The Way You Make Me Feel

When a joke goes wrong and causes a fire at Elysian High School, Clara Shin is teetering the line of getting suspended along with her arch nemesis, Rose Carter. Her father sentences Clara to work on her father's KoBra food truck which is a Korean/Brazilian fusion restaurant on wheels. The kicker is that Clara will be working KoBra with Rose.Clara is sassy, tends to not think before she acts and is always getting into trouble. She has no filter. Her father thinks that with hard work, she will learn to keep a cool and perhaps learn from Rose. On the contrast, Rose is an over achiever. She is captain of the dance team since freshman year and is part of the debate team. She takes summer courses at the local community college on top of her high school course work.Hamlet Wong works at the neighboring coffee kiosk and often visits the KoBra truck with iced drinks. Although it is plainly obviously to Clara's father and Rose that Hamlet likes Clara, Clara denies it and claims Hamlet is not her type. However, Clara and Hamlet become close over the duration of the novel. Their relationship is adorable! From flowers to grass jelly flavored kisses, the excitement of going on a date radiates from the pages.Maurene Goo created a book that is unique and humorous. I found myself chuckling when Clara has a witty comeback. However, I do agree that she needs to control herself sometimes and needs to think before she speaks. Goo did an amazing job with the character development in The Way You Make Me Feel. Clara, along with several other characters like Rose, grew a lot from the end of school until the end of summer.Each character has their own personality and they work well with the whole cast. Patrick and Felix are supportive of Clara for most of the time but I would have loved to see more backstory and interaction. However, I absolutely loved Clara's dad, Adrian. Clara's father raises Clara solely while Clara's mother is a social media "influencer" and travels the world. Clara's parents never married and her parents were only 18 when Clara was born. Adrian is a single parent who works hard trying to provide for his daughter as well as trying to be a good parent.Although Clara tries to reconnect with her mom by impulse buying a ticket for a flight and hopping on a plane to Tulum, she realizes that her father has always been the one to support and to root for Clara. Adrian is possibly one of my favorite fathers in a YA book. He cares about his daughter yet he sets boundaries between him and Clara as a learning experience for Clara. He is a lovable dad and he is a fantastic relationship with his daughter.This family dynamic differs from Rose's where Rose's parents are super strict and they quiz each other on important current news over dinners. Rose starts off being uptight but slowly eases up throughout the book. She engages in typical teenage things like gossiping about boys with Clara which helps her unwind. The contrast of a wealthy lifestyle of the Carters, the Wongs and Clara's mother compared to Clara and her dad are significant. Money can't buy everything. Friendship and family bonding are priceless. Happiness can't be bought.With the delicious lombo and picanhas, I was definitely craving the Korean Brazilian fusion food from KoBra. Throw in a sugarcane lime drink and I would be all set. The Way You Make Me Feel is a light and funny contemporary that is perfect for the summer. Goo created an exceptional book combining food, travel, romance, humor, friends and family all in one. She creates long-lasting memories of a lifetime.

Clara Shin is good at two things: getting into trouble and making people laugh. With her two friends, Patrick and Felix, Clara has coasted through her first two years of high school leaving a trail of chaos and epic pranks. Along the way she has also managed to infuriate her nemesis Rose Carter quite a few times. But that's just a bonus. It's not like Clara's an actual bully or anything.When her latest joke goes too far ending in a fight and a fire, even Clara's usually laid-back father Adrian knows that things have gone too far. Clara's plans for a laid-back summer and a vacation with her Instagram-famous influencer mom are cancelled. Instead Clara gets to look forward to working on her dad's food truck, the KoBra, to pay back the school for fire damage. Worse, she'll be working with Rose.Clara isn't sure how to deal with having actual responsibilities let alone working with uptight, perfectionist Rose whose ambitions and extracurriculars make the Obama daughters look like slackers. But there is Hamlet Wong--the boy who is as earnest and open as a Labrador, really cute, and totally not Clara's type even if he does think she's hilarious.As Clara starts to learn more about the food truck, Rose, and her own family she starts to care about what happens with the KoBra and, more importantly, what other people think of her. After years of treating life as one big joke, Clara might be ready to let herself be more than a punchline in The Way You Make Me Feel (2018) by Maurene Goo.The Way You Make Me Feel is a delightfully funny contemporary filled with food, family, and evocatively described Los Angeles locations.Clara's parents are Korean by way of Brazil--a cultural identity that comes through in their personalities as much as in the food that Adrian prepares on the KoBra--they're also young and not married, things that don't come through a lot in contemporary YA. While I'm never a fan of stories where the main character pines after an absentee parent the way Clara does with her mother. However Goo handles the inevitable dose of reality well and in a way that makes sense for her character.Clara's first person narration is acerbic, sarcastic, and often laugh out loud funny. She is used to not being well-liked and she doesn't care as long as it doesn't impact the persona she has created for herself. One of the only people to call Clara on her attitude and her bad behavior is Rose, an overachiever trying to balance dance classes, school, and her punishment on the food truck. Rose is also struggling with anxiety--the one chink in the otherwise perfect image she presents to the world.While there's some romance with Clara and the always adorable Hamlet, the main event in this novel is friendship as Clara and Rose start to understand and, much to their own dismay, appreciate each other the more they're thrown together.The Way You Make Me Feel is a funny, smart, and utterly entertaining story that reminds you it's never too late to make a few changes. A novel that's guaranteed to make you laugh and leave you smiling. Highly recommended.Possible Pairings: Unclaimed Baggage by Jen Doll, It Started With Goodbye by Christina June, The Secret Ingredient by Stewart Lewis, Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke, Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills, Your Destination is On the Left by Lauren Spieller, Pride by Ibi Zoboi

