Reviews

Lunar Love, by Lauren Kung Jessen

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cinderheart's review

hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I really wanted to love this, but it fell flat for me. The main character wasn't very likable. When you're in a first person contemporary book, liking the main character is a necessity. I also struggled with believing the story itself. The scenes felt off. I could never entirely lose myself in the story, which is why I read in the first place. I also usually like to be moved very deeply by books, and this just didn't do much.

I did love the book's concept, with the Chinese zodiac at the center. Seeing the life of a Chinese-American mixed race woman was meaningful. We need more diversity in books.

I think this had a lot of potential that was just out of reach.

shannonreadss's review

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hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really loved the storyline and the many messages that this book conveyed. The food descriptions were also really good and they made me hungry. I think this story really could have benefited from dual POV though, I would’ve loved to see things from Bennett’s side.

ingaragnars's review against another edition

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3.5

I decided to read this book because it’s about the Chinese zodiac and it’s the Chinese New Year :) i wanted to branch out a bit from the very popular romance books rn and with this one I learned a lot about Chinese culture which was very interesting.

This is a debut novel and considering that I think it was good, but it wasn’t an extremely memorable book, to be honest. It was very run of the mill and predictable, but it was still enjoyable. I found myself getting quite frustrated with the main character a lot cause she was just so stubborn and I felt like she was trying to misinterpret things and get mad on purpose

Overall, a solid romance but nothing groundbreaking

katie451's review

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

rusereviews's review

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funny lighthearted sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

Lunar Love by Lauren Kung Jessen is a debut contemporary enemies-to-lovers romance. We follow our main character with first-person point-of-view.

Olivia is excited to take over her grandmother's matchmaking business, Lunar Love, until she learns of a new dating app that has turned the traditional Chinese zodiac into more "animal attraction." To learn more about her competition, she decides to use the app to find its creator, Bennet. When they both end up on a podcast together, they wager they'll find a match for each other using their respective resources, and whoever falls in love loses the bet.

It felt very appropriate that I finished this pretty close to the Lunar New Year.

Overall, this was a really cute closed-door romance. I loved a ton of the side characters, especially Olivia's grandmother Popo, and the Chinatown setting and their family business seemed very lived-in. The chemistry between our leads is solid and they have adorable banter throughout the novel.

This read like a debut, and the author's use of tense felt really awkward to me. This gets a bit better in the second half of the book, but while I was reading the first half it was pretty jarring to me. I ended up taking a lot more time to read the first half, but once I got over the midway point my reading speed picked up.

Sometimes Olivia seemed like she was written younger than she actually was. She is a very stubborn person and was kind of repetitive in her complaints and observations. This is another thing I chalk up to this being the author's first published novel. I also didn't really love that Olivia decided to lie about who she was when trying to learn more about the person behind the dating app.

I like that there are several recipes included in the back of the book, since both characters love food and there are many mentions of traditional Chinese cooking throughout the novel. I definitely plan to try some out!

Tropes in this book include: Asian American MCs, mixed-race MCs, enemies-to-lovers, slow burn, closed door, opposites attract, secrets and lies

I received a copy of this book to review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

Content Warnings

thelibbyshow's review

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emotional funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

BOTM read for January 2023.

After the first chapter with an adorable meet cute, the main protagonist became very hard to like with how she acted over the next 90 or so pages and that made for some slow reading. BUT once certain things are revealed, the book and Liv become much more enjoyable - especially almost any moment shared between Liv and Bennett as well as the final third of the book. Plus it had a great relationship with Liv and her grandmother

After getting past the rough start, I really did enjoy this book - just didn’t love it.