Book Review: Loveboat, Taipei | Abigail Hing Wen

This is book #6/20 (#11 overall) that I read this year. It was published on January 7, 2020, and counts towards my 20 for 2020 challenge. I will have a brief spoiler discussion at the end.

I don't have too many thoughts to note about the book. I enjoyed this book. I think it had bits that were a little boring, so overall I just thought it was a pretty average read.

Ever was slightly annoying to me in the beginning. I think she definitely suffered a little bit from "I'm not like other girls" syndrome. Even towards the end I think she was a little boring. I thought the two love interests were great. I think there could have been a little more development and establishment of the other characters outside of the main four or so characters.

I really loved Ever's character development and how she learns to reconcile her own desires and her parents. I thought it was done really well.

This book has been optioned for a movie. I think this has a lot of potential to be a cute movie. I'm really looking forward to watching it. I'm really attracted to stories and movies about summer camp and boarding school kind of settings. I think it was just always something that I wanted to experience when I was younger. It gives you the experience of kind of being an adult, away from your parents, able to hang out with friends but also not having the responsibilities of being a real adult. I didn't particularly feel connected to this setting in the book, but I think it will translate really well to the movie. I think it has a lot of potential once the best parts are compiled into a short and sweet 90 minutes.

***SPOILERS SECTION***

One thing I wanted to discuss was that I just didn't like what they did with Sophie's arc. She distributed Ever's nude photos around to the whole school, and to her ballet studio to get her banned. This is all wiped away once Ever finds out that Sophie is being abused by another boy at the school. I think she has some kind of BS apology for the photos and that's the end of it. I really did not like that. There is absolutely NO coming back from that in my eyes. There is no way that you can forgive someone after doing that. So I just really didn't like how that was handled at all.

***END OF SPOILERS SECTION***

Those are my thoughts on the book. Overall, I did enjoy it but I think it was a little average. I'd give it 3/5 stars. Have you read this book? I'd love to hear your thoughts down below.