This was a very cute YA book. I really appreciated the representation, particularly the asexual rep. You don't get too many traditionally published books with both the MC and the LI on the asexual spectrum.

All that said, this book also didn't wow me. In a world where there are more and more cute and delightfully nerdy YA books getting published, it is also getting harder for these to stand out. Outside of the asexual rep, this one just didn't provide anything else new and standout worthy.

I would still recommend this to the target age group, but it won't be making any lists of personal favorites for me.

in LOVE POINTS TO YOU, sixteen-year-old lynda fan is eager to attend her dream school, RISD. since she's lacking financial support, she accepts a job designing characters for a choose-your-adventure love story video game, which leads to her to discovering more about herself and unexpectedly finding love along the way.

i absolutely loved this book! the premise is so unique, and i can't get enough of the otome game world. especially how everyone is obsessed with a trending new game. it's such a fun, relatable detail that adds a refreshing twist to the story.

lynda is flawed and filled with that teenage realness we all know too well. from making dramatic decisions to dealing with jealousy, insecurities, and all the confusion that comes with the pressure of figuring out the future. i know you made silly decisions in high school too, okay? she sometimes lashes out at those closest to her before she can find the right words, but seeing everything come together in the end made it all worth it.

the sibling dynamic between lynda and josie was another highlight! it was heartwarming to see how their relationship evolved throughout the book. and then there's bora. can i get some commotion for the best friend? everyone needs a bora in their life, especially during the chaos of teenage years. she's supportive, understanding, and always there when needed, but she's also not afraid to tell lynda like it is.

loved the asexual representation with lynda and demisexual rep for angela. it's so refreshing to see this kind of diversity in a YA story.

i highly recommend this book if you're an artist, a fan of video games, enjoy messy coming-of-age stories (where teenagers act like teenagers), or are looking for ace representation in a young adult novel. i don't think think this will scratch an enemies to lovers itch if that's what you're looking for. it's definitely more rivals to lovers, and even that's pushing it! it's more "i wasn't sure about you when we first met" to lovers. that's a thing, right???????? even if it's not, it worked for me in this one!

4.5

Love Points to You has a lot of things going for it: asexual, bisexual Asians, sisterly dynamics, uncommon families, and lots of artistry. I enjoyed Lynda for most of the book and thought the story itself was cute. I found a lot of what she does towards the end extremely selfish and frustrating and wish there was slightly more character growth throughout the book.
I really enjoyed Josie and Angela as characters, but thought Lynda fell a little flat against them. Overall, I thought the plot was solid and original enough, and it is a fast read. I just wished I could have dug a little deeper in many of the relationships and that it didn't feel rushed at the end. Maybe these things will change when it comes out! Either way, I love seeing the representation. Go pick up a copy tomorrow!
Thank you to Delacorte and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for a review. Hoping to read similar books in the coming months, to see what's out there.

I loved Love Points To You by Alice Lin. It was a fast read, with endearing characters and low drama.

This books follows Lynda Fan, a high schooler and a gifted artist, whose life has just been upended by her father’s new marriage. Lynda now has a stepmother, a sister/roommate, a much larger extended family, and a new house. In addition to these changes, Lynda is commissioned by Angela, a fellow classmate, to create artwork for a video game she’s working on. As the book progresses we see Lynda adapt to her new family, her growing relationship with Angela, and manage the other pressures of being a high school student.

One thing I really appreciated about this book is that the struggles Lynda deals with in this book were as much, if not more, about her and her own issues then external factors. So there is no wicked stepmother trope in this story. Just a lot of flawed people who love each other and are trying to do their best.

Similarly, this book did a great job showing growth from Lynda as a character. Lynda while selfish and insecure is also caring and thoughtful, just not all the time. She felt very real and I often found myself relating to her myself or with people I know and care about.

I loved the asexual representation in this book. The relationship between Angela and Lynda was fun and easy. You could feel their chemistry and the overall maturity of their relationship was nice to see.

Overall, this was just a great book. If you like good dialogue, flawed but likeable characters, and cute romance this is the book for you.

Thank you Alice Lin, Random House Children’s, and NetGalley for the ARC.

What I Liked: At first, I was a bit confused because Angela and Lynda didn't really read as rivals, they more so read as classmates who just don't know each other yet. As you read further into the book you catch a glimpse of how Lynda viewed her as a rival because of their differences in socio economic status. This was a different take on rivalry than I am familiar with that added a nuanced layer to the story as Lynda tries navigating how she feels about this.

