I Believe in a Thing Called Love

Desi Lee is perfect at everything. She has a 4.25 GPA, is captain of the soccer team, student body president, and she's right on track to go to Stanford pre-med next year. (Just like her mom, who died when Desi was 6.) But when it comes to boys, she's a flailure (that's flirting+failure). After completely embarrassing herself in front of the gorgeous new guy at school she spends all weekend wallowing in her dad's favorite Korean Drama shows, and suddenly it hits her ... what Desi needs is a plan. If she comes up with a plan (using K-Dramas as her guide), and follows all the steps, Desi can be perfect at romance, just like everything else ... Right?

This was very cute and I mostly didn't have any problems with it. The things that Desi show more does are very stupid, but she and everyone else mostly realize that. Both of the romantic characters have lots of character growth. I liked the tiny bit of a twist that Luca's mom mostly sucks and he fully admits it but still likes her better anyway. The author does a great job of telling you that romances have a formula, and then sticking to the formula while also making you forget that there is a formula. Desi's friends are great fun. Definitely recommended if you like teen romance. show less

Review also posted on my blog: https://bennilovesbooks.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/review-i-believe-in-a-thing-cal...

This book has content warnings for relationship abuse (manipulation).

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I loved the beginning of it. It was cute, charming, funny… And then Desi went off the rails, and I couldn’t stand it. This wasn’t a bad book, but there were parts that made me feel very uncomfortable and I believe those need to be discussed.

Let’s start with the positives. First off, I LOVED Desi’s dad. Rarely ever is a parent my favorite thing about a YA book, and yet here we are. He adored his daughter, had his own distinctive interests and personality (his reactions while he watched K Dramas show more were the best), and had his own character arc when it came to his grief over Desi’s mom’s death (not really a spoiler — you know about it within the first couple pages as it happened before the story started) and their relationship history. I don’t think I’ve ever been so genuinely happy when a parent walked back into a scene during a book; he was just so delightful.

I also really loved the idea of taking the typical structure of a K Drama and applying it to real life. As many characters pointed out in the book, the idea of doing that is ridiculous and yet it had so much hilarious potential. For the first few steps in the plan, it was adorable and charming that Desi’s plan to charm Luca was somehow actually working, and I was rooting for her. And then I wasn’t.

I was with Desi up until the point where she literally put her life AND Luca’s life in danger for the sake of the plan. *SPOILER* No matter what, you don’t intentionally crash someone’s car to get them to like you. No. Wrong. Bad. It’s not cute, it’s not charming, and it’s not funny. Someone could get seriously hurt or even killed. And the worst part was I didn’t feel like Desi had all that much remorse for causing the accident. She kind of implied it, but that wasn’t enough. *END SPOILER* This kind of behavior is abuse, and manipulation in relationships is extremely serious.

What made the manipulation worse for me is that Luca had clearly acknowledged that his previous girlfriend had been manipulative and that he didn’t want a girlfriend because he didn’t want to be with someone like that. Yet Desi is being just as manipulative, to the point where she’s messing with people’s lives multiple times, and she gets away with it. I am not okay with this. I am not okay with abusive partners getting away with their abuse.

I felt really frustrated because this was a really fun read, and yet I couldn’t enjoy it to its full potential because of the issues with abuse. I’m giving the book an okay rating because I genuinely enjoyed the bulk of it, but I have to take off two stars for the abuse.

Final rating: 3 of 5 stars show less

When overachieving high schooler Desi Lee gets a crush on a new classmate, Luca, she determines that all she needs is a good, solid plan to land her first boyfriend. Her father’s beloved Korean soap operas, er, dramas, provide all the steps she needs to put her plan into action.

Her plan is a little bit crazy, but Desi is determined to succeed. (By the way, if you’re wondering why Desi doesn’t sound like any Korean names you’ve heard, it’s because her parents choose her English name after Desi Arnaz.) So, whether she’s staging a car accident, convincing her pal Wes to be her Second Male Lead pretend boyfriend, or untying a boat to drift out to sea, Desi follows the beats of a K-drama, no matter the cost.

I Believe In A Thing show more Called Love starts out like a typical high school YA. I’d already gotten to see her watching TV with her Appa, studying with her friends, and suffering flailure (flirting failure, obvs). so by the time Desi starts doing truly crazy stuff, I already cared for this character enough to roll with it. Besides, some of the novel’s beats are a cute tribute to K-drama staples, like when Desi conveniently overhears a very important private conversation, while trapped with her rival.

Still, there were a couple twists that felt a little too rom-com for me. I’ve never really connected with the part in rom-coms where the couple has a fight for no reason, I know it’s a genre staple but ugh. Just talk to each other like normal people! So, the part where Luca flipped out at Desi just felt less like an actual argument and more like a labored set-up for a dramatic reconciliation.

