A review by jess_mango
The Shade Under the Mango Tree by Evy Journey

3.0

Hmmm. I selected this book based on the blurb describing it as an #ownvoices/multi-cultural interest novel. At its core though it is really a romance between Luna and Lucien, two rather introspective and intense young people living in California. Luna was raised most of her life, by her grandmother in Hawaii. At her grandmother's house was a large mango tree that never bore fruit. The family liked to sit in the plentiful shade of this mango tree (hence the title!). Luna is given a journal at the a Moleskine journal while in high school and spills her soul into it. Luna later moves back to California to live with her parents and siblings. There she also goes to college to study Literature. One day she forgets her journal at a coffee shop where it is found by Lucien, a young architect. Lucien reads the journal and becomes fascinated by Luna. The two later meet and so the story goes...

I was a bit lukewarm on this one. I didn't particularly like either character and honestly it seemed like 2 different books: one about Luna and Lucien and their connection through the journal and the other about Luna's time in Cambodia as part of the Peace Corps. It just didn't quite click with me though the author did have some wonderful descriptions in the book. A good chunk of the book was written as journal entries or emails, this gave it more of an introspective quality and there was less of the characters actually interacting with each other.


Thank you to the publisher for the review copy!

This book counts towards the Popsugar 2021 Reading Challenge Task #36: Read a book with fewer than 1000 reviews of goodreads (only has 19 other reviews at the time of my reading)