If your favorite genre of movie is a rom-com, chances are you will probably like my book. The book I chose is To All The Boys I've Loved Before. This book is about a young high school girl named Lara Jean. She’s Asian-American and has a happy family life and mental health. Her life starts to really start when her sister sends out five letters to the people addressed on them that Lara Jean wrote. Lara Jean now has to pick between five guys with all different personalities and looks. In this book, you really experience a whole bunch of different characters all in the same book. If this book didn't seem to interest you, that’s ok, but would it interest anyone you know? If so, tell them about it.

The main character in my book is Lara Jean. She is a happy bubbly woman. She is always smiling and is never sad. She tends to think about others including herself and cares for her family very much. Lara Jean is Asian-American with straight black silky hair. The clothes she wears are more on the preppy side rather then your typical American teenager. When people are around her, they tend not to think much about her; she blends in with a crowd easily and is friendly to everyone. Lara Jean only has one person who genuinely doesn't like her: her ex-best friend Jen. Jen doesn't like her because when they were in Grade 7, they played spin the bottle and it landed on Lara Jean and her crush at the time. If I knew Lara Jean, I wouldn't be a close friend of hers but we would probably be close acquaintances.

All around the world, tradition and cultures are being lost because of globalization. We have all heard about Indigenous peoples being forced to go to schools and lose their culture. But almost none of us has heard of the effect of Europeans and Americans arriving in Japan. Because the book The Teahouse Fire is a historical fiction, readers get a window into how big of an effect the Western culture had on the Eastern culture in the 1800s. The social and civil reforms are only two of the many effects that Ellis touched on in her novel. The story is told from such a perspective that it makes the reader feel like they are experiencing history firsthand. The amount of detail and description might discourage some people from reading it, but the description of the Temae, and the descriptions of the Kimono truly sets the novel aside from others. Overall, not only does the novel manage to convey the historical events well but also writes a beautiful and well written novel.

Throughout the book, the reader will find one major lesson that the author is trying to convey is that when people lose everything, they will do anything to get it back. When the teahouse was in debt and close to shutting down, the Shins’ sold one of their most prized possessions to gain the money back. Even though Yukako’s father had said that he would rather die than to sell it, they still sold it because they needed the money. I agree with what the author is saying because it is normal for humans to do what they need to do to get back what they want. We could see this happening in history, where people sold their daughters off to marriage just to get some money.

Description (from the dust jacket):

When Claudia accidentally eavesdrops on the epic breakup of Paige and Iris, the it-couple at her school, she finds herself in hot water with prickly, difficult Iris. Thrown together against their will in the class production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, along with the goofiest, cutest boy Claudia has ever known, Iris and Claudia are in for an eye-opening senior year.

What I love about this book:

Foolish Hearts is lighthearted and filled with humour. It’s fast-paced and the writing style is easy to read.

The characters are beautifully flawed and incredibly complex, and the relationships between all the characters are stellar. Emma Mills did a fantastic job at writing sibling dynamics by showing how much Claudia and her siblings irritate each other, but also how much they care for each other. The development of Iris and Claudia’s friendship is a highlight, because they initially dislike each other and have very different personalities, but over time, they become closer. The romance and the friendship between the love interest and his best friend are sweet, hilarious, and compelling.

This book doesn’t contain a lot of the heavy topics the other books in this list do, so if you’re looking for something fun, read this.