Jessen. She absolutely knocked this one out of the park. And the parallels she drew between art, culture, and science/space sucked me right in and kept me so engaged. I’m such a nerd for learning new things and am so thrilled to have learned about red string theory and got to enjoy this cute as hell romance about fate. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

Thank you netgalley & Forever (Grand Central) Publishing for the chance to read this early in exchange for an honest review.

Out Jan 9th for all of you to read!

Fate or Choice?

Rooney, a budding artist, who's struggling to create in the shadow of her mother, and Jack, a scientist, who is very type A run into each other in New York, and then again, and again. Is it fate or coincidence? Well this is a romance novel so the outcome already seems predetermined, it definitely wasn't a surprise that they would end up together, but the how was definitely an interesting journey.

I think the idea of fate and choice was a well developed theme to set a romance to and including the red thread of fate story made it feel very personable to the characters. I also enjoyed the the inclusion of intergenerational relations. How your parents can have a lifelong impact on you, whether good or bad. It shows that it may take time to unpack the impacts that can have, and sometimes you need that outside prospective from someone to see it.

I enjoyed the story for the most part, but it just didn't fully click with me personally. I think the main hurdles with the book were that the intro felt too over the top in such a short period of time and seemed more forced than natural to me. I also know that characters play a big part in whether a romance novel is enjoyable for me, and found myself wishing this dual prospective was actually just told from Jack's viewpoint. I found Rooney a bit bland, and not fully formed until about halfway through the book. I know this is mostly just personal preference, but I didn't gel with her character.

I did feel that the book got more interesting and improved a lot towards the second half, and it was fun seeing all the activities they got to do at JPL/NASA, and around LA, especially the Huntington and NHMLA.

Thank you Netgalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

A romantic and enchanting story about two people who meet and fall in love after one night. Rooney and Jack are opposites when it comes to their beliefs but instead of arguing with each other, they embark on a journey to understand each other's beliefs in love. Rooney is all about fate and destiny, while Jack is all about science. There is a will they, won't they. Both individuals have their careers to consider if they pursue their feelings for each other further. Rooney and Jack are well aware of the attraction between them. I liked that Rooney and Jack are communicative with each other-you can tell that there is a mutual respect, which is important in love.

Rooney has been hiding behind her anonymous Red String Girl moniker, creating large-scale string art (or pet portraits, when it comes to it) and trying to avoid living in the shadow of her famous artist mother. Her art and take on love is tied to the Chinese legend of red string theory, in that your soulmate is tethered to you, ankle-to-ankle, by a red string. When she meets Jack one night in New York, it seems like they were destined to meet. But when she realizes she took down the wrong phone number for him and he disappears, it seems as though fate has other plans. That is, until she gets a call from NASA, asking her to be their artist-in-residence, and Jack turns out to be the liaison.

I absolutely adored this book. I had really enjoyed Lunar Love (whose characters make a brief appearance in this book), but this one really blew it out of the water. The discussions regarding art, space, fate, and more are just so... beautifully done. The author has a way with words that really shone in her second novel. I also can't imagine how much research had to go into this book, and I am so impressed by the dedication. The intense discussions about the variety of topics and how they intertwine... they simply blew my mind. And Rooney and Jack really did seem like soulmates, or stringmates, rather. I love all the "signs" that were included, that I don't want to spoil. I can't wait to see what she does next!

Thanks to Forever for my eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

5 stars - 10/10

This was the cutest romance book. I loved the representation of the Chinese culture and feel like I learned more about a culture that I am not educated about. I absolutely loved the STEM aspect, one of my favorite things to be included in a book.

The beginning of this book drew me in, but I didn't find that the initial chemistry between the main characters traveled through the rest of the book. I found the plot to be fun and intriguing, but maybe a little too out of the box to be believable. I would definitely like to see what this author does next!

