thank you so much to netgalley and colored pages blog tours for the early copy! all my opinions are my own!

this was so cute and at the same time so heartbreaking????
there is so much good stuff in this book: the sibling dynamic, the friendships, how the MC is constantly puching himself and changing, THE FACT THAT IT'S FROM A GUY'S POINT OF VIEW, something i haven't read in a while 😱 the constant thinking and theorizing (gosh, these kids are so smart, i couldn't have been able to pull off even half of what they did), the AMAZING SIDE CHARACTERS AND THE CUTE FOUND FAMILY 😭😭😭 but no, seriously, the Cove and all the new characters were so much fun and loved how involved they became by the end and helped the main guys to change and develop. the romance was slow but there, and i just adored the ending, the way it made me smile and gave me so much hope after so much crazyness 😍😍
and just in case no one picked it up, i highly recommend it!!

I'm a little bummed that I didn't enjoy this more. I just found the romance to fall a little flat for me, and I will say that I enjoyed Loveboat, Taipei a lot more. I found the characters a little hard to believe, which drew me out of the story a bit. I definitely see what the author was going for, and I do think that people will enjoy it. For me, it just wasn't a 5-star read, which is okay!

High school best friends Tan Lee and Winter Woo have been left to babysit Tan’s younger sister, Sana, while the adults all vacation in Hawaii. If that doesn’t sound bad enough, Tan’s ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, suddenly shows up with millions of stolen money and a bunch of thugs on her tail. The four of them go on the run to try to evade the bad guys and save Rebecca from her parents, who want to keep her in their bubble. Not only was this plot hard to follow at times, but so many things happened that didn’t make sense. As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the author’s Loveboat Taipei trilogy, this book fell flat, especially where the romance was concerned. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3

I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Kisses, Codes and Conspiracies “ by Abigail Hing Wen.

The dynamic between Tan Lee and Winter Woo was both heartwarming and complex. The addition of Tan’s ex-girlfriend from Shanghai and the danger she brought with her added an extra layer of excitement to the story.

I’m a HUGE fan of Abigail Hing Wen’s Loveboat, Taipei trilogy so I was incredibly excited about her newest book. What a wild adventure of a book! The action rarely stopped in this one, but when it did, there were some really beautiful moments of friendship and found family. I absolutely loved these characters so much. Tan was such a great MC and I loved his commitment to keeping everyone safe and also how clever he was with the encryption stuff. I am not savvy with any of that technology whatsoever, but I felt like it was incredibly easy to understand in this story. Also I loved Rebecca’s character growth from a spoiled, out of touch rich girl to someone who cares about helping others. I loved the Cove and all of its inhabitants, especially Sister Ava and Lucia. Those scenes were probably my favorite parts of the story. Also there’s a chase in a Barnes and Noble that was just so much fun to imagine! If you’re looking for a fun, crazy adventure with codes, running through San Francisco and found family, look no further!
CW: violence, death of a parent, mentions of transphobia

Thank you to NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Kisses, Codes and Conspiracies begins with prom dates Tan Lee and Winter Woo agreeing to remain platonic friends, even though their attraction is real. Although Winter and her mom rent rooms from the Lees, she and Tan manage to avoid each other until his parents and her mom decide to go to Hawaii for a conference, leaving them alone with his five-year-old sister Sana. Things go smoothly until Tan's ex-girlfriend Rebecca Tseng arrives at the house, looking to hide from her father's wealthy goons. She has three gold coins with her that she wants to pawn, promising she will disappear as soon as she gets the money. Unbeknownst to Rebecca the coins are actually housing digital codes to her father's cryptocurrency accounts. Cryptography enthusiast Tan recognizes this, but before he can break the codes, her father's goons arrive, causing the four kids to go on the run to protect the coins.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan for the arc.

I wanted to like this, I can suspend disbelief to an extent, but this was just too much. Rebecca was just a bit too much of the stereotypical ex girlfriend….. and her showing up out of nowhere being on the run…. It all just felt too cliched and a bit too ridiculous.

I have Loveboat, Taipei on my shelf and I’m still going to give that a shot and hope I enjoy it more than I did this one…

This is such a great YA "adventure" story. To this reader, it is reminiscent of Marie Lu's works. This story is intriguing and kept me hooked from the "get-go". There are so many parts where the hero's young sibling steals the show and our hearts!

A young man, Tan, gets dragged into an international game of "cops and robbers" when his ex-girlfriend shows up with some of her wealthy father's antiques and asking for his help. This sends the reader on an adventure of trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys and keeping his family safe. We go along and run around the San Francisco area.

Kisses, Codes, and Conspiracies is not for me. The amount that you have to "suspend disbelief" with is wild. The whole plot is nonsensical and made for a not enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for honest feedback.

I am pretty much always down for Asian representation in any media so right away that drew me in. The overall premise of teenagers becoming embroiled in some international conspiracy while navigating a (not quite) love triangle appealed to me as well. That said, there was quite a lot about this plot that was unbelievable. Since it would take too long and I also didn’t take note of every example, I will just address the things I personally was most bothered by.

But first, a brief synopsis and a bit on characters...