Given their rivalry the romantic relationship that develops between Lynda and Angela is cute and fluffy. Lynda and Angela's initial meeting and bonding over the Otome game that Angela hires her for is a great setting for the two of them, especially as Lynda doesn't really understand the appeal of these games at the start. As Lynda begins creating for Angela, she starts to develop feelings for her which make creating the art for the game something she is more eager to spend time on. The two of them easily fall into each other and understand the other.

One of the aspects that stood out in the story is that Angela is demisexual and Lynda is asexual which is not representation seen in many stories.

The relationships in this story carry a lot of nuances, throughout the book you witness the relationships that Lynda has with her family, friends, and with her girlfriend, Angela. There are several layers to unpack when examining the relationship that Lynda has with family and much of this comes from losing her mother to cancer when she was a child. When Lynda joins the family, you get a glimpse of what things are going to be like for her as Amy and Amy's family treat her as someone on the outside and she has to grapple with this.

Lynda struggles with the concept of grieving someone that she didn't know but who is an assumed important part of her life. The question is overlooked as Lynda doesn't want to dwell on the topic and barely begins to unravel her family's history as she begins to ask her dad for the truth. This ends up backfiring against her as Lynda believes that she can't give up on her dreams and she only has herself as support. Due to Lynda not allowing others close to her she also is unable to see things from other people's perspective causing others to back away from her. Lynda's refusal to think about other's perspectives is an accurate depiction of someone her age who doesn't understand why her point of view isn't the only way for things to work.

Along with the romance portion of this book, this book tackles some other topics that are heavy. Through Josie we are able to see the ways in which parental pressure impacts children and how perfectionism can have a negative impact on someone. Lynda makes a comment regarding comparison being the thief of joy which is an accurate statement throughout this book as Josie is constantly being compared to others to the point that it takes a toll on her.

Final Verdict: Love Points to You is an endearing and exciting romance in which many of the characters are figuring out what they want for themselves outside of what others have pushed them into. This is a great book for young adults who are struggling to find what they want to do in the future or are trying to find their voice. If you enjoy romance books with a bit of teenage angst this is the perfect book for you.

Love Points to You was a fun queer romance but it was unfortunately not one of my favorites. The plot could have been stronger and there were too many characters. It was difficult to stay engaged due to these two reasons.

This was ok, but unfortunately just not for me. I’m giving it 3 stars because it’s well written and I do believe some will enjoy it!

What I wasn’t a fan of:
1. I felt like the cover and the blurb were a bit misleading. It seemed like this would be a cute and fluffy book where the romance was the main plot line, but that wasn’t the case. To me, the romance took a backseat to the main character, Lynda’s, everyday life, which is fine in general but just not what I was expecting going into this one.

2. I didn’t really care for either of the FMCs. They were both a little too arrogant for my taste.

Angela was ok because she called herself on her arrogance and it did have a charm to it, but I felt for being the love interest she was hardly in the last half of the book.

Lynda was not a character I saw eye to eye with. She acted like she was the only one allowed to not know exactly what she wanted to do in life and the only one given a pass for not knowing how to talk to her family and others. She was constantly insulting her step-sister, her best friend, her family, and Angela of the things she was also guilty of. Above all, she was just incredibly selfish. All she thought about was how someone else getting help hurt her and how things would benefit her. She was irrational and unrelatable to me for these reasons. I did not feel that she was redeemed by the end of the book either which I think could have helped me like her a bit more.

3. I felt like there were simultaneously too many characters yet not enough happening in the plot. I also felt very unresolved on the Otome because it was still in process at the end of the book. I think the reader definitely could benefit from an epilogue a couple months or years in the future when the game is completed.

Thank you to NetGalley, Delacorte Romance, and Alice Lin for the opportunity to read this book. The thoughts and opinions expressed above are honest and my own.

I really loved this book. I read it in two days because I wanted to just keep reading. I laughed out loud, I felt sad (I’m not a crier for books but the heavy chest was there), and I smiled. This was a perfect YA romance and the LGBTQIA+ and AAPI rep was appreciated!

4.5/5 stars

Love Points to You is a romance between an artist and the girl who hires her to draw characters for an otome game (choose-your-own-romance).
This was a very cute, sweet romance. Both the MC and the love interest are asexual (and we love that for them). The story moves quick and the characters have an astounding amount of emotional intelligence.
The book does a great job at showing parents who mess up, but who are doing their best and who try to fix their mistakes. (Except for a side character’s parents, they’re just toxic) I would’ve liked to spend more time with that, but there were a few pacing issues that I’ll get into next.
Honestly, the pacing for most of the book was really good. But the last half/third of the book was super rushed. I think the final conflict came a little too late in the story, which took away from some of the emotional impact of the resolution.
However, I highly recommend this to anyone who wants a sweet YA romance with asexual MCs, nerdy characters, and characters who aren't afraid to mess up.

