I’ll admit I was purely drawn to this book because of its cover. It’s BEAUTIFUL. From the cover I thought it would be about the story of a blossoming romance set in Taiwan, not what it is: a summer boarding school-like teen drama that touches on topics like being a 1st generation Asian-American (child to immigrants), adversity, depression, domestic violence, insecurity, sex, romance, and self love and acceptance. For good and for bad, it felt like there were so many elements packed into this that I almost didn’t know where the story would go. For example all of this transpires [warning:spoilers]

Spoiler

- Asian American Girl thrown into summer international program from her Chinese parents to learn more about her Chinese/Taiwanese roots
-4 different types of romance tropes play out:

1) Childhood arch rivals turned lovers
2) Girl vs Best Friends Relative
3) Girl vs Bad Boy / Player
4) Girl vs Best Friends Boyfriend (2x!).
5) The Fake Dating to …Are we serious? Trope

Double whammy that the Childhood Nemesis is also the BSF’s relative, AND the BSF’s Boyfriend is also the “Bad Boy”. So quite literally a romance trope within a romance trope
- Somewhat of a love triangle (or pentagon?) plays out
- A fallout between friends over a guy and revenge porn involved
- A car accident
- The finale quite literally being a talent/dance show
-Everyone in the end gets their forever-after in the best way possible, Disney-style (no need to elaborate)

I felt like the author could have picked 2 out of this list of things to really hone on and the book would still have been interesting and fun to read through. I would’ve really liked to have journeyed with Ever on her understanding of Chinese/Taiwan culture in the program. I feel like 75% of the book is her resenting her parents, and thus resenting the program and her chance to really understand her culture, and her interest is piqued only in the last quarter but just barely. Instead the majority of the book is focused on her embracing herself as a Dancer and choosing her own destiny. And of course, the romance.

I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed this book half as much if it wasn’t for the audio either because the writing felt VERY dramatic (true to Ever’s character