Seventeen-year-old Tan Lee loves a good puzzle and aspires to join the CIA someday. Winter Woo and her mom Fannie have temporarily moved in with the Lee family while Fannie works toward a law degree. After a hot and heavy make out session at prom, Tan and Winter decide to keep their distance from one another even though that’s not what either of them wants. After months of the avoidance game, Tan’s parents and Winter’s mom head away on a work trip (vacation for Fannie) to Hawaii, leaving them to babysit Tan’s five-year-old sister Sana. Enter, Tan’s ex Rebecca who Winter is not convinced Tan has moved on from. Rebecca has run away from home with something valuable and her father’s men are not keen to let her go quite so easily.

Tan, Winter and Sana are all fine characters. Tan is super smart, very close to his family and seems to be very respectful to both Winter and Rebecca. I like how highly he thinks of Winter and how he still manages to help Rebecca despite how selfish she is and also the way she basically ghosted him when she left. Winter is an aspiring actor so as a theatre major she’s automatically a winner to me. She’s very kind and always thinking of others and is a great help where Sana is concerned. And speaking of Sana she’s a sassy little thing which can sometimes be annoying but I found her to be funny and sweet. Tan and Sana’s relationship is very endearing. Rebecca annoyed me for almost the entire book which was probably at least partly the point. I know there is at least some truth to people who have never had to worry about money being out of touch, but it bordered on being over the top how out of touch Rebecca was. I realize that me having grown up in suburban areas in America is far different from Rebecca having grown up in the city in Shanghai, but she did spend some time in San Francisco. You’re telling me she wouldn’t have known what a tree house was? Even though it’s literally right there in the name?

Outside of our main characters, I liked our Cove friends. It’s nice that despite the circumstances that brought them to the Cove, they are there for one another, even for the previously mentioned main characters whom they had known for less than 48 hours before stepping in to help save the day. In particular Sister Ava kicked ass.

Again, I know that this plot very much depended on suspended disbelief so there’s quite a bit I let slide, but these were some of the thoughts I had while reading that I couldn’t shake:

This might just be a miss on my part, truly, but…before the thugs show up at the Lee household, Rebecca had been wearing Tan’s Mandalorian shirt and boxers. At a later point, when they reach the cove, she’s in her blue designer dress. I don’t have any recollection of her having changed out of the shirt and boxers and given how unexpectedly quick the thugs showed up, I can’t imagine there would have been time so she was just running through the streets of San Fran with a shirt and boxers? She definitely still had the shirt while on the run due to having to return it later so I couldn’t figure this one out.

Tan asks Sister Ava if there’s a phone he can borrow, hoping there might somehow be 3 so Winter and Rebecca could have one as well. Sister Ava mentions there’s a phone that the Cove shares. Yet later, with Tan using this phone as part of their plan to fool the bad guys, somehow Winter now also has a borrowed phone. Not that she couldn’t have potentially borrowed one from somewhere else but there’s no explanation to how she got one.

The parents have been mentioned on multiple occasions to be in Honolulu or at the Waikiki Beach Marriott specifically. This would be on Oahu and would have been their last known location based on a voicemail left by them. But then towards the end, Rebecca tells her father that they’re in Maui. That is a different island that they likely wouldn’t have had time to get to, not to mention the most recent mention of their location before this was that they were at the Marriott in Waikiki.

Once the kids are finally back home, one of the first things Winter and Tan do is clean everything up. I know that after what they went through it’s hard not to want to try and go back to normal which includes sleeping in your own bed and cleaning up/righting the furniture etc, but it’s also a crime scene so they’re just cleaning up any evidence. Granted it seems the Chinese government is at least in part dealing with it but like…this bothered me.

One last thing that’s not about plot, but…the author so frequently described someone as speaking low. “I know” said Rebecca, low. “I’m scared” said Winter, low. (Not actual lines, just examples). For whatever reason it bothered me how often it was used and it seemed to all be lumped within a few consecutive chapters which made it stand out even more how much it was used.

Overall, I did enjoy the story and it was a quick and easy read. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

This started off so strong, but I ended up with mixed feelings. Usually I have a hard time enjoying very plotdriven books, because they don't always give you enough opportunity to really build a connection with the main characters. But from the start, I absolutely loved the characters, and I felt so connected to them. They were fleshed out and interesting, and very loveable.

But the more the story continued, the more I felt like it spun out of control, and in the process, it lost me more and more. The plot was just too chaotic and farfetched for me to keep suspending my disbelief, which made me feel less connected to the story as it went on.

I would have loved more focus on the characters with a little less chaos in the plot, because I feel like that just completely took over.

I DNF'd at 30%ish - nothing's *wrong* with the book but I just can't get into it. I requested it because I've really enjoyed Abigail Hing Wen's other books, and while I knew this would be different plot-wise, I really don't even care for the characters at this point, either.

Kisses, Codes, and Conspiracies brings the heists, love triangles, and secrets. The intrigue level is off the charts here. You aren't sure what is laying around the next corner. And the whole time you're also wondering if Winter and Tan can be together. If their tangled families will be a road block and if they can be honest with each other. I loved the constant state of being on my toes about what might happen. About what new situation Tan and Winter are going to be thrown in which is so different from their daily lives.

