Lunar New Year Love Story
Grade : B+

Valentina Tran, raised by her single dad after her mother died, used to love Valentine’s Day. She even had an imaginary friend, a cherubic Cupid. But when revelations about her mother come to light, Valentina discovers love isn’t what she thought it was - and her companion isn’t a sweet greeting-card baby, but the frightening spirit of the martyred St. Valentine, who informs her that her family is cursed in love. St. Valentine makes a bet with Val: find true love within a year, or give up on love forever, and give her heart to him.

You can tell what my primary complaint will be from the plot summary: the contrivance of the one-year bet with St. Valentine. Valentina is in a subgenre where she will find her soulmate in high school, so one year makes sense within that structure, but since Val doesn’t know what book she’s in, giving up at eighteen doesn’t make sense. I wanted to yell “It is perfectly normal not to find your romantic partner for another two decades!” I wish the author had simply made St. Valentine’s offer open-ended, or made an age limit that applied to Val’s family specifically, or even had St. Valentine’s power growing such that after a year, he would be able to interfere without Val’s consent.

Still, the time limit doesn’t take up a lot of the page count and doesn’t interfere with the interest of the rest of the book. All of the characters, lead and supporting, are realistically complicated. Val is in a confusing teenage non-relationship with a boy named Les, who does everything a boyfriend would do except call himself a boyfriend. Les’s cousin is Jae, who is haunted by a ghost of his own. Val’s dad made bad choices for good reasons. Val’s best friend, who only dates for fun and refuses to get serious, has to reckon with pushing her own beliefs on Val. Val’s immigrant grandmother, who crashes Christmas night with an entire menu of Vietnamese dishes and tours Rome with a group of fellow “golden ladies,” is a wonderful highlight, transcending what could have been a character archetype.

If you haven’t worked it out, the romantic couple here is Val and Jae. They’re connected by their experience of hauntings, and also by their love of lion dance. (A lion is operated by two dancers working together, which gives the author/artist a visual device to show character chemistry). They’re separated by Val’s sort-of relationship with Les.

While Val’s background is Vietnamese, Jae’s is Korean, and Les’s is Chinese - three East Asian cultures which all observe Lunar New Year, but which have their own diverse practices. The author and artist show the difference between Chinese-style lion dance and Korean-style dance. Val’s Vietnamese grandmother is deeply Catholic and suggests becoming a nun as a way for Val to escape the family’s unlucky love history. Even the title Lunar New Year Love Story is significant, as there has been a push in recent years by communities like the Vietnamese and Korean diasporas to use that phrasing instead of Chinese New Year, because the holiday transcends a single group.

How about the art? I’ve read LeUyen Pham before, and I can’t tell if it’s my associations with her works for younger readers (such as The Princess in Black series) that makes her characters’ faces here feel a bit too childish for the age range, or if they’re objectively too childish. A new-to-Pham reader might not have that issue. The rest of the artwork is excellent. The book is in full color, which is used well, especially in sequences exploring the red and blue of the Korean eum-yang (similar to a yin-yang, it’s the swirl that appears on the South Korean flag). The pages and tone are atmospheric, and the transition from Cupid to St. Valentine’s is appropriately jarring. My favorite work is the drawings of the lion dances. The energy of the performance comes across clearly, and I love the finale dance, where you can see the characters finding their balance and making their choices through the choreography.

With YA books, I always find myself asking “Is this a book that’s good for its audience, or good for ALL audiences?” I think it’s an A- for its intended audience. It’s especially nice to find a book that works really well for the elusive middle-grade set, as content seems to creep more and more mature to please adult BookTok influencers rather than the actual tween and teen readers. If you’re an adult reading for yourself, rather than shopping for a kid or library, Lunar New Year Love Story will be pleasant and informative, but probably not a permanent keeper.

Grade : B+

Sensuality: Kisses

Review Date : March 4, 2024

Publication Date: 01/2024

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Caroline Russomanno

I'm a history geek and educator, and I've lived in five different countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition to the usual subgenres, I'm partial to YA, Sci-fi/Fantasy, and graphic novels. I love to cook.

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