More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
My mom believes in magic penises.
Okay, definitely my new favorite opening line
“If you had been a boy, things would be different.”
he’d probably understand you more than the rest of us do.
Hole-y crap.
This is super pedantic, even for me, but what a weird way of spelling "holy"
If a secret never sees the light of day, does it exist at all?
But the park never forgets.
Sometimes I wondered if our names defined who we were, like maybe I was destined to be confused about my identity because I was not-quite-Allie—I was this amorphous blob of a name that could apply to either gender and many races.
The energy between us crackled, and I wondered if the others could feel it.
I hate the "oh the chemistry between us is a palpable thing" trope in romance, especially because it is NEVER used between characters with good chemistry. This is not an exception. As much as Chao is trying to build this deep and inexplicable connection between Ali and Chase, it feels forced and flat
Gawwd.
I hate this. I hate this so much it actually, physically hurts me. This does not belong in a book that is published in late 2019 that is set contemporaneously
Were Chinese Americans doomed to feel like foreigners no matter where we went?
Was I right that silence was the only way to survive a place like this?
I couldn’t be with Chase,
You've known him for two days. Perhaps you should, I don't know, actually get to know him before jumping into a relationship?
“Both of you! To the counselor’s!”
Why wouldn't they be sent to the principal's office? In what version of reality do high school counsellors deal with discipline issues?
“I don’t care… anymore. Because it’s you.”
IT HAS BEEN TWO DAYS
“You used to be so dramatic. Now you’re all quiet and dead inside… I guess until today.”
Girl... are you really telling me there was not a single non-racist person in this school you could befriend?
Maybe one day girls like me wouldn’t have to pretend to be boys just to receive an education. I was ready to fight for them all.
I know Yu don’t scare that easily.
The first time their relationship feels natural and organic!
“It’s Taiwanese and resilient, just the way I like it.”
It's a good line, I'm not even gonna lie
And suddenly it felt urgent and heated and, gah, how I wanted him.
This ain't it
We show our love by sacrificing so you have food in your belly, a roof over your head.
Life has been unkind to her, and she’s doing the best she can.
If we weren’t here, you’d probably never fit in, just like your mother never did.”
“What could possibly be so bad about his family that you would destroy me like this just to keep us apart?”
Humor is one of the greatest weapons the world has to offer. If you can hang on to that, you can make it through anything.”
How was it possible that a culture so steeped in matchmaking also indulged so many poems and tall tales of true love?
It’s moved too far from its original intention now, she had told me in Mandarin, but one day it will be restored into what it was meant to be: a celebration of love, real love, the kind captured by ancient folktales and poems and songs.
You are my little love product, the proof, and you will show them all how they were wrong about your father and me.
Did I feel only a piece of the whole because I was missing this part of me?
She would never give so much out of the kindness of her heart;
Directly contradicting something you said on this very page, and the entire emotional epiphany that is this scene, but go off I guess
Was there something about family that made it impossible to express your thoughts, be yourself?
All because I didn’t know how to forgive; I didn’t know how to ask for love or comfort or an apology.
Before, I thought the rage fueled me, shielded me, and gave me something to grasp on to, but really it ate away at my soul until there was barely anything left.
“It wasn’t your place to tell,”
You BROKE INTO HIS OFFICE. He could have you suspended for that, but you’re mad he’s calling your mom?
This was all. Her. Fault.
Right, because your mom definitely made you dig into your week-long-boyfriend’s family history by looking through a confidential file that you literally broke into your counselor’s office to get. Yep, you definitely hold zero responsibility for how things have shaken out 🙄
“I don’t care what you are on the outside—I love you either way.” “You mean, as a man or a woman?”
Because the photo was me.
“Don’t you think it’s ridiculous that you all come here to matchmake in a park dedicated to two famous lovers who couldn’t be together because of matchmaking?
Your family was the first to put up matchmaking ads in this public park generations ago. They started all this.”
“I had no idea when you would figure out I was gay, and I wasn’t sure if you’d let me stay here.”
oh that hurts
Feels like I’m home.”
Yes, there were places better than what he and I were used to.
“She always saw your spirit, Ali, and before I’d even met you, I saw it too.”
“How could you let this happen?”
seriously?
But shadows could take on a life of their own, couldn’t they?
Stories rooted in truth but dusted with magic—too
Family is family; you cannot escape your blood.”
“Traditions can sometimes feel like a noose, can’t they?”
“Fate has a way of working things out,”