CW: parent death (cancer); death; emotional abuse

When Lynda's father remarries, she has to move in with his new wife and her daughter. Lynda hasn't had a close relationship with her dad and has depended on her aunt and uncle for most of her life since her mother died when she was quite young. But they have now moved away.

Lynda is an artist and is hoping to attend a top art college but is unsure if her father will pay for it, especially when so much of his money is now going to pay for private violin lessons for her new step-sister.

A possible solution arrives in the form of Angela, a classmate who offers to pay Lynda to draw characters for the online game she's creating. Their tentative friendship becomes romantic over time.

The arc of this story not only focuses on Lynda's relationship with Angela, but her issues with her family, as well as her own coming to terms with the need to better understand and accept the points of view of the people closest to her.

This YA novel is well written and engaging once you get through a rather slow start. Lynda, her family and friends, live in an Asian-American community and the author describes their cultural references (mostly food and family traditions and expectations) without explanation. This in particular made the book stand out and feel authentic.

Highly recommended.

I was provided an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley.

Love points to you is a coming of age romance between two girls Angela and Lynda.

This is one of those stories that isn’t horrible but it also isn’t great, I didn’t have trouble reading it but I have no desire to ever read it again and honestly probably could of gone without reading it.

I don’t know how to explain it but this book just wasn’t drawing me in, I don’t know if it was the story or the writing but I just wasn’t clicking with it at all.

One of the things I Really didn’t like was the MC’s father, after remarrying it was very clear that he was picking favorites and treating his daughter like absolute trash but that may be a sore spot for me because I went through that myself when I was younger .

All and all I give this book a 2.5 but am rounding up to a solid 3.

Thank you Netgalley Random House Children's | Delacorte Romance for the arc

{ Love Points to You } by Alice Lin

★ ★ ★ ✬
Narrator(s): Katharine Chin
Length: 8h 13m
Source: ALC - Penguin Random House Audio
Release Date: March 4, 2025

❥ Lynda Fan is driven and practical. Angela Wu is rich and arrogant. They’re rivals. But when Lynda’s iPad is destroyed Angela offers to hire her to help with an otome game—a love story-based video game—in exchange for an iPad and some cash.

❥ This one was a TOUGH one. Some YA books are written for young adults specifically and I feel like everything in this book is that age group because man, did Lynda go through it and wow, how relatable it was from my youth.

❥ And honestly, at the end, I felt like things were solved way too fast and too easily. Especially for her dad and stepmom. Truly retched people!

❥ The romance was my favorite part. Sweet, innocent, and pure, it carried the story for me.

♡ sapphic ya romance
♥ rivals to lovers
♡ family problems
♥ asexual/demisexual rep

{I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook. All reviews are my own.}

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
# Pages: 320
Publication Date: 03.04.25

"Everything about her is vibrant. Like a true performer, she’s screaming at the world to pay attention. To see her.” I’m feeling seen right now...”

🎨 YA Contemporary Romance
🎮 Sapphic Romance
🎨 Rivals To Lovers
🎮 LGBTQ+ Rep
🎨 Coming Of Age
🎮 Asian American Rep
🎨 Opposites Attract
🎮 Asexual Rep
🎨 Rich Girl X Poor Girl

** A swoony rivals-to-lovers romance between driven, practical Lynda Fan and her rich, arrogant classmate, Angela Wu. When Angela offers Lynda the chance to design characters for her Otome game, Lynda discovers things she never knew about herself…or her heart.
Love is an art. **

"Even the everyday stuff is a lot more colorful with you around."

“Love Points To You” by Alice Lin is a cute and quick sapphic read. It was a very unique idea. The character development was done well. The main characters and side characters were all relatable. She does a great job painting a realistic picture of a teen and trials they face. I would say this is more of a coming of age and is lighter on the romance.

Lynda is a sixteen year old artist. She was raised to be hyper independent and we learn the impact of that. Whilst facing the challenges of a newly remarried father, jealousy, feeling of needing to compete with her new stepsister, and figuring out where she fits into the world. She has very raw and real emotions that are easy to relate to, especially when I was that age. Throughout the story, she learns more about herself, including finding love with our other FMC.

Angela is the rich girl who is the former popular girl. Angela definitely has a lot of depth to her. She is designing an Onome Game and hired Lynda to be the artist for it. From there, their relationship starts to develop.

Overall, I enjoyed the read. I think there’s a lot of promise to Alice Lin’s writing talents and I would definitely read more books from her. I think this is a perfect read for a teen.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Children for this ARC read.

