This is such a beautiful story about love, self-discovery, and blending different aspects of life to create a complex person.

Catie is a biracial girl who lost her connection to her Taiwanese heritage, and when she moves to Utah with her adoptive mom after her dad's death, she's left feeling unmoored. She goes on an introspective journey to connect to her first language through the boy she works with while coaching him on dating.

There were so many elements to this I loved - especially deconstructing from religious beliefs and exploring more of heritage (MC) and queerness (SC), and it's so cool that it's loosely based on the author's life. This is a sweet romance too, with all the practice dates.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

I really enjoyed the message that this book had! I feel like it represented a lot of different topics, which I appreciated. Catie and Toby were fun to watch interact. I kind of wish it was a little longer, I still wanted to see what happened. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for this ARC!

First Love Language is a search for belonging. After the FMC moves to Utah, she and her family are seeking community in the summertime, and it can be tough to push past insecurity and loneliness to find people who truly get you. The main romance is full of the miscommunication and confusion of young love, but the chemistry and anticipation are great. Side characters explore what it means to be queer in Utah, and the main character researches her family history using the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ resources. Readers will get hooked by the romance and then receive unique perspectives on adoption, inclusion, LGBTQIA+ issues, and conservative households. The modern take on Chapman’s Five Love Languages is creative, and the love story is just right for YA romance readers.

This was a fun, quick read. Valentine created a compelling narrative, believable conflict, and characters with hearts of gold.

In the book, Catie struggles to understand her identity after the death of her family. Living with her stepmom and stepsister, she wants to know more about her birth mother, who remained in Taiwan when her father left with young Catie. Even as she tries to explore her Taiwanese family, her American family is uprooted, her stepmom moving them from California to Utah due to a job loss. The family moves in with their strict, Mormon cousins, and both Catie and her sister Mavis feel stifled there. Catie finds an outlet with a job, and soon discovers her coworker Toby can help her connect to her heritage, while he asks Catie for dating lessons.

The book did a good job examining heritage and how it shapes our identities, as well as creating realistic teen characters struggling with the heightened emotions and longing for acceptance so typical to the teenage experience. While Mavis and the stepmom are not as developed of characters, Catie is the main focus of the story and goes on quite a journey throughout the pages. I found her relatable, sympathetic, and interesting in her mistakes and her attempts to fix her mistakes and repair her relationships. Her chemistry with Toby was fun, and his storyline was also realistic and compelling.

Overall, I was impressed by how a light, teen rom-com dealt with heavy issues like grief, identity, family, and transracial adoption without becoming overly saccharine or preachy. This was a fun book I will put in my classroom library!

in a word, cute. a very adorable romance between two realistic and fun protags. would recommend. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

What a special book!

I love how everyone in this story is [both consciously and subconsciously] on a personal journey to find out what it means to be true to themselves:
-as an adoptee
-as an ethnic minority / biracial person
-as a struggling mom
-as someone navigating sexual identity
-as someone whose religious beliefs are different from the authority figures they live with
-as someone who is grieving
-as someone who has just moved to a new city
-and—for our main character Catie—as someone who starts falling in love for the first time not only with someone else (*cough*Toby*cough*), but with every aspect of who she is, including her heritage <3

Even though I’m not adopted, as an Asian American who spent a lot of my formative years in predominantly white spaces I resonate with a lot of what Catie is going through.

Also, I LOVE the theme of language throughout this story, which is reflected even in the chapter titles. So beautiful.

And can we take a moment to appreciate this cover???

Looking forward to more from Stefany Valentine!

This was very cute, it felt like two very distinct stories, a bit if a romance and a bit of a soul search, but I think they tied together nicely for a YA book. Teens will feel the emotional punches on both sides.

I personally loved the rep of transracial adoption. Every adoption is different and I hope we get to see more and more stories like this.

This was a really enjoyable rom-com that caught my eye because it also touched on a lot of different topics - transracial adoption, languages, and identity conflicting with religious expectations. Like most rom-coms, the very premise required an absolute breakdown in communication and the plot never would have happened if the main character had just spoken up at the right moment. I liked that the teenaged main character's growth as a person was given just as much time as the romance plotline. I wished that we'd gotten a little more description of the notes that the main character's dad left in the book he left behind for her. It started off that way, giving insight into the relationship they'd had and the type of person her late father was, but there wasn't much more of that shown after the initial scene where she finds the book.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book.

As a young middle schooler, I would have loved this book and I love it as an adult. The characters seem so real I could imagine being friends with them. The plot is utterly charming and happy endings are just what I need. Ms Valentine has tastefully but truthfully depicted stressful situations involving adoption, family, sexuality and loss at a young age.

