A review by piburnjones
Good Luck, Ivy by Lisa Yee
5.0
So many people have so much love for Ivy, I was really looking forward to this one.
This is the first Best Friend book I’ve read that wasn’t written by Valerie Tripp (see Elizabeth, Nellie and Emily). And, for that matter, also wasn’t written by the Julie author, Megan McDonald. For the first time since Addy, they actually found an own-voices author to write a non-white character.
For that reason, I give this book a lot of leeway. While some elements seem cliché, perhaps that’s just Adult Me having read a fair number of stories by and about first and second generation Asian Americans. Sometimes things start to look cliché because they were true for a lot of people. And since the author herself grew up Asian American in the ‘70s, I trust that this is good representation.
Compared to Nellie and Emily, I think Ivy’s book benefits from not sharing a household with the main character – Tripp goes out of her way to keep Samantha and Molly offstage, shortchanging the friendship in the service of trying to spotlight the friend. Here, it’s well established that Ivy and Julie only see each other on weekends, so instead we’re able to get a good picture of Ivy’s large and busy family. And between gymnastics, homework, family and Chinese school, Ivy has a very busy life herself – which is what creates the main conflict here: compete in a big deal gymnastics meet, or attend a big deal family reunion. In standard AG style, Ivy finds a way to do both, also solving some secondary problems along the way.
There’s nothing the strikes me as revolutionary or unusual about this book – and like much of Julie’s series, it hardly feels like historical fiction to me, though I imagine it might to my daughter. But it’s a strong, positive portrayal of an Asian American girl and her family, and it’s clear that Ivy’s life could easily sustain a six-book series every bit as much as Julie’s did.
This is the first Best Friend book I’ve read that wasn’t written by Valerie Tripp (see Elizabeth, Nellie and Emily). And, for that matter, also wasn’t written by the Julie author, Megan McDonald. For the first time since Addy, they actually found an own-voices author to write a non-white character.
For that reason, I give this book a lot of leeway. While some elements seem cliché, perhaps that’s just Adult Me having read a fair number of stories by and about first and second generation Asian Americans. Sometimes things start to look cliché because they were true for a lot of people. And since the author herself grew up Asian American in the ‘70s, I trust that this is good representation.
Compared to Nellie and Emily, I think Ivy’s book benefits from not sharing a household with the main character – Tripp goes out of her way to keep Samantha and Molly offstage, shortchanging the friendship in the service of trying to spotlight the friend. Here, it’s well established that Ivy and Julie only see each other on weekends, so instead we’re able to get a good picture of Ivy’s large and busy family. And between gymnastics, homework, family and Chinese school, Ivy has a very busy life herself – which is what creates the main conflict here: compete in a big deal gymnastics meet, or attend a big deal family reunion. In standard AG style, Ivy finds a way to do both, also solving some secondary problems along the way.
There’s nothing the strikes me as revolutionary or unusual about this book – and like much of Julie’s series, it hardly feels like historical fiction to me, though I imagine it might to my daughter. But it’s a strong, positive portrayal of an Asian American girl and her family, and it’s clear that Ivy’s life could easily sustain a six-book series every bit as much as Julie’s did.