#maurene goo

[the-final-sentence]

‘But I’m yours for the rest of the night.’

Maurene Goo, from Somewhere Only We Know

#Maurene goo #somewhere only we know

[the-book-ferret]

“It's not a gift, it's work. That's what you do when you have a dream.” ― Maurene Goo, Somewhere Only We Know

#thebookferret #books #booklr #book worm #book nerd #book pets #book addict #book photography #bibliophile #ferret #ferrets of tumblr #pets of tumblr #wasabi #maurene goo #somewhere only we know

[richincolor]

Review: Throwback by Maurene Goo

Summary: Back to the Future meets The Joy Luck Club in this YA contemporary romance about a Korean American girl sent back to the ’90s to (reluctantly) help her teenage mom win Homecoming Queen.

Being a first-generation Asian American immigrant is hard. You know what’s harder? Being the daughter of one. Samantha Kang has never gotten along with her mother, Priscilla—and has never understood her bougie-nightmare, John Hughes high school expectations. After a huge fight between them, Sam is desperate to move forward—but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back.

To her shock, Sam finds herself back in high school . . . in the ’90s . . . with a 17-year-old Priscilla. Now this Gen Z girl must try to fit into an analog world. She’s got the fashion down, but everything else is baffling. What is “microfiche”? What’s with the casual racism and misogyny? And why does it feel like Priscilla is someone she could actually be . . . friends with?

Sam's blast to the past has her finding the right romance in the wrong time while questioning everything she thought she knew about her mom . . . and herself. Will Sam figure out what she needs to do to fix things for her mom so that she can go back to a time she understands? Brimming with heart and humor, Maurene Goo’s time-travel romance asks big questions about what exactly one inherits and loses in the immigrant experience.

My Thoughts: Family relationships can be so incredibly complicated. In Throwback, Maurene Goo really digs into the mother-daughter dynamic. Samantha and Halmoni, her grandmother, get along very well, but her relationship with her own mother and her mom's relationship with Halmoni are both strained. A good portion of the novel revolves around this complexities of these three relationships and what Sam discovers about them during her time jump.

I'm generally not a fan of time travel because my brain wants everything to be logical and that isn't always possible in these scenarios. It was hilarious to watch a Gen Z person dealing with the 90s though and that more than made up for any of the squishy bits that may not actually seem possible. As with all of Maurene Goo's books, there were so many opportunities for laughter. I thoroughly enjoyed her previous novels, Since You Asked [RiC review], I Believe in a Thing Called Love [RiC review], The Way You Make Me Feel [RiC review], and Somewhere Only We Know [RiC review], so I was really looking forward to getting my hands on Throwback and it did not disappoint.

Sam has some strong opinions and she is not afraid to voice them. I love that about her. She also doesn't stand by and watch if someone is being unkind. She speaks up and does something about what she sees. She interrupts. She is not concerned about trying to blend in, at least most of the time. As she visits the past though and sees her mother's life, she also realizes that parts of her life that don't actually match up to what she truly believes and values. She learns about herself, her mother, and her grandmother which affects how she views much of her life.

Recommendation: Get it as soon as it hits the shelves in April especially if you enjoy laughing through a book. While you wait, you can grab one of Maurene Goo's other books if you haven't had a chance to read them yet.

Publisher: Zando Young Readers Categories: Contemporary, historical, humor, romance Pages: 386 Review copy: Digital ARC via publisher Availability: Releases on April 11, 2023

#book review #young adult #time travel #maurene goo

[spacedandelions]

The Brazilian cover for Throwback by Maurene Goo is so pretty!

And I love the little hidden references to the story! I just feel like it represents the story so much more than the other cover.

I'm still reading it but so far it looks like it's going to be one of my favorites books. It's like the perfect mix between a teen movie from the 90's, a Back From The Future and Minor Feelings. It talks a lot about Korean-americans, mother-daughter relationships, race and gender. We also see a prom queen campaign, mean girls and the classic cafeteria scene where we meet all the clicks, but in a way that makes everyone still feel like real people. It's so well written too!

#book #books #throwback #maurene goo #ya #bookblr #booklr #cover art #book cover #90's #1995 #korean american

[elmundoestahechodefrasesyletras]

Fue como si una luz intensa se hubiese apoderado de ella. Comenzó a brillar y a irradiar un calor que me llenó con la sensación más desconocida. Orgullo.