But it’s such a fun dramatic reconciliation (PROM), and such a fun book. show less

As light, frothy, sweet, and unsubstantial as cotton candy - I will forget this book in a week but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Great characters (Appa!) and wonderful to read a YA romance with a Korean POV that wasn’t hitting me over the head with cultural hallmarks.

Desi's flailures, failing at flirting, had me loving her from the very first chapter. After chapter two was done I audibly guffawed and put my hand on my face realizing just how much of a disaster this girl is and loving it. I knew I was in for something special.

Desi is an awkward human being who is also a perfectionist. From the beginning who learn of her mother's passing and how she set out to fix her father's unhappiness. She did all the things her mother would do so that he wouldn't miss her. After a while he was fixed. Everything returned to normal. Desi's drive to be perfect has some levels to it as you can tell by her need to fix her father. Being that level of determination on the outside makes her seem like she's a know it all, show more someone who's perfect at everything, and someone who people couldn't stand to be around. I would feel that way. I would probably run away from her as soon as she started talking about all of her accomplishments. By comparison I would feel... inadequate which comes up in the story consequently.

I forgot about that first chapter where she "fixed" her dad's situation. But later on her need to be perfect comes into perspective in a way where I couldn't help but want to hug her. That need to be perfect also gets her into some crazy adventures and trouble that revolves around Luca Drakos.

Luca seems like this mythical creature she wants to capture and keep to herself throughout most of her plans. Her plans being.... well to make him love her.... Kind of. Desi gets the idea of setting a goal and planning out to get Luca Drakos to fall in love with her and her the same. It sounds like one of those horrible romance plots where the girl is obsessed with the guy, which she is, but it's in an adorable way. If you've seen any K Dramas you know what I mean. And I have seen a few thanks to Netflix, my love. She does get a list exactly what K Dramas plot points are when characters meet and eventually fall in love. In between falling in love there is a lot of betrayal, one person is usually more interested in the other at certain points, and there has to be someone rescuing the other's life at one point or another. I love watching dramas like this so reading it was so much fun. So don't think the worse of the plot unless you actually read it.

One of the best things about this story is the father and daughter bond. I loved how close Desi was to her father, Luca even noticed, as did I, that she was always doing things to protect her father. She didn't want to be put in a situation which made him afraid she would be hurt but she ended up doing it anyway with her quest. Otherwise, their relationship was very mushy and sweet.

Luca took a while for me to like. He was an alright character. I just felt weird at times with how Desi was acting to get him to be her boyfriend. The list started tiring me out towards the last part of the book. I think Desi took everything too far that I didn't understand where she was coming from. The relationship didn't make too much sense to me from just her standpoint. I also wish the best friends were around more. Those relationships were awesome because her best friends were awesome. I liked what happened when they were around and what happened with a former friend.

After everything is said and done, I Believe in a Thing Called Love, has some flaws but is a wonderful story. Desi, her relationship with her father, and her realty checks really brought a great story together. Not to mention the fact that Maurene Goo can write her pants off. I'd happily read anything else she writes. show less

This is a book about a socially awkward girl manipulating a boy into liking her, after learning about his history of manipulation from his ex-girlfriend. She endangers his life three times, including causing him to nearly drown and causing a tire blowout that caused like... $5k in damage to his car. On top of that, she, a 17 year old, gives up a shot at her dream school to attend to the whims of this boy she's been dating for like 2 months, and then decides to go to a college near his instead. Of note: the boy gets to go to HIS dream school.

I know this books are for teenagers, but we shouldn't be telling teenagers to base their futures around their high school sweethearts! That's so unhealthy. We shouldn't be telling girls to put their show more dreams on hold for the dreams of cute boys. show less

Actual Rating - 3.5
I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would considering I don't normally like contemporaries.

I've always been interested in Korea and Korean culture so it was especially great for me to read a little bit about it in this book. Our main character is Korean-American so there's little things she does that reflect her Korean background and the author was kind enough to give us just enough of an explanation that we understood but not too many details so that we could research what we were interested in. Or maybe that was just me.

My favourite character was easily Desi's dad. He made the book 100x better. I loved his obsession with k-dramas (I can relate to that) and he brought some great humour into the book. His show more relationship with Desi was also really nice to see. We don't often see such loving and respectful relationships between parents and children in YA books. It was a really nice change.

Plot-wise the book was only ok. I found some things that happen were a little too much. I tend to enjoy the over dramatic silliness in k-dramas but I didn't enjoy it as much in a book for whatever reason. Desi could be a little over the top sometimes which made me not connect with her at all. She was written to be that kind of character though and while it worked in this book it didn't work for me. The plot was also pretty typical if you've seen any k-dramas at all. Nothing overly spectacular.

I also thought Luca didn't have enough character development at all. We never really found out much about him and he was always just there. Usually the love interests are a little more active in the story than Luca was.

I did enjoy reading this story. It was fun and silly which is always a nice change from some of the more serious YA books that are popular right now. If you enjoy silly characters and over the top plot lines then you might like I Believe in a Thing Called Love! show less