On Our Bookshelves: Loveboat, Taipei

***

NOVEL: Loveboat, Taipei

AUTHOR: Abigail Hing Wen

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2020

REVIEW: 

***

I happened to meet Abigail Hing Wen (virtually—there’s still a pandemic going on!) through a friend, and she mentioned that she’d recently published a young adult novel.  Intrigued that this attorney and expert in artificial intelligence also worked in a creative field, I picked up a copy.

***

I am pleased to say that I quite enjoyed Loveboat, Taipei.  It concerns Ever Wong, recent high school graduate, who gets sent by her overbearing parents to an educational summer program, Chien Tan (in English, the Overseas Compatriot Youth Taiwan Study Tour).  Expecting a strict course of study, she finds herself, quite unexpectedly, in what the students call “Loveboat.”  

The program’s nickname is quite appropriate, as there’s extremely lax supervision of the young participants. Ever finds her first taste of freedom exhilarating–romance, sex, nightlife, alcohol, exploring Taipei. She makes mistakes, as do her new friends–they are careless with each other’s reputations, and with each other’s hearts.  There’s a lot of drama, and an awful lot of plot here: hookups, glamour photo shoots, clubbing, a talent show, make-believe dating, actual dating, an injury, snake-blood sake. There are also many social issues that come up in the course of the term–the immigrant narrative, dating violence, non-consensual pornography, depression, suicidal ideation, learning disabilities, racism, gender stereotypes, dysfunctional families, the plight of the Taiwanese indigenous population.  Somewhat unrealistically, Ever and her friends all land on their feet, problems resolved, ready for the world.  (Wouldn’t it be fantastic if life really worked like that?)

***

Ever’s a likable protagonist in what ends up being both a romance and a coming of age story, as she moves from obedience, to rebellion, to a more thoughtful understanding of who she is and what she wants, managing to navigate, by the end, both her parental expectations, and her own artistic aspirations for her future.  Can a summer abroad really change the direction of your life?  Well, at age 18 it certainly seems that way, and the end of the summer brings our heroine to a very satisfactory conclusion.

***

I was pleased to learn that ACE Entertainment has acquired the film rights–I think the frenetic energy of Ever’s crazy summer would work well as a movie, and I’d love to see the night markets, the dance sequences, the hot springs, the beer gardens, and a bunch of Asian actors getting a chance to play some intriguing roles that go beyond the usual stereotypes. 

***

RATING (one to five whistles, with five being the best): 3 Whistles

***

HOW TO PURCHASE: Amazon

***

Laura LaVelle is an attorney and writer who lives in Connecticut, in a 100-year-old house, along with her husband, two daughters, and a cockatiel.

Laura can be contacted at laura@newswhistle.com.

***

Book Cover Courtesy of Harper Collins

***

ALSO ON OUR BOOKSHELVES:

A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe

A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman

A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler

A Room With a View, E.M. Forster

A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley

A Wandering Eye: Travels with My Phone, Miguel Flores-Vianna

After the Fall, Dan Santat

Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

An Almond for a Parrot, Wray Delaney

An English Murder, Cyril Hare

An Exaltation of Larks, James Lipton

An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer

Anne Of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

Arthur & George, Julian Barnes

Ayesha at Last, Uzma Jalaluddin

Before the Fall, Noah Hawley

Bleak House, Charles Dickens

Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon

Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan

Books for Living, Will Schwalbe

Bunker Hill, Nathan Philbrick

Burmese Days, George Orwell

Cannery Row, John Steinbeck

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast

Carols and Chaos, Cindy Ansty

Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

Cloudstreet, Tim Winton

Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith

Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

Death in Profile, Guy Fraser-Sampson

Decorating a Room of One’s Own, Susan Harlan

Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill

Diary of a Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield

Doctor Jazz, Hayden Carruth

Ed Emberly’s Drawing Book of Animals, Ed Emberly

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman

Endangered Pleasures, Barbara Holland

Envious Casca, Georgette Heyer

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin

Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie

Frederica, Georgette Heyer

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg

Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers

Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Gmorning, Gnight! Little Pep Talks for Me & You, Lin-Manuel Miranda

Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee

Good Poems, Garrison Keillor

Gowanus Waters, Steven Hirsch

Grey Mask, Patricia Wentworth

H is for Haiku, Sydell Rosenberg

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne

Heads in Beds, Jacob Tomsky

Hemingway Didn’t Say That, Garson O’Toole

Here is New York, E.B. White

Heretics & Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton

Hide My Eyes, Margery Allingham

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin

How to Bake π–An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics, Eugenia Cheng

Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

I Will Always Write Back, Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda with Liz Welch

If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino

In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Stephanie Barron

Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook, edited and revised by Cyndi Giorgis

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain

Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

Lexicon, Max Barry

Lizard Music, Daniel Pinkwater

Longbourn, Jo Baker

Madeleine’s Ghost, Robert Girardi

Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz

Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer

Momo, Michael Ende

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan

My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

New York New York, Richard Berenholtz

Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik

Novel Advice, Jay Bushman

On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder

Once on a Time, A.A. Milne

One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson

Out of the Blackout, Robert Bernard

Parnassus on Wheels & The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

Plotted: A Literary Atlas, Andrew DeGraff

Possession, A.S. Byatt

Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett

Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle…and Other Modern Verse, Stephen Dunning, Edward Lueders, and Hugh Smith

Ringworld, Larry Niven

Rose Cottage, Mary Stewart

Rose Madder, Stephen King

Sanditon, Jane Austen and Another Lady

Secrets and Lies, Selena Montgomery

Selected Poems of Langston Hughes

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rivelli

Sing and Shine On!, Nick Page

Snow, Orhan Pamuk

Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh

Sorcery and Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer

Still the Promised Land, Natwar Gandhi

Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand, Alexander Elder

Strength in What Remains: Tracy Kidder

Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart

Tales of the Unexpected, Roald Dahl

Tall Blondes: A Book About Giraffes, Lynn Sherr

The Alienist, Caleb Carr

The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Ed., Lewis Carroll & Martin Gardner (with original illustrations by John Tenniel)

The Billionaire’s Vinegar, Benjamin Wallace

The Book of Forgotten Authors, Christopher Fowler

The Book of Imaginary Beings, Jorge Luis Borges

The Cat Who Went to Heaven, Elizabeth Coatsworth

The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith

The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes, Devoney Looser

The Dancer of Izu, Kawabata Yasunari

The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

The Great Passage, Shion Miura

The Guest List, Lucy Foley

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson

The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs

The Ice House, Minette Walters

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

The Longbourn Letters, Rose Servitova

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman

The Madwoman and the Roomba, Sandra Tsing Loh

The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks

The Martian, Andy Weir

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo

The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, P.D. James

The Missing Piece, Shel Silverstein

The Modern Kids, Jona Frank

The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah

The Mother & Child Project, Hope Through Healing Hands (ed.)

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart

The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue

The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion

The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister

The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel (illustrator), Maurice Sendak (introduction)

The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker

The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin

The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami

The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin

The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo

The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer

The Three Questions, Jon J Muth

The Translator, Nina Schuyler

The Truth About Unicorns, Bonnie Jones Reynolds

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce

The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories, Saki

The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang

The Weird World of Wes Beattie, John Norman Harris

The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin

The Woman in Black, Susan Hill

The Women in Black, Madeleine St John

They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose

Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe

This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader, Joan Dye Gussow

Touch Not the Cat, Mary Stewart

Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck

Up At the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham

Vinegar Girl, Anne Tyler

Ways of Seeing, John Berger

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

What If?, Randall Munroe

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

Worth a Thousand Words, Brigit Young

You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, Eleanor Roosevelt

84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff