Title: Lunar Love

Author: Lauren Kung Jessen

Rating: 3.6/5

Hey hey, it’s MJ,

            Here is to a new year and plenty of new Book of the Month books, I want to branch out a little more this year, but in retrospect I did that last year and got really disappointed by a few books that I got in my boxes throughout the year itself. 

            Well, for January there was like three books that I thought sounded really great, this was one of them. I love a good rom-com we all should know that by now because that tends to be what I gravitate toward because I love stories about love, I always have. Though in the last year or so that has changed slightly to different kinds of love stories. 

            If you want to read the book and don’t want spoilers, cool, I will see you with the next post, because this one for sure will have spoilers. 

            It was very clean, if you are someone who is worried about spice, this was very very tame compared to some of the books that I have read in the past, very sweet, very cute. That’s about it with that. 

            I love the character of Olivia, she is head strong, strong willed, anxious, and an over thinker. Her family is absolutely hilarious and I wish that my grandmother had been like her Po Po, that would have made my life so much easier. I loved how traditions were integrated throughout the novel and that was such a fun thing to experience. I know very little about Chinese cultural festivals, I don’t but they are super interesting. 

            Having a whole matchmaking service around your zodiac animal was a fascinating concept, I know that is something that happens, matchmaking and online dating do go hand in hand, I have chosen to stay away from both. I am the year of the monkey and that seems ridiculous, but I know so many women who ask their dates what their star sign is, so I get it. I am on the cusp so if you ask some, I am an Aries and others I am a Taurus, it’s very interesting. I have done my star chart; do I believe in it completely? No, but do I understand how when you are born might shape your traits? Yes.

            So going between Olivia’s matchmaking service and Bennett’s app using a very pared down version of what Olivia does make for some great tension. I love a good enemies to lovers and their meet cute was super cute. Learning how to be less analytical for Bennett and more open for Olivia, it showed so much growth for both of them throughout the whole book.

            Alright, it was cute, but it was also incredibly predictable, I called the ending pretty much as soon as the app was introduced, as soon as Bennett’s job was revealed. The third act breakup didn’t make much sense to me over all to be completely honest, it really didn’t and felt out of place and a little forced, like they have to be separated to come back together. They didn’t need to be, her grandmother’s death was a huge plot point that made me sad, that could have been the thing, but here we are. 

            The whole sub-plot with the real estate agent didn’t make sense, it really didn’t fit into the storyline and it was so sparse that it just felt like a footnote, another thing to bring them together and that didn’t make sense to me. 

            The podcast bet was interesting and a more and more common trope, the manipulation on both sides made it a little weird, but again, it worked out in the end and that was what I wanted to see. 

            It was of course a happily ever after and if it wasn’t I wouldn’t call it a romance novel, if it doesn’t end happily ever after or at least happily for now it doesn’t make much sense to me. 

            Super quick read, I read through it in two days and enjoyed it, it was just predictable, so very predictable; which in some ways is expected with romance novels, but not in others. 

            Alright, well this is the first book of the year so I don’t have much to link, I’ll link December of last year because that will have the links to all of the months of last year if you want to go and see what I read from Book of the Month last year. 

            I will be back later in the week with another post, but until then, I hope that everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy. 

-MJ