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Abuse, Asian, book review, books, destiny, discipline, family, fashion, future, love, reunion, romance, Taipei
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Hello everyone! Welcome to the Book Nook. Today we are going to be doing a review on Loveboat Reunion by Abigail Hing Wen. This is the second book to the Loveboat, Taipei trilogy. You can read my review here. I did like the first book and I was actually pretty impressed with the second. Before we get started, I encourage you all to comment down below and tell me your thoughts. Also, make sure you are following the Book Nook on WordPress, Instagram and YouTube; that way you don’t miss any of my reviews in the future. So, without further ado, lets get into it.
Sophie Ha and Xavier Yeh have had a tumultuous relationship between them. However, that’s in the past and the two of them are good friends who are moving on with their lives. Sophie is a freshman at Dartmouth University but becomes devastated when her first major project is rejected. At the behest of his father, Xavier is forced to repeat his senior year of high school or else he won’t get his inheritance. With a little help from each other, Sophie and Xavier hatch a plan to return to Taipei in order to take back control of their future. But being together could be dangerous…
This book started off with a bang! There has always been animosity between Xavier and his father and we got to see just how abusive his father could be in the first chapter. It got even juicier around chapter 20! There was so much drama within Xavier’s family it was ridiculous. I wasn’t surprised that Xavier wanted nothing to do with them. However, as time went on you do see a different side of the Yeh family that even Xavier forgot about. It was interesting to see the struggle between Xavier wanting to fully separate himself but also want to be close to them at the same time. Parts of this book also reminded me of Crazy Rich Asians. The Yeh family is extremely wealthy so it stands to reason that they would associate with other wealthy people. Sophie’s roommate, Emma (who is also Asian) was a legacy kid who had not only ties to the school but an abundance of opportunities because of who her parents were. I didn’t have a problem with this at all. I liked Crazy Rich Asians and I liked seeing the diversity. I also liked seeing Sophie find her niche in a society that puts fashion low on the totem pole of success. Even when her school plans “fell through” she still succeeded elsewhere. I mentioned in my review of the first book that Sophie does something really horrible to another character and I felt as though she was forgiven too easily. It made me like Sophie a little less. This book, however, redeemed her.
I will say I did not like the past connection between Sophie and Xavier. I felt like it was trying too hard to bring the two of them together. It was unnecessary in my opinion.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book. The pacing was great, the storyline and character development was great and the drama was intense.
Overall, I give it a 4/5.
Until next time!