Red String Theory was such a lovely follow up from Lauren Kung Jessen’s debut novel Lunar Love. It beautifully combined mixed-race character(s), second chance/star crossed lovers, chances & “fate,” clean romance, STEM + art, and more. The book was clearly well researched as there was a lot of interesting information about NASA and space. I really appreciated learning about all of the Chinese traditions. There was so much great banter between the characters too. One of my absolute favorite parts was Sprinkles the cat!

Fans of Lunar Love will appreciate the Bennett and Olivia cameo! Thank you so much to NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I loved the premise of the book that revolves around a string that ties two people together.
Jessen successfully merges art with science by having Rooney be the artist in resident for NASA.
I loved that Jack and Rooney had one night and then relentlessly searched for each other and how they came back together.
I also appreciated how each respected the other’s career and didn’t want to jeopardize either.
The whole concept of Rooney’s fame from birth was hard to wrap my mind around and I understood Rooney’s opinion about it.
I also loved how the author incorporated characters from Lunar Love into this story.
I think some people are destined to be together, but sometimes it takes several tries to find that person.

I’m so bummed to DNF this one at 50%. I loved Lunar Love last year but something about Red String Theory is not working for me. The writing seems really short and I feel no connection to either character.

Unfortunately I did not love this one as much as Lunar New Year. I love the author and how she incorporates Chinese culture into her novels. I just didn’t connect to this story or characters. I’m so sad it didn’t work for me, I hope it does really well with romance fans!

The Red String Theory has been one of the most interesting romance novels I’ve read in years. I really enjoyed the concept of the red string/soulmate/fate and its workings in reality. The main couple, Jack and Rooney felt like they were woven with magic. The dialogue was beautifully written and the lead characters had such wonderful conversations. Overall, I found this book fantastic!

Thank you to #Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Rooney Gao and Jack Liu meet randomly on a stressful day for both of them, they don’t really think too much of it—until they end up meeting again at a party later that night. The two then find themself on an enchanting adventure across New York. But after their magical date ends, they find themselves lost to each other…until Jack happens pick an anonymous Rooney for the newly reinstated Artist-in-Residence program at NASA that he is just signed on to be the liaison for.

It has become an annual December tradition to cuddle up with a warm cup of tea, my heated blanket, and the newest Lauren Kung Jessen galley and I absolutely hope that it never ends. I have been waiting for this book for a year and it was everything I could have hope for and more.

This book is jam-packed with all signs leading to fate and it was so much fun to yell at Jack that he was being an idiot to not believe in it. From their very first meeting, it’s clear (to the readers at least) that they are meant to be a part of each other’s lives. While not exactly what you expect grumpy/sunshine to be, Rooney and Jack’s personalities are just enough to scratch that grumpy/sunshine itch in the best way.

The tension, the signs, the science, the art…everything about this book is just joy and charm wrapped up in a thick red (thread of fate) scarf. Lauren has a way of teasing out a story that makes you comfortable because it feels familiar while still making you wonder what’s going to happen next.

Fans of Lauren’s debut LUNAR LOVE will pick up on some threads (pun fully intended!) that connect the two books. There also may or may not be a scene that honestly feels like Lauren was just pandering to my love of romance novels and how books from the same author sometimes interconnect. I won’t say any more than that in order to preserve the surprise, but I definitely screamed (in all caps in Lauren’s DMs, of course).

Oh, and if I didn’t believe in fate before this book, I definitely do now. This is definitely just a “me” thing, but the amount of fate-itious moments in this book that proved Lauren and I were meant to be friends were too many to count. From a line that I will continue to live in my delusions she wrote inspired by me to the several very personal details that she wouldn’t have known about me that ended up in the book, there is truly no way for me to not believe in fate after that.

A truly charming romcom, Lauren finds the perfect balance between romance and comedy. I often found myself swooning one moment only to be laughing out loud the next. I said it a year ago and I'll say it again now: Lauren is an author to watch and I am so excited to see what comes next from her!

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher for free and have voluntarily written this review.