Youtube daily goo Jun 25 2017

Hey, everyone! I hope y'all are having a great day, and today I'll be reviewing I

Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo. This book--so cute, y'all, it is so cute. I

had never heard of this book actually before I saw a BuzzFeed article with a

list of YA summer releases to check out and I'll leave the link to that

article below so that you guys can read it as well

because there are a lot of really great titles on it. Like this one! So after I

heard about I Believe in a Thing Called Love, I was like, "A Korean-American

protagonist? I have to read it immediately." And so I did. And in hindsight, I

kind of regret doing that because I really should have saved this book for

later. There are frequently times when I seriously crave cute contemporaries and

I'm mad there aren't a billion Stephanie Perkins books out there and during one

of those times is when I should have read this book. But nonetheless, I'm

obviously so glad I picked up this book because I adored it. I Believe in a Thing

Called Love is about a senior in high school named Desi. She is an

overachiever in every possible way-- you know, varsity jock, but also perfect

SAT score, student body president, involved in like every club ever, so on

and so forth. And although she basically excels at everything she does, she sucks

at love. Anytime something even remotely romantic happens to her, she finds a way

to embarrass herself. And so to remedy that, she studies the Korean dramas that

her father loves to watch and based on the generic plot lines of those K-dramas,

she writes herself a guide on how to get a guy to fall in love with her. A lot of

people have been comparing this book to To All The Boys I've Loved Before by

Jenny Han. They're both YA contemporaries with a Korean-American protagonist and

although I do think that they would appeal to similar audiences, and if you

liked one, you'll probably like the other, that's kind of where the similarities

end. I Believe in a Thing Called Love is hilarious and cute and funny and sharp

and I basically loved everything about this book. I love the characters, the

diversity, the silly yet articulate writing, the sense of humor, the fast-paced plot,

the depiction of living in a Korean-American household--

there's just so much to love. Desi is such an entertaining main character.

She's so funny and I love it. Within the very first chapter, this book

had me laughing out loud. Desi is so self-deprecating, almost neurotic, and I

just found it so relatable. Sometimes I would actually think, "Desi and I are

the same person." She talks about loving Taylor Swift and

Twilight, I love Taylor Swift and Twilight. She talks about talking in

this wonky fusion of Korean and English at home and that's exactly what I do and

my parents tease me for it. She thinks Messi is the best soccer

player in the world, which he obviously is and I will fight anyone who wants to

make an argument for Cristiano Ronaldo. I connected with Desi in a way that

almost blew my mind. I legitimately felt like I was reading

about myself sometimes. But as much as I love Desi, she's also the reason why I

knocked this book's rating on Goodreads from 5 stars to 4. To be frank, she is out

of her mind. Like, she is honestly so driven to win

over her crush, this boy named Luca, that she does things that are inexcusable and

it's kind of played off as okay because this entire book almost relies on a

suspension of disbelief, and Desi is so likable that her charm is almost enough

to cover up the fact that she's doing things that are wrong. But in my opinion,

she really does go too far. She just falls into psycho territory sometimes,

which I'll talk about more in the spoiler section. Also something that I

wasn't a super huge fan of was just how predictable the plot was. But compared to

Desi's actions, the predictability is a little

negligible. But yeah, other than those things, I loved this book. Again, I cannot

overemphasize how much I loved seeing a Korean-American protagonist. The things

they ate, the way they acted, it all felt so familiar, it warmed my heart. I do

remember thinking it was a little weird that Desi's father calls her Desi at

home, which is weird 'cause Desi is her American name and most first-generation

Korean-American parents call their children by their Korean name. That's

what my parents do, my parents have never called me Sophia at home. That's just not,

that's really not a thing. But I digress. And what's great is that the diversity

doesn't stop with Desi. There are so many people of color at Desi's school. For

example, her best friend Fiona is Latina and she's lesbian.

Maurene Goo, I felt, really put in the effort to show that Monte Vista's

population is not just one color. A huge component of this novel is

definitely Desi's relationship with her father.

They're so playful and they're so caring. They only really have each other so

there's a really, really deep, sweet bond there, and it was just so heartwarming to

read about. Now I'm going to go into spoilers for I Believe in a Thing Called

Love, so if you haven't read this book and you don't want to be spoiled, first, I

would advise reading this book because I recommend it, and second, I'd advise

leaving in 3... 2... 1...