Kisses, Codes, and Conspiracies" by Abigail Hing Wen is a fun student worthy blend of love and mystery that captivates from the first page. Set against the high-stakes tech competition, the story following Emma, a young female coder navigating the pressures of the tech world is one students can dive into. Wen's writing is sharp and engaging, seamlessly weaving together elements of suspense, love, and ambition. The characters are well-developed and relatable, making their journey both compelling and heartfelt, and great for students to study character development with . A must-read for fans of smart, contemporary YA fiction with a thrilling twist.

This was such an unexpected plot and I was here for every moment of it. I really enjoyed the character development for our 3 main characters and the journey they went on to come out on top all while navigating the danger they were in. The setting of the cove was everything. And I enjoyed the our badass nun who lead the cove. The setting of San Francisco was so fun and really felt like the perfect place for the book to take place. And of course there was amazing representation in this book! If you like heists, chases and a bit of danger give this one a read!

I was given an advanced copy in exchange for my review. This is my honest opinion I am giving voluntarily.
Thank you thank you thank you!!!!! have been waiting MONTHS to get the acceptance email! Oh this book was everything! Fast pace, suspenseful and the writing style was perfect. For everyone saying "you have to have a certain level of disbelief to get into it" probably didn't notice this is suppose to be YA. As in the target audience is kids. If you try to read this as an adult with a fully developed frontal lobe you probably won't like this very much. I think it's perfect for targeted audience.

Let me just say that I ADORED Abigail Hing Wen’s series Loveboat series so I was super excited to get an early access read to this book. And I’m sad to say that I didn’t love it as much as I did her other series. Maybe it’s because I’m in tech and find a lot of this to be unrealistic and coincidental to have things button up so neatly and quickly? That being said, I devoured this in one sitting so it definitely is a super good read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was honestly so stressed the entire book. If Wen’s entire purpose in writing this book was to cause me anxiety, then the purpose was achieved. I saw another review where someone said that you have to suspend belief of any of this happening, and I think they’re correct. I think if this were considered just a YA fiction novel and not centered around romance, I would’ve liked this more. And… Rebecca was the worst LOL. It lacked depth in the MCs that did not make me feel able to resonate with their story or believe that they even liked each other.

I did enjoy that the entire book is in Tan’s POV. I feel like there aren’t a lot of books that I’ve read where it’s only the MMC’s POV. I also loved Sana and she must be protected at all costs. I also enjoyed every moment that they spent at the Cove.

CW: kidnapping, stalking, violence

Short and Sweet Review
Tan and his best friend Winter had a great time at prom, but they decide to take a pause on things. When their parents go on a vacation to Hawaii together, Tan and Winter are left in charge of watching Tan’s younger sister Sana. Things are going as well as they could when watching a five year old but things quickly go downhill when Tan’s ex-girlfriend shows up looking for a place to hide while her dad’s bodyguards after her. Tan’s main goal is to keep his friends and family safe while evading the thugs Rebecca brought to his doorstep.
I wanted to love this book but I just couldn’t stand Rebecca but I’ll get into that later. There are things that happened in this book that aren’t realistic but you would end up seeing in a movie like spy kids or something, but I still had high hopes. The story really kicks off when Rebecca comes to Tan’s house looking for a place to hide out, she stole some coins that are worth a lot of money and now her dads people are looking for her. The problem with Rebecca is she thinks the world revolves around her, she doesn’t care that she put other people in danger she only cares that she’s able to get away. When Rebecca left, Tan’s self esteem went way down and he feels inadequate. We have Winter who’s always trying to remind him that he’s worth more than he thinks but for some reason Rebecca has a hold on him. I don’t think there was a reason for the love triangle because it was obvious who would end up together. Anyway Tan is a cryptographer which is pretty cool because I don’t think I’ve read about any other main character who was into that. His cryptography skills are the reason Rebecca sought him out, the coins she stole are encrypted and she thought he would be the one to crack the code. The three teens end up traveling around San Francisco and surrounding areas and even seeking refuge with a place called The Cove. I think this would have been a fun book if Rebecca wasn’t an insufferable character, for me she really brings the vibe down.
Overall, this was an enjoyable book. I liked Tan, Winter, and Sana. The mystery was interesting and I liked learning more about cryptography. I would have given this a higher rating if I didn’t have to get through every chapter reminding myself that Rebecca is just a fictional character and I wouldn’t have to deal with her in person. If you’ve read other books by this author, I would say this one has more of an adventure/mystery pace and for her first time doing this genre its not bad, and I would recommend it!

This book was good!

It is fast paced and keeps you guessing (a little out there but it’s fun!).

I’ll start by saying Tan is a treasure we all must protect. I adored him. He was the most wholesome character. Winter is also a character I really liked but I feel like we didn’t really get to know her as much which is a bummer. Rebecca. Didn’t like. I mean I get where she’s coming from and everything but just didn’t love her. She does grow on you a bit by the end but still not my favorite.

Sana and The Cove kids! This bunch. They are the heart and soul of this book. I LOVED THEM. They brought the story together.

Highly recommend. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read and review.