#libros #notas #frases #citas #escritos #como en una canción de amor #maurene goo

[thepaige-turner]

I’m planning on getting this signed at #LATFOB in a couple weeks and can’t wait to meet @maurenegoo and tell her how much I’m loving The Way You Make Me Feel 🥹

Check out my reel here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqgEKCRgE9h/

#books #booklr #bookblr #bookstagram #bookworm #reading #YA #mine #the way you make me feel #maurene goo

[mydarlinginej]

read my full review of throwback by maurene goo here.

Back to the Future meets The Joy Luck Club in this YA contemporary romance about a Korean American girl sent back to the ’90s to (reluctantly) help her teenage mom win Homecoming Queen.

Being a first-generation Asian American immigrant is hard. You know what’s harder? Being the daughter of one. Samantha Kang has never gotten along with her mother, Priscilla—and has never understood her bougie-nightmare, John Hughes high school expectations. After a huge fight between them, Sam is desperate to move forward—but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back.

To her shock, Sam finds herself back in high school . . . in the ’90s . . . with a 17-year-old Priscilla. Now this Gen Z girl must try to fit into an analog world. She’s got the fashion down, but everything else is baffling. What is “microfiche”? What’s with the casual racism and misogyny? And why does it feel like Priscilla is someone she could actually be . . . friends with?

Sam’s blast to the past has her finding the right romance in the wrong time while questioning everything she thought she knew about her mom . . . and herself. Will Sam figure out what she needs to do to fix things for her mom so that she can go back to a time she understands? Brimming with heart and humor, Maurene Goo’s time-travel romance asks big questions about what exactly one inherits and loses in the immigrant experience.

my review:

Maurene Goo was one of my favorite authors a few years ago, so I was so excited to hear about her return to YA with this book! The premise also sounded so fun, especially returning to the ’90s. In Throwback, a girl suddenly finds herself stuck in the ’90s — alongside her mother as a teenager.

Samantha Kang has always had a contentious relationship with her mother, Priscilla. She can’t understand her mother’s obsession with her being an all-American teenager when all she wants to do is live her life the way she wants to. When Sam’s grandma, who she’s incredibly close with, has a heart attack, Sam has a huge fight with her mother and orders a rideshare from a random service, only to find herself at her high school but in the ’90s. And who does she find as the queen bee there? Her mother as a teenager. Now, Sam must help her mother win Homecoming queen in order to get back—and just maybe, start to understand her mother more.

The ’90s are in right now, and I found it so funny how Sam finds herself there and realizes the trends now are much more watered down than the original trends then. She also has to learn to live without technology and a car readily available to her and what life was like before the Internet and search engines.

read my full review here.

#throwback #maurene goo #reviews #book reviews #booklr #mine #link #q

[noveltyreads]

Throwback by Maurene Goo Book Review

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Ever since I read I Believe in a Thing Called Love and Somewhere Only We Know I have loved Maurene Goo's books. When I got the review copy of Throwback I knew I was in for a treat. With a pitch like "Back to the Future meets the Joy Luck Club" how could you not get excited? I was saving this book knowing this would be my next bookish obsession and I was right! I feel a book hangover coming on.

 Throwback follows Samantha Kang, a seventeen year old girl who has a rocky relationship with her mother. Where Sam perceives her mom as cold, stoic and obsessed with presenting a good image, Samantha can't help but feel like they are worlds apart. When a fight leads to Sam taking a magical ride share all the way back to 1995, Sam realises that maybe her mom and her have more in common than first thought. She realises that by helping her mom win Homecoming Queen and preventing a fight afterwards between her and her grandmother she can return to her timeline and complete the mission she was brought back in time for.

Admittedly, this book took me a while to get into. I wanted it to be a little more fast paced because it did have a slow build up. The build up was necessary to develop the characters and their backstories but I was just waiting for a bit more action during the first two thirds of the book. 

Action aside though, the build up was necessary because it meant we wouldn't be able to connect with Priscilla and Sam otherwise. We were meant to side with Sam of the present and see Priscilla as unreasonable but in all honesty, both characters had their flaws and none of them could be framed as bad, just misunderstood. This was the case when Sam time traveled to when her mom was a teenager where she discovered the girl behind her mom's tough exterior. Sam started understanding her and her mom started understanding her back, discussing how even though they don't understand each other all the time, they still love one another and show this in ways the other may not always understand. 

