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Review: The Epic Crush of Genie Lo
Aug. 31st, 2017 05:25 pmThe Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F.C. Yee
I almost didn't read this book because of the summary. I saw "teenage girl with powers, demon invasion, infuriating and mysterious Hot Guy love interest" and immediately went "I've seen this summary 34567829 times before, zzzzzzzz."
I guess the summary was so vague because they literally didn't want to spoil anything about the story, but, I mean...knowing the spoiler (really a mild spoiler since it's revealed early-ish) would've made me go "OMG SIGN ME THE FFFF UP FOR THIS BOOK"
(Or if someone told me this was the Percy Jackson equivalent for Chinese mythology, since that's a pretty apt comparison and I love PJO.)
( Read more... )
Anyway, this book has epic humor (it reminded me of Rick Riordan's style a LOT, though it was slightly less Middle Grade), relatable Chinese diaspora experience, a great heroine who's allowed to be angry and powerful, and [spoiler redacted - see cut above].
If there was anything I didn't like, it was just that I was confused since the pinyin seemed to be slightly inconsistent—"Lo" is generally a Cantonese last name/romanization, yet Genie seems to be Mandarin? It was a weird inconsistency given that everything else about Chinese was spot-on.
I wanted to address one more thing, though, which was that one early review I saw for this book claimed that the love interest (Quentin) was a stalker. Which initially really turned me off from this book.
However...I'm sensitive toward that kind of thing, and yet I found that to be an unfair assessment of Quentin. To put it simply: There's a big difference between "stalking presented as romantic behavior" vs. "the guy starts out stalker-ish but then stops when the girl tells him to."
Epic Crush falls into the latter example. I honestly think it's not a bad thing to have that kind of narrative, because it conveys the idea that guys can learn to be not creepy and respect a girl's boundaries. Plus, Quentin's behavior seems to be a combination of "fish out of water" (on multiple levels, to boot) and interactions that, well, made sense to him in context, but came off as overly-familiar to Genie since she didn't have the same information that he did. It's clear throughout the book that he has a lot of respect for Genie and follows her wishes.
I almost didn't read this book because of the summary. I saw "teenage girl with powers, demon invasion, infuriating and mysterious Hot Guy love interest" and immediately went "I've seen this summary 34567829 times before, zzzzzzzz."
I guess the summary was so vague because they literally didn't want to spoil anything about the story, but, I mean...knowing the spoiler (really a mild spoiler since it's revealed early-ish) would've made me go "OMG SIGN ME THE FFFF UP FOR THIS BOOK"
(Or if someone told me this was the Percy Jackson equivalent for Chinese mythology, since that's a pretty apt comparison and I love PJO.)
( Read more... )
Anyway, this book has epic humor (it reminded me of Rick Riordan's style a LOT, though it was slightly less Middle Grade), relatable Chinese diaspora experience, a great heroine who's allowed to be angry and powerful, and [spoiler redacted - see cut above].
If there was anything I didn't like, it was just that I was confused since the pinyin seemed to be slightly inconsistent—"Lo" is generally a Cantonese last name/romanization, yet Genie seems to be Mandarin? It was a weird inconsistency given that everything else about Chinese was spot-on.
I wanted to address one more thing, though, which was that one early review I saw for this book claimed that the love interest (Quentin) was a stalker. Which initially really turned me off from this book.
However...I'm sensitive toward that kind of thing, and yet I found that to be an unfair assessment of Quentin. To put it simply: There's a big difference between "stalking presented as romantic behavior" vs. "the guy starts out stalker-ish but then stops when the girl tells him to."
Epic Crush falls into the latter example. I honestly think it's not a bad thing to have that kind of narrative, because it conveys the idea that guys can learn to be not creepy and respect a girl's boundaries. Plus, Quentin's behavior seems to be a combination of "fish out of water" (on multiple levels, to boot) and interactions that, well, made sense to him in context, but came off as overly-familiar to Genie since she didn't have the same information that he did. It's clear throughout the book that he has a lot of respect for Genie and follows her wishes.
