e-Audio, 08:32:11
Narrated by: Carolyn Kang & Dylan J. Locke
Release Date: February 14, 2022
Published by: Books on Tape
Read from: February 15-17, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: PRH Audio App
TW: Toxic parent/child relationship, Toxic Sibling relationship, Gentrification, Bullying, Mention of Vomit, Death of a grandparent
For Readers Interested In: Contemporary Romance, Realistic Fiction, Racial/Ethnic Diversity (Taiwanese American), YAAcclaimed author Gloria Chao creates real-world magic in this luminous romance about teens who devote themselves to granting other people’s wishes, but are too afraid to let themselves have their own hearts’ desires—each other.
Liya and Kai had been best friends since they were little kids, but all that changed when a humiliating incident sparked The Biggest Misunderstanding Of All Time—and they haven’t spoken since.
Then Liya discovers her family’s wishing lantern store is struggling, and she decides to resume a tradition she had with her beloved late grandmother: secretly fulfilling the wishes people write on the lanterns they send into the sky. It may boost sales and save the store, but she can’t do it alone . . . and Kai is the only one who cares enough to help.
While working on their covert missions, Liya and Kai rekindle their friendship—and maybe more. But when their feuding families and their changing futures threaten to tear them apart again, can they find a way to make their own wishes come true?
*MY THOUGHTS*
I’ve only read one other book by Gloria Chao and I really liked it. But this one? THIS ONE? It was such a sweet, heart-warming story and I ate it up! It really made me go back and look at the rest of her books because if they’re like this, I can’t believe I didn’t read them before.
So what I liked best about this book was the culture that was in it. All the festivals and the lanterns? It was all so beautiful. And there was one festival that was mentioned that I had no idea about, the Ghost Festival. This book is chock full of other displays of the Taiwanese culture. And with the author being also Taiwanese, it made it that much better. It seemed like there were some personal stories mixed in to some of the festivals. And I loved that.
The other thing I liked about it was the wish granting. I don’t know, just the way they were going around and helping the people of their community was just so sweet to me. And all the ways they were helping seemed so small, but man, the results? Like they were massive. And they were all for the sweetest people. And it really helped that we got to see a snapshot of each of the people they helped. I was impressed that all of Chao’s characters were able to tell their back story in some way without it being an info dump. The wish granting paired with getting to know the character made it that much more emotional.
The romance between the two of them was cute, but it could have been better. Miscommunication just HAD to be the reason they weren’t talking. I think I would have liked it more if she had just went with the main conflict being the parents. The miscommunication was stupid and very trivial. But once they began to figure it out, i ignored the fact that they could have just talked it out. The other thing was the fact that it was the end before they finally started dating. We didn’t get to see them together. (I know people are always saying no insta-love, but we DO want to see them together before the last chapter.)
The narration was really cute tho! I’ve only listened to one other book by Kang and I enjoyed that too. I haven’t heard anything from Locke before, but this performance was good enough for me to look into all that he’d done. They really worked well together.
This book made me realize that I haven’t read as much of Gloria Chao as I would like to. Because now I need to read all her books. Even the anthologies. If they’re like this, I need to read them all!
Overall, I give this