I thank #netgalley, the publisher and author for this ebook to read. All opinions are my own.

What a fun book! If you're looking for a cute YA romance, this it! I loved the incorporation of love languages and linguistic languages in this story. Catie goes on a typical journey of self-discovery in this book, but you never get bored reading it or think it's exactly like something else you've read before. While I am not adopted and was born in the US, I think this book could be really important for someone who does identify with being adopted or born outside the US. Thank you for writing this book, Stefany!

This was so well written with the genres and blended them well together to tell the story. I enjoyed the overall concept and how the characters felt like real people. I was invested in what Stefany Valentine wrote and enjoyed the young adult element to this book.

This book had me hooked but also left me feeling a bit conflicted. On one hand, it’s got that breezy YA romcom vibe—think The Summer I Turned Pretty or The Kissing Booth—and it nails that playful energy. But at the same time, it’s trying to tackle some seriously deep topics like identity, family, grief, religion, and transracial adoption. Both parts are done well, but the shifts between them felt a bit jarring.

Catie Carlson is an adoptee figuring out where she fits, especially after her dad passes, leaving her feeling disconnected from her white stepfamily. Things get more interesting when she teams up with Toby—a Korean-Black teen who needs dating help. She agrees to coach him while he teaches her Mandarin. Their dynamic is cute and funny, and the romance had all the right romcom feels. But then, the book dives into some heavy emotional stuff, and that’s where things felt a little out of sync for me. It’s like two different stories in one—both good, but maybe not meant to be mashed together in the same book.

That said, I really appreciated the exploration of identity and belonging. It’s not often you see a book take on topics like grief and adoption with such care. But when the romcom moments popped up in the middle of that? It kind of threw me off. I wanted to enjoy the fun, flirty parts, but I was still processing the deeper themes.

If you’re into a mix of playful romance with emotional depth, this one’s worth checking out. Just be ready for some tonal whiplash along the way.

Thank you so much to the publishers and to Stefani for the beautiful e-arc of this book. Once I started reading, it was so hard to put this book down😶🙏 full review will be up by next week.

A cute little novel and peek into the Mormon church and how things can bring different people together.

Really good story line. I had finished in one day, it had a great cast of characters. I loved the character department

Beautiful cover, sweet characters, a heartfelt love story, and inspirational representation of LGBTQ+ identity, language barriers, and embracing cultural heritage make this surprisingly adorable book a hidden gem that fully deserves my five stars! I lost count of how many times I sighed and smiled while reading about the love language lessons and the blossoming romance between Catie and Toby. It’s so refreshing, honest, and engaging!

The story centers around a young Taiwanese girl, Catie Carlson, who is raised by her stepmother and struggles to communicate with her brooding stepsister, still grieving the loss of their father to cancer two years ago. On top of that, they are forced to move from their home in San Diego, which they can no longer afford, to Utah, where they will live with their conservative Mormon aunt, uncle, and cousin, whom they barely know. Leaving their old life behind to live under their aunt’s strict rules—such as attending church every Sunday and facing criticism about their clothes and makeup—is tough. Catie also misses her biological mother, who may still be in Taiwan. She has no idea why her parents divorced, or why her father got custody, and though she loves her stepmom, she doesn’t want to hurt her feelings by talking about her mother.

When Catie starts looking for jobs and is hired as a receptionist at a popular spa, she befriends Toby, the son of the spa owners. When she learns Toby has a huge crush on one of the customers, she offers to help him in exchange for free Mandarin lessons, which she hopes will help her reconnect with her cultural heritage. Pretending to be more experienced in love than she is, she even lies about having a boyfriend to avoid seeming inexperienced.

Fortunately, she finds her father’s favorite book, The Five Love Languages, and uses it as inspiration to create special “practice” dates with Toby, teaching him how to approach his future crush. They also begin their Taiwanese lessons and start spending more time together after work, growing closer as they share their secrets and family issues, walking the fine line between friendship and something more.

Catie knows she needs to come clean about her relationship status and stop lying to Toby, even if it risks their friendship. But what if she's also risking her heart?

Overall: This is an inspirational read about embracing culture, heritage, language, and sexual orientation, alongside a heartwarming young adult romance that I highly recommend as one of the best upcoming YA fiction novels of 2025!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group/Penguin Young Readers Group/Penguin Workshop for sharing this lovely YA romance’s digital review copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Thank you to the publisher and author for the copy.
Stefany is a stunning writer—I loved that she drew inspiration from her own life and crafted a romantic dramedy about finding love, reconnecting with one’s heritage and culture.

Well done! Can’t wait to read more books by this author.