This was a fun, cute, quick read! Featuring queer/sapphic and an Asian-American couple, this coming-of-age/young adult romance is equal parts heartfelt and engaging. Unfortunately, I wish there was more of a balance between the romance and the family dynamic plot.

I thought this book was really fun and cute. I really liked how the characters interact with each other and the relationships they had outside each other. I like how the plot flowed and didn’t feel like it dragged in any places. I would definitely recommend this book to other people.

thank you to netgalley and delacorte romance for allowing me to read an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review!

dnf at 20% so i do not feel comfortable rating it since i did not finish it and that would not be fair.

i tried so hard to finish this and so hard to like this, but alas, it was not in the cards. something in me thinks it may be because i am simply aging out of the ya audience, but something deeper in me just did not care for the simplicist writing style and overall clichey tropes thrown in there.

i could see this being really incredible to put on as an audiobook and just sit on the couch and do a mindless craft to. however, reading it was a bit of a struggle because of how choppy and simple the writing style was as well as how it seemed to just keep making me -not- like the characters. none of the characters seemed particularly likable in the first 20% to say the least.

i'm very sorry i could not finish this book, but life is too short to read books you do not enjoy.

Alice Lin's Love Points to You follows Lynda Fan, a stubbornly ambitious teen artist who is dealing with her dad getting remarried, causing to gain a new step-mom and step-sister. After Lynda's drawing tablet breaks, she gets recruited by her classmate, Angela Wu, to design characters for an otome game she's creating, in exchange for a new iPad. Through working on the project together, Lynda finds herself starting to fall for Angela, who she used to think she had nothing in common with.

This book features a sapphic Asian-American couple, it comes out on my birthday, and the author and I share a name, so I felt like it was made for me! Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed with the book overall. The representation really resonated with me as a Korean-American acespec lesbian since both Lynda and Angela are sapphic, acespec, and Asian-American. However, I thought the writing leaned a lot more on telling than showing, which I didn't love. I also got very frustrated with Lynda's behavior and I thought the end of the book was I bit rushed.

Thank you, Delacorte Romance, for the early copy.

"Love Points to You" is a cute, quick read that any teen will enjoy! It's always a delight to see Asexual representation in Young Adult novels, and Lin portrays these characters with care and respect.

While I wish the romance had been the heart of the story, the author's intended audience will likely relate to Lynda's struggles with her new blended family— they might even find themselves wanting to play an otome game! I especially loved every scene where Lynda and Angela planned their creations.

If you’re a fan of role-playing games, opposites attract, and beavers pretending to be bunnies, be sure to grab a copy of "Love Points to You"! It’s sure to be sweeter than your next bowl of shaved ice.

This boba sweet ya sapphic romance story follows Lynda Fan and Angela Wu as they navigate balancing work, school, friends, family, and relationship drama. Having lost her mom to cancer at a young age, Lynda is used to being an only child. So when her dad remarries, Lynda not only inherits a new step mom (Amy), but also a step sister (Josie), whom she now has to share a room with. Adapting to this new life is not exactly what Lynda wanted, especially when college applications are just around the corner and Lynda has no money to get into her dream art school RISD. To make matters worse, her parents are using all their money on her step sister’s new violin teacher and a tutor center so that she can get into Curtis (a prestigious music school). The only things that keep Lynda from falling apart are her best friend Bora and Henry (her ipad that she uses to draw on). But when Henry makes an untimely demise, the most unlikely of people offers to step in and help, Angela Wu.

Angela Wu is known for being rich, arrogant, pretty, and smart. Making a drastic change freshman year, Angela went from nerd to hot cheerleader what seemed like overnight. And then all of the sudden, she went back to being nerdy again. Even though she doesn’t know what she wants to study or go for college, she does know one thing, she wants to make an otome game. Only problem, she needs a talented artist to design her characters and bring the story to life, someone like Lynda. So when Angela overhears Lynda’s trouble with her broken ipad, Angela offers to not only buy her a new one, but pay her $10,000 if she does the art for her game. Lynda of course jumps at the chance and absolutely does not disappoint. The more Angela starts to get to know Lynda and the more Lynda discovers her preconceived notions of Angela were not what she thought, the deeper and more real their feelings for each other become. But once dreams start to take hold, family dynamics get more complicated, and reality starts to set in, both Lynda and Angela discover things about themselves, love, and each other that they didn’t expect, and definitely never could have planned for.