It did take me a while to like Sam to be honest. She always saw her mom as unfair but in the process of showing her mom as such, she seemed that way herself. By the end though, I started to like her. I liked Priscilla, the 1995 throwback version, from the get-go. She seemed tough like her future self but I liked how the closer she and Sam got, the more those layers fell away and we got to see this girl who just wanted to fit in and live out her dreams. 

And the ending? The ending made the whole book all the more worth it. I loved every bit about the ending and found it so perfect. If you are a rom-com fan, this will definitely make you swoon and happy grin like I did reading on my iPad. I'm so happy about Priscilla's ending and Sam's ending. I'm giddy just writing about it.

All in all, if you want a feel good book with the kind of 90's vibe you felt like you've been missing, definitely give this book a read. If you're in the mood for a rom-com that's more than just the girl gets the guy with a few shenanigans thrown in the mix, that discusses big themes and has lots of heart, then this one is for you.

ACTUAL RATING: 3.9 STARS 

#maurene goo #throwback #hachette #books #bookstagrammer #booklr #bookish #book obsessed #📚 #pretty books #ya #young adult #young adult books #romcom #90's #90's books #book reviews #book reviewers #clueless #back to the future #Marty mcfly #somewhere only we know #I believe in a thing called love #ya romance #ya contemporary #bookaholic #book addict

[love-escapism-here]

Let’s just pretend it’s still AAPI month and that I’m not late dropping these recs:

YA ROMANCE

Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo (she has a lot of other books too that I bet are good)

Fake It Till You Break It by Jenn P Nguyen

29 Dates by Melissa De La Cruz

Counting Down With You by Tashie Bhuiyan

A Match Made in Mehendi by Nandini Bajpai

American Panda by Gloria Chao

Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao (I haven’t read Rent a Boyfriend yet but she also wrote that)

The Beauty of the Moment by Tanaz Bhathena (Hunted by the Sky is also on my tbr)

MORE

Anything by Marie Lu (Skyhunter, Legend, Warcross)

Anything by Elizabeth Lim (Spin the Dawn. Also I’m about to read Six Crimson Cranes and I’m super excited for that)

Thorn by Intisar Khanani

Only a Monster by Vanessa Len

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong is on my tbr

#aapi authors #aapi #aapiwomenlead #ya romance #ya #book reccs #maurene goo #jenn p nguyen #melissa de la cruz #tashie bhuiyan #nandini bajpai #gloria chao #marie lu #elizabeth kim #intisar khanani #vanessa len #hafsah faizal #chloe gong #tanaz bhathena

[rorygilmore-studying]

maurene goo to the rescue once again 🫶🏽

#the last two books i read were pretty disappointing #but i’m not even two chapters in and this one’s shaping out to be pretty good #knock on wood #throwback #maurene goo #jo.txt

[genieinanovel]

Review: Throwback

Being a first-generation Asian American immigrant is hard. You know what’s harder? Being the daughter of one. Samantha Kang has never gotten along with her mother, Priscilla—and has never understood her bougie-nightmare, John Hughes high school expectations. After a huge fight between them, Sam is desperate to move forward—but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back.To her shock, Sam finds…

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#90s fiction #book lover #book review #book review blog #books that take place in the 90s #genie in a novel #maurene goo #throwback #time travel fiction #ya book #ya fiction #young adult fiction #young adult novel

[emdroid]

These books work kind of great together.

#books #currently reading #Stay True #Throwback #Hua Hsu #Maurene Goo #personal

[dkehoe]

This Chick Read: Throwback by Maurene Goo

High schooler Samantha Kang is coasting through life. Her high school is culturally diverse and she enjoys the anonymity of her high school scene, although being the girlfriend of a popular guy does put her a little more in the limelight than she’d like. Her mother wants her to care more about her prospects for college and thinks her boyfriend is holding her back, so needless to say their…

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#amazon #book review #book reviews #books #goodreads #Maurene Goo #reading #young adult

[richincolor]

Most Anticipated Reads in April

It’s almost but not quite April yet, which means it’s time for me to totally ignore the books I should be reading from March and look ahead to my most anticipated April reads. Here’s what’s on my list...

