Thursday, December 21, 2017

I Believe In A Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo


31145133
3 Stars

Let me start by saying I really should have enjoyed this more than I did and I’m kind of bummed that I didn’t. The story here is of Desi Lee – an overachiever to the nth degree. A senior in high school, Desi has made a habit of setting a goal for herself and achieving it. Straight As, varsity soccer stud, on her way to early admittance to Stanford - Desi makes her own destiny. There’s only one thing she fails at – the opposite sex. When a new boy shows up at school, Desi decides she’s going to stop being a flop with boys and decides to get a little inspiration in the form of K-Dramas in order to script her way to romance.

Sounds like something right up my alley, doesn’t it? What can I say????



Have no fear, I’m not going to channel my inner Gretchen Weiners here when it comes to me not loving this as much as I should . . . .



Nope. I have no problem with rom-coms that use a little deception in order to get the ball rolling. Give me a “friends dared me to date you but then we fell in love” or “let’s pretend to date so you can get the guy you like, but really we’ll fall in love” and 9 times out of 10 my middle-aged butt will eat it up and be smiling from ear to ear the entire time. So that being said, obviously I didn’t really care a whole lot about the use of soap opera plotlines to be the inspiration on how to get the guy. Sadly, it was the guy himself. Well, not really. The guy was fine, it was how he ended up being the guy Desi wanted to go for that was the problem.

You see, the story started with Desi having an actual crush on someone. Said someone being a Freshman, it created a lot of fodder for her friends to poke fun at her about. Then Luca walks into school and Desi decides to go for him. Based on what? That he was good looking? Just to say she was able to get a boyfriend? So shallow. I think if she would have gone with her actual feelings and tried to date the Freshman this would have worked a lot more for me. And for anyone who wants to say “ewwww, a four year age difference?!?!?!?!” – that could have been handled just as easily as Desi falling for a complete stranger like was the case here. He could have had a weird birthday that made him older than everyone in class, she could have either had the opposite sort of birthday making her younger or have skipped a grade or something. Also, Desi wasn’t a character who was looking for some serious thing when she started her little experiment so it didn’t need to end up with some “love of her life” situation – they could have went to the prom and had a little smooch and moved on with their lives. Why did the author even have to mention the first boy?!?!?!?!?!

I know I ruined my own good time by overthinking this one, but I couldn’t make my brain shut up. I also still can’t get this freaking song out of my head . . . .



Go read AJ’s review instead. Her brain isn’t her nemesis so she can enjoy things.

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