ARC Review: Asking for a Friend by Kara H.L. Chen

youngcreativepress

2 years ago

Synopsis:

Juliana Zhao is absolutely certain of a few things:

1. She is the world’s foremost expert on love.

2. She is going to win the nationally renowned Asian Americans in Business Competition.

When Juliana is unceremoniously dropped by her partner and she’s forced to pair with her nonconformist and annoying frenemy, Garrett Tsai, everything seems less clear. Their joint dating advice column must be good enough to win and secure bragging rights within her small Taiwanese American community, where her family’s reputation has been in the pits since her older sister was disowned a few years prior. Juliana always thought prestige mattered above all else. But as she argues with Garrett over how to best solve everyone else’s love problems and faces failure for the first time, she starts to see fractures in this privileged, sheltered worldview. With the competition heating up, Juliana must reckon with the sacrifices she’s made to be a perfect daughter—and whether winning is something she even wants anymore.

Review:

Even after finishing Asking for a Friend I’m not sure what I thought of it. I know that it was a solid read that was well written, but the plot fell a little flat in my opinion.

The concept of the competition was very intriguing and I really liked Juliana’s idea of giving out love advice. It’s the type of site I could imagine a lot of teens using for help. I also really liked their ‘sunny’ and ‘cloudy’ personas. These fit them perfectly and painted a lovely picture of what their business concept was. Sadly, the implementation of the challenges just wasn’t exciting to me. The final challenge could have made for some really interesting events, but it never comes to pass.

My biggest issue with Asking for a Friend was it being marketed as a romcom when it wasn’t romantic or really all that funny. Yes, there were some moments that were lighthearted and the characters would say something meant to be funny, but the overall feel of the book for me was one of tension.

I enjoyed the moments when Juliana and Garett were getting along and not worrying about the competition or their families. The friendship between them was apparent, but I wasn’t sold on the romance. Maybe if we got to see more of them from their time spent together two summers ago, but there wasn’t really any build up.

My favourite part of Asking for a Friend was definitely the sense of community in Old Taipei. I love small communities and the bonds that form because of them. The cultural centre was a wonderful setting to get to know who Juliana was outside of the competition–it brought out the best in her and I’m glad she realises in the end.

My favourite character was definitely Juliana’s sister. She’s the comic relief that actually gave pretty sound advice. I can’t speak on the family dynamic as it’s not my culture, but I loved the bond between the sisters, it’s one that can only come from a strained home life.

I can appreciate the complexities of life as an immigrant (even though I have no experience of this myself, so it’s not my place to comment on it) and I liked how these were displayed with raw emotion, but personally, this book was not for me. As I think it was well written and I liked the characters I will be giving it a solid three stars.