A Whole Song and Dance by Sarvenaz Tash [Out 4/4/23!]

Nasrin Mahdavi is a Broadway triple threat—but she’s living a double life. A freshman in NYU’s prestigious musical theater program, Nasrin spends her days prepping for auditions, sweating through dance classes, and belting her heart out for the viral streaming show she’s been cast in. But on calls with her maman and baba, she’s their jigar talah, the golden child who put her theater dreams aside to follow in their entrepreneurial footsteps as a business major. At least her whole life isn’t a lie—she is taking a single business course. Except she’s kind of failing it. Cue jazz hands? Nasrin needs to bring her grade up fast if she’s going to keep her parents in the dark, so she grudgingly signs up for tutoring with the infuriatingly smug and annoyingly attractive Max. And yet...as the semester rushes by, the sparks of anger that first flew between them start to turn into a very different kind of spark. The kind she definitely does not have time for. Except when Nasrin’s charming though devious cousin takes an interest in Max too, Nasrin has to figure out exactly what has been an act—and what’s for real. Can Nasrin decide what—and who—is truly worth fighting for, and find a way to step into the spotlight as her full self?

Firebird by Sunmi [Out 4/4/23!]

Sunmi's gorgeous two-color teen graphic novel debut examines the power of resilience and reinvention, following the lives of Caroline and Kim, two queer, Asian American teenagers growing up in the suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area, as they forge an unexpected connection. Caroline Kim is feeling the weight of sophomore year. When she starts tutoring infamous senior Kimberly Park-Ocampo--a charismatic lesbian, friend to rich kids and punks alike--Caroline is flustered... but intrigued. Their friendship kindles and before they know it, the two are sneaking out for late-night drives, bonding beneath the stars over music, dreams, and a shared desire of getting away from it all. A connection begins to smolder... but will feelings of guilt and the mounting pressure of life outside of these adventures extinguish their spark before it catches fire?

Throwback by Maurene Goo [Out 4/11/2023!]

Back to the Future meets The Joy Luck Club in this YA contemporary romance about a Korean American girl sent back to the ’90s to (reluctantly) help her teenage mom win Homecoming Queen. Being a first-generation Asian American immigrant is hard. You know what’s harder? Being the daughter of one. Samantha Kang has never gotten along with her mother, Priscilla—and has never understood her bougie-nightmare, John Hughes high school expectations. After a huge fight between them, Sam is desperate to move forward—but instead, finds herself thrown back. Way back. To her shock, Sam finds herself back in high school . . . in the ’90s . . . with a 17-year-old Priscilla. Now this Gen Z girl must try to fit into an analog world. She’s got the fashion down, but everything else is baffling. What is “microfiche”? What’s with the casual racism and misogyny? And why does it feel like Priscilla is someone she could actually be . . . friends with? Sam's blast to the past has her finding the right romance in the wrong time while questioning everything she thought she knew about her mom . . . and herself. Will Sam figure out what she needs to do to fix things for her mom so that she can go back to a time she understands? Brimming with heart and humor, Maurene Goo’s time-travel romance asks big questions about what exactly one inherits and loses in the immigrant experience.

#a whole song and dance #throwback #maurene goo #firebird #sunmi #sarvenaz tash #ya lit

[madlovenovelist]

Books being published in April 2023 that hit a little different

There are 5 novels being released in April that are tickling my fancy (and 2 I’m still deciding upon) : a lot of different genres, and if I wasn’t on a book buying ban I’d purchase them all! Throwback – Maurene Goo Back to the Future meets The Joy Luck Club in this YA contemporary romance about a Korean American girl sent back to the ’90s to (reluctantly) help her teenage mom win Homecoming…

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#2023 #action #amreading #anticipated #April #books I want #Casey Carlisle #contemporary #Emily Henry #F. T. Lukens #fantasy #Fiction #Happy Place #If I See You Again Tomorrow #LGBT+ #LGBTIA+ #literature #Maurene Goo #Megan Miranda #mystery #Ness Brown #new releases #queer #reading #romance #science fiction #Spell Bound #suspense #T.R. Hendircks #TBR

[elmundoestahechodefrasesyletras]

Eramos como las estrellas qué vemos desde la Tierra: el recuerdo de algo que ya se ha extinguido.

#libros #notas #frases #citas #escritos #maurene goo #como en una canción de amor