Blog Tour & Review: “My Summer of Love and Misfortune” by Lindsay Wong
I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the MY SUMMER OF LOVE AND MISFORTUNE Lindsay Wong Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book
Title: MY SUMMER OF LOVE AND MISFORTUNE
Author: Lindsay Wong
Pub. Date: June 2, 2020
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 384
Formats: Hardcover, eBook, audiobook
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, Audible, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org
A novel about a Chinese-American teen who is thrust into the world of Beijing high society when she is sent away to spend the summer in China.
Iris Wang is having a bit of a rough start to her summer. In an attempt to snap her out of her funk, Iris’s parents send her away to visit family in Beijing, with the hopes that Iris will “reconnect with her culture” and “find herself.” Iris resents her parents’ high-handedness, but even she admits that this might be a good opportunity to hit the reset button.
Iris expects to eat a few dumplings, meet some of her family, and visit a tourist hotspot or two. What she doesn’t expect is to meet a handsome Mandarin-language tutor named Frank and to be swept up in the ridiculous, opulent world of Beijing’s wealthy elite, leading her to unexpected and extraordinary discoveries about her family, her future, and herself.
Review
First off, Iris Wang is such an unlikable character in this story. I did feel like she deserved some of the things that happens to her because she brought them on herself. At the same time the chaotic events set in motion act as a wake up call. She’s selfish, spoiled, self absorbed, and it’s until she is shipped off to Beijing that she has the sudden realization that she has messed up big time.
While spending time in Beijing with her uncle’s family, Iris has a hard time grasping reality. She faces a big dose of culture shock and feels removed from her own Chinese culture growing up in America. She doesn’t know how to speak Mandarin, is unfamiliar with Chinese customs, and has trouble connecting with her family. This proves to be an eye opener for Iris and she reflects on the past and how she’s acted.
The more Iris starts to open up the easier it is for her to connect with readers. But I still had trouble liking her as character and connecting to her story. Her spoiled brat nature was a big issue for me when reading this book. It was a big turn off for me! Her superficial ways have hurt many of the people in her life. Iris slowly tries to better herself throughout the course of the story, but I felt like it only redeemed her character a small bit.
I did enjoy all of the travel aspects of the novel. The writing was so descriptive. It felt like you were able to to smell the food stalls that lined the markets, walk through the shops of the malls, and feel the hectic bustle of traveling via subway. But ultimately I just couldn’t get over how terrible of a person Iris was and that was the downfall for me when reading this book.
Final Verdict:
About Lindsay
Lindsay Wong’s fearless writing and askew sense of humour chronicle adventures and disasters with copious amounts of playfulness and generosity.
She is the author of the #1 bestselling debut memoir The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug-Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family, which won the 2019 Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize and was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by Newsweek, CBC Books, the Globe and Mail, and the Quill and Quire. It was also a finalist for the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize and Canada Reads 2019.
In between Walmart parking lot holidays, Lindsay spends her time as a muscle for hire teaching writing workshops and editing manuscripts as a freelance editor.
Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads
Giveaway Details
3 winners will win a finished copy of MY SUMMER OF LOVE AND MISFORTUNE, US Only.
Rafflecopter Code:
a Rafflecopter giveawayTour Schedule:
Week One:
| 5/25/2020 | Kait Plus Books | Review |
| 5/25/2020 | Lifestyle of Me | Review |
| 5/26/2020 | Lone Tree Reads | Excerpt |
| 5/26/2020 | BookHounds YA | Excerpt |
| 5/27/2020 | Twirling Book Princess | Excerpt |
| 5/27/2020 | Lizofwords | Review |
| 5/28/2020 | Nerdophiles | Review |
| 5/28/2020 | Volumes & Voyages | Review |
| 5/29/2020 | Lala’s Book Reviews | Review |
| 5/29/2020 | Emelies Books | Review |
Week Two:
| 6/1/2020 | The Bookish Libra | Review |
| 6/1/2020 | Locks, Hooks and Books | Review |
| 6/2/2020 | Eli to the nth | Review |
| 6/2/2020 | Books A-Brewin’ | Excerpt |
| 6/3/2020 | Popthebutterfly Reads | Review |
| 6/3/2020 | Bookwyrming Thoughts | Review |
| 6/4/2020 | lifeofafemalebibliophile | Review |
| 6/4/2020 | Yna the Mood Reader | Review |
| 6/5/2020 | @_ebl_inc_ | Review |
| 6/5/2020 | The Phantom Paragrapher | Review |
