Pretty clean but the last half of the book fell flat. I preferred the hate to friends of Clara and Rose as opposed to the romance of Clara and Hamlet. ( )

OK teen book about a "rebel" of a girl who finds out that maybe the nerdy kids aren't that nerdy after all. Technically a romance but more about friendship and family. ( )

Oh gosh, this was adorable. Maurene Goo is 2 for 2 with me for good, fun protagonists, though Clara is definitely more sarcastic and pranksterish than Desi Lee of I Believe In a Thing Called Love.

This book is definitely dated to 2018. Clara's dad runs a food truck called KoBra that serves Korean-Brazilian food (did you know: there are pretty substantial Asian diaspora communities in south and central America? Need MORE STORIES), and her absentee "social media influencer" mother travels around the world. Our plot is this: after performing a pop culturally hilarious prank at prom, Clara and arch-nemesis Rose Carver are required to work at Clara's dad's food truck for the summer, with their wages going towards damage from said prank. We learn about friendship and we learn about crushes and also parental disappointment. I was also pretty tickled at the terminology love interest boy uses for his grandparents (who are also ABCs, so heyyyy representation of us exclusion-era ABCs) and just... the diversity of family situations.

Also, all of the principal characters are people of color- Felix, Patrick, and/or Felix's girlfriend might be white, but it's honestly kind of refreshing to be like yes, this is some #ownvoices for us.

I see the upcoming title is "Somewhere Only We Know" and deals with a kpop idol- Korean archetypes and pop songs are Goo's thing, I guess? ( )

I read this book in a day. I really thought this was such a fun summer themed read. I read the next book by this author and felt that this book was also super strong. I liked that this book focused so much on self discovery. I really also enjoyed how clara changed so much throughout this novel. This book had a lot of mini plots travel, job, competition and they did not all mesh together super well to make a strong clear novel. I felt like some parts were quickly tied up and I wanted the last 50 pages to be bit longer and sreached out. I really did enjoy the characters in this book thought and would read more by this author in the future. ( )

I read this book in a day. I really thought this was such a fun summer themed read. I read the next book by this author and felt that this book was also super strong. I liked that this book focused so much on self discovery. I really also enjoyed how clara changed so much throughout this novel. This book had a lot of mini plots travel, job, competition and they did not all mesh together super well to make a strong clear novel. I felt like some parts were quickly tied up and I wanted the last 50 pages to be bit longer and sreached out. I really did enjoy the characters in this book thought and would read more by this author in the future. ( )