Bye! Bye-bye-bye-bye!

All right, so I really want to talk about the fact that Desi does a lot of not

okay things to win over Luca. Desi was so calculating and so ambitious, she kind of

reminded me of Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, which is a bad sign. However, that being

said, I did mention in my Gone Girl review that I kind of admired Amy for

her determination and for her intelligence,

so I admired Desi, too. However, she was a super stalker, and she would change herself or

change her habits to win over a boy, she was unbelievably manipulative, and so on

and so forth. And for a long time, I just kept excusing her behavior. I was like,

"Okay, I guess that's not that bad." BUT! When she caused

Luka's car accident, I had to draw the line. If the roles were reversed, if I

were in that position, if a guy put my life in danger and screwed up my car in

an attempt to win me over, I would have to cut someone. Because that's not okay,

that's not cute, that's not healthy, that's not sane. That was just not an okay

thing to do. No matter how badly you like a boy and want his attention,

you don't put his life in danger. I can't believe I'm saying that out loud. That just seems

like common sense. I mean, putting his life in danger was literally a step on her

list, and I was like, "Why. Why, Desi." I wish Desi would have looked at that step and

thought, "Mmm... okay, that one's a little too far. That one's a little unrealistic.

Maybe I should cross that one off." I feel like she's smart enough to know that

that was a really wrong idea, but she went with it anyway. That made me so mad

'cause this book had so much going for it and I was so

supportive and so in love with it, and then, Desi did that and I was like, "Oh my

God. No." Moving on, when Desi skipped her Stanford

interview to drive Luca to the hospital, I was like, "Why doesn't she immediately

call the Stanford interviewer and say, 'Hi, I'm so, so sorry, but I had an emergency

come up.'" Like she doesn't even think to call the interviewer and then her dad

does it for her and I was like, "Desi, you are too smart and you are too

professional to not think of immediately calling the interviewer."

I think Maurene Goo gets a lot of things right when she talks about the college

application process, but there are two things that I noticed that weren't completely

accurate. The first is that applying early actually does usually give you

better odds of getting in, and the second is that the interview barely counts at all.

Like it honestly doesn't matter. An interview basically does nothing to add

to your applications except for confirm that you're not a sociopath. So the fact

that Desi was really inflating the importance and the effect of the

interview on her application for Stanford was not really called for. I

thought her decision to go to BU was really interesting, considering her first choice

was the most competitive school in America and one of her safety choices

was Cornell, an Ivy League. But I guess it signals that she truly understands that

her father's always proud of her and she doesn't need the prestigious name of a

university to make her dad happy. I thought Luca was so cute. I don't

know if his name is pronounced Luca, it sounds kind of weird to me. But yeah, I just found him

so adorable, although I do wish that he liked more than just art. Most people

have more than just one interest. When he came into that AP English class and that

one girl was explaining what the book was about that they were reading, and he

looked so disinterested, Desi like dismisses him in her head and I

supported that. Like, I value people who value learning. But other than that, Luca

was really sweet. He was really adorable. I thought Desi and Luca had great

chemistry, they were super cute together. They made me laugh and smile and squeal

all over the place. I just love them. It was a good time. I do think that making

each chapter a step on Desi's list made the plot a little predictable, because

it's kind of like signal or a forewarning so that you know

what's coming. So it's like, "Oh, this step is a betrayal," and then you know what the

betrayal is. Or like, this step is going to be a sacrifice, and you know what she

sacrifices. But I can also see the perspective of that predictability

reflecting the charm of watching a K-drama because we all know how the

K-drama is going to end anyway. But yeah, I loved this book a lot. I already aired out

all my grievances with it, so you know I don't think this book is perfect

and it's not my favorite contemporary ever, but it's definitely a book that I

see myself going back to in the future and rereading when I need

something that's going to make me laugh and smile. Also, Maurene Goo is definitely

going on my list of authors to watch out for. I'm so excited to see what her next

project is. So let me know what you thought of this book I would love to

know. Thanks so much for watching, I hope y'all have a fantastic day,

and happy reading! Bye!

[outro music: "Summer Moments" by Del]