I could tell from the beginning that Lynda was going to be a handful. While I appreciated her artistic talent, determination, and perseverance to go after what she wants, I wish she had gone about things differently and set aside her ego and stubbornness. I understand why she is the way that she is, but towards the end you would think she would have realized how selfish and immature she was being earlier. My favorite parts definitely included all her interactions with Bora and the more heartfelt moments she had with Josie. I also loved how unlike most teenagers, she didn’t rely on her parents to pay her way to college and used her own talent to earn money and save up for what she wanted. Her relationship with her dad and stepmom was very awkward, yes she did constantly express how unfair she was being treated, but she also could have had a real conversation with them instead of jumping to conclusions and beating around the bush. While I appreciated a flawed and non perfect depiction of two families coming together, the parents definitely made a lot of mistakes that they probably shouldn’t have, which negatively affected both Josie and Lynda. Some of the only moments that Lynda didn’t come off as petty or immature were when she was actually listening to Josie and helping her with her issues. I really loved the art auction scene too where she stepped up and helped her rival Chloe sell her art piece.

Even though Angela came off as an ice queen, I really started to enjoy her character, especially after she started to open up to Lynda and you understand why she did what she did. I appreciated her hard work and how she knew exactly what she wanted to get out of developing her own otome game. It's so rare for people to want to create something just for themselves than worry about how much money they can make. I liked how cute she was when she was with Lynda and yet she was still able to call Lynda out when she needed to be called out. I didn’t expect both her and Lynda to both be ace, so on that note I was expecting more romance and not so much slow burn. Because their relationship started off as more of a business arrangement, some moments felt forced and calculated. I also wouldn’t exactly call them enemies to lovers because they were aware of each other, they just never really had a reason to interact before Angela commissioned Lynda for her art. Although the romance and chemistry was a bit disappointing, I did like how they both brought out different sides to each other and were able to discover new things about not only themselves, but about each other.

My favorite character by far was Bora. I wish there were more scenes with her because I honestly enjoyed her and her grandma way more than any other character. She was hilarious, supportive, caring, and actually gave really good advice, even when Lynda didn't want to hear it. Truly you couldn’t ask for a better best friend. Josie on the other hand I had mixed feelings about. Yes I did feel sorry that her mom put so much pressure on her and never bothered to actually ask what she wanted or how she felt, but why the hell did it take so long for her to just say how she felt??? Especially when she could definitely see how her parents constantly put her education and future above Lynda’s and Lynda was very vocal about the disparity. I know both her and Lynda struggled with the concept of failure but, if they had both spoken up sooner, they could have avoided the climatic explosion.

Speaking of the climax, what an absolute disappointment. I've never seen a bigger temper tantrum by a 16 year old than this. Lynda was the typical tortured teen who felt like “the world is out to get me and know one cares”, But really she had a best friend, girlfriend, step sister, and step parents who cared about her deeply and she was the one who was too stupid to realize that all her problems were her doing. Just because she didn't get what she wanted, she took it out on everyone around her instead of confronting her own fears and insecurities. I guess some could argue that comes with being a teenager but it felt exceptionally annoying and immature for the situation to blow things up to such proportions. Therefore I felt like there needed to be more chapters focussed on Lynda’s self reflection and repairing the damage she caused to everyone around her, rather than just saying sorry and being easily forgiven. There definitely needed to be more attention brought to the family dynamic such as why both the parents automatically chose to fund Josie over Lynda, a more in debt explanation to her dad’s neglect, and why the parents spent so much on a wedding and honeymoon than paying off bills and going towards their kids future.

Overall, I enjoyed all the storyline moments involving the otome game development and Lynda’s artistic talent, and of course Bora, but I unfortunately feel let down with the romance and how the conflict resolution was too rushed and wrapped up too nicely to really feel authentic.

A cute sapphic coming-of-age romance that is much more coming-of-age than romance. I did like how much it focused on all of the relationships in Lynda's life and how they were shifting, but I do wish a little more weight had been given to her romance with Angela. It was at the point when I started the book that I didn't know which of the characters she was interacting with was going to be her love interest and had to go back and check the summary to be sure. I did appreciate that both characters were asexual (though I wish Lynda's realization had either already happened or had a little more weight than her friend handing her an ace romance book and immediately afterward, with no thought, she goes "oh I'm ace!"), but since neither is aromantic, I wish their chemistry had been a little stronger.

Lynda also falls firmly in the "very realistic teenager, but infuriating to be in her head as an adult" space. She's very determined and sure of what she wants, but since she's...sixteen, this comes with a lot of "but what if this isn't it" and her doubling down with "no, this /has/ to be it". Again, very realistic sixteen-year-old, but especially during the third-act-meltdown, it got to be A Lot. So your mileage will vary on that.

All in all, I did love the otome game aspect of it and thought that was a really cute way to build Lynda and Angela's relationship and learn more about each other.