A Review of I.W. Gregorio’s This is My Brain in Love (Little Brown for Young Readers, 2020).

Posted by: jacobballew

In this review, I’m covering I.W. Gregorio’s This is My Brain in Love (Little Brown for Young Readers, 2020). This YA title is Gregorio’s second; I very much enjoyed the first, so I was jazzed to see that Gregorio had a new title come out. Let’s let the official site give us some key information:

“Jocelyn Wu has just three wishes for her junior year: To make it through without dying of boredom, to direct a short film with her BFF Priya Venkatram, and to get at least two months into the year without being compared to or confused with Peggy Chang, the only other Chinese girl in her grade. Will Domenici has two goals: to find a paying summer internship, and to prove he has what it takes to become an editor on his school paper. Then Jocelyn’s father tells her their family restaurant may be going under, and all wishes are off. Because her dad has the marketing skills of a dumpling, it’s up to Jocelyn and her unlikely new employee, Will, to bring A-Plus Chinese Garden into the 21st century (or, at least, to Facebook). What starts off as a rocky partnership soon grows into something more. But family prejudices and the uncertain future of A-Plus threaten to keep Will and Jocelyn apart. It will take everything they have and more, to save the family restaurant and their budding romance.”

I’m going to be honest: I had some trouble following the alternating first person narratives occasionally. The sections were often so short that I wasn’t inside a particular mind-space for too long, and the fragmentation interrupted my personal readerly flow. That being said, Gregorio definitely has created some winning character. Jocelyn is a stubborn but very spritely protagonist, a character who wants to make the most of her time in Central New York, so when the A-Plus Chinese Garden starts to struggle financially, she will pretty much do anything to get the restaurant back on its feet. When Will enters the equation, things get complicated because he’s not only a superb employee but also someone that Jocelyn actually really likes. This synergy proves to be a problem when things get romantic, and Jocelyn’s parents are not into it. This issue changes up the narrative ballgame, as Jocelyn and Will have to keep things absolutely professional until certain goals are met. Perhaps, Gregorio’s biggest intervention is related to mental health concerns. Will suffers from anxiety, while Jocelyn certainly is suffering from undiagnosed depression. While Will and his family are supportive of any sort of help he might engage in, including both therapy and potential pharmaceutical tools, Jocelyn is resistant that she needs any help for her depression. IN this sense, Gregorio’s novel brings up the thorny issue of mental health, especially as it concerns Asian American immigrant families. As the novel moves toward its conclusion, this particular issue makes This is My Brain in Love politically engaged and particularly resonant in this complicated moment we’re living in.

 

Buy the Book Here:

 

https://www.lbyr.com/titles/i-w-gregorio/this-is-my-brain-in-love/9780316423823/

 

 

 

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