‘Loveboat, Taipei’ Is The Asian Teen Drama My Younger Self Needed
There’s a lot more diversity in books these days than when I was growing up, so I thought I’d give this teen book a shot. Loveboat, Taipei is a cute coming-of-age story centered around Ever Wong. Her parents send her to an educational youth program in Taiwan the summer before university and she does a lot of learning and growing up while abroad.
I didn’t realize these programs have been around since the 1960s and the author actually attended one herself. Pretty cool!
I loved reading from a female Asian protagonist’s point of view. I could definitely relate to Ever’s struggles with strict Asian parents, trying to figure out what she really wants in life, and feeling like an outsider. “When you’ve grown up one of three Asian American kids in your school of less than five hundred kids, you don’t do anything to draw attention to your Asianness,” she says in the book. Yep, I’ve felt that.
I enjoyed this book even though teen drama isn’t really my thing. But if I was a teen today, this probably would have been one of my favourite reads.
💥TL;DR: This is very much a teen read about growing up, but it’s light, fun and has great Asian representation. There’s lots of typical teen drama and, of course, some romance. 3.5/5
Read more about Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen:
