So once again a book has made me have to try food. Like I needed to try the Hi-Chews after they kept talking about them. I even went out the day I finished the book to a nearby Asian market to see if I could find them. Alas, they did not have them, and now I will probably have to order some from Amazon.

But it was more than the food, I really adored this book. I loved the characters. They were perfectly what a teenager is, at least the ones that I work with at my school. And I liked how just one little change or apology didn’t necessarily mean that two people would then be perfectly in love. This had a lot of realistic details in it.

So many things happened that I wondered if they would come back in the end to cause more drama or issues, and I was right, they did! I kept thinking the whole way through that if they’d been smart, they would have combined their stores and then split all the money. But of course teenagers don’t always think that way. Especially Valerie and Wes, who have their own personal and family issues that they are thinking about. Things that as a teenager, seniors in high school especially, you feel are the most important things in the world.

Another way this was very realistic is that even when things kind of were talked about in the end, one character knew that just talking would probably not necessarily make things better in their family. And then the other family had one parent that kind of came around, but you could tell they still weren’t 100% on board with the idea of what their child wanted.

Finally, I loved all the cultural aspects of the story. While I didn’t take the time to look up some of the foods in this one, since I was speeding through the story because I wanted to know how it would end and couldn’t stop, I have a feeling since I have a physical copy of this one that I’ll be going back to look those things up at a later date. This will be a wonderful addition to my library as well as one I can’t wait to recommend!

Review first posted on Lisa Loves Literature.