Thank you to Union Square & Co. and NetGalley for providing me with an audio galley of this title to listen to and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Evan can't keep his eyes off his new Filipino coworker Dailsay. When he asks her out and she rejects him, he learns from his Filipino friends there's more to dating in Filipino tradition than what American's know. On a bet, Dalisay encourages Evan to do The Five Stages of Courting traditional for her people. But along the way, things get blurry and Evan and Dalisay fall for one another. When Dalisay's world is turned upside down, she realizes going back to her traditions is best. But can she stay away from Evan? and most of all, does she want to?
I'm a nurse and have been immersed in a bit of Filipino culture since I started in the industry. I was anxious to read this book and learn some new information about the culture. And it was fun!
I really liked watching Evan learn about the Filipino courtship ritual. It was a testament to opening yourself up to new culture and realizing your way is not always the right way. But it was also interesting to watch Dalisay adapt to American culture and realize the same thing. Sometimes when we are so set in our ways, it can cause us to miss out on new things we may love.
The Filipino representation in the book was great. It absolutely sealed what I know of my friends and coworkers. It also made me want to learn more. Cruz captured what it means to be Filipino in America. How holding on to traditions is just as important as opening yourself up to new things.
The romance was nice, though a bit forced in the beginning for me. It was insta-love and I'm not really a fan of that. I understand attraction but it just seemed like more than that and I wanted more of a progression given the idea that the five stages were meant to take you through it.
This is not my first de la Cruz book and I can see her writing style does not change even with a change in genre. It's quite choppy. Her choice of third person narrative often took me out of the story. With romances I really like to hear the voice of the characters and the third person didn't convey this for me. This also made the pacing very slow for me and I felt myself having to push to pick the story back up once I set it down.
Overall I found the book a bit of a struggle but it's worth it for the cultural aspect if you're wanting to learn a bit about Filipino culture and tradition.
I was not really a fan of the narrator. I felt she did the Filipino voices well enough but they all sounded the same. It was hard to differentiate the characters. Also, her cadence was quite slow. I ended up speeding the narration up so it would sound more normal.