This book is a great light and fluffy summer read. It's very cute and very current, possibly a little too current for me. In the beginning the plot set up was very clunky and awkward, but once you got to know the characters it picked up. I just have to say, I absolutely did not like Clara in the beginning. She was snarky and unpleasant and I'm glad for her transformation throughout the book.

This story was okay. I almost DNF this book, but after you get through the third or fourth chapter, the book starts to pick up. And I'm glad I finished it. I liked the main character, even though sometimes she was annoying, but all in all she was a pretty funny through the book at times. Her love interest was super cute, and I appreciated the diversity in this book. It's always nice to hear from more margnalized characters because there's not a whole lot in terms of YA Rom-Com books. I'd say this was a pretty cool read, and I liked her relationship with her dad, but this book probably could've been written better--in my opinion.

I really enjoyed this story. I think what I loved most was how it largely centered on friendship and her relationship with her dad (along with romance, of course).Excited to read more from Maurene Goo.

Clara is a sharp and sassy teen with lots going on underneath. I loved this story of her getting to know herself. Highly recommend!

I love reading stories about my new home of LA, it’s always great. Watching Clara grow & learn to care throughout the story is moving in a way I’d not imagined when I started this book.

I was extremely pleased with this product.............I have never been disappointed in dealing with Amazon..........Thank you for being so wonderful !!!................I will continue to do business with you..

This is like apples and oranges compared to I Believe in a Thing Called Love!And it was equally delightful, but in a completely different way. Where Desi Lee was sweet and neurotic, Clara Shin is abrasive and laid back. Where you instantly want to root for Desi Lee, Clara needs to learn her lesson and you really have to work at liking her. I Believe was a book about romance but The Way You Make Me Feel is a book about knowing oneself.Sure there is a lovely, supportive romance here, but this book’s strength lies in its themes of personal growth, friendship, and finding yourself. Over the course of the summer Clara learns to let people in, examines how she relates to her family and friends, and learns who she can be when she doesn’t let other people put her in a box. She also tangles with hero worship and learns some hard truths about her parents.I was truly surprised at the transformation Clara underwent over the course of the book; I went from disliking this snobby brat to wanting to be friends with her!The Los Angeles backdrop and Korean-American food truck setting were sooo lush and had me positively salivating while reading. The setting became a character in and of itself, and I truly think this book would lose its magic were it set anywhere else. Just make sure you have snacks on hand while reading, because you’ll be haaaaaaaaaanging out for a food truck feed!Representation: protagonist and her parents are Korean-Brazilian-American, love interest is Chinese-American, multiple POC side characters

Actual rating 3.5 stars.An adorable little contemporary. This book made me hungry with all its talk about food. At first I thought the characters were going to be annoying, but I ended up loving them with their individual charisma.Yes, there are tropes and stereotypes in ‘The Way You Make Me Feel,’ but in a good way (well, for me.) The rebel, the nerd, the prissy one; but Maurene Goo does not shy away from quickly dismantling these stereotypes. This novel fell into my favourite wheelhouse of a light contemporary. Perfect for a lazy afternoon’s reading..The humour was great in Goo’s writing style and had me laughing out loud, I even put the book down because I was laughing so hard, my eyes blurred up with tears. I can’t remember the last time a contemporary did that for me.Great landscape and world building. I got a real feel for the LA climate and the food truck culture. Not to mention spattering of references to both Asian and Latino culture and language.We get some great character arcs, and not your usual self-acceptance thing typical to this genre. We see a real transformation in our protagonist.Our protagonist Clara is the big prankster - such a great hook - not the usual type of protagonist you get in this genre. I found her endearing from the get-go and loved reading her journey.The frenemy/antagonist, Rose is the character I liked her the most. I know girls like this, heck, I was a girl like this. Striving to be perfect, scared of doing anything wrong or being perceived as colouring outside the lines. Stress, anxiety, all rolled up tightly and hidden away from all eyes as you prepare, study, and perform. It’s isolating and all-consuming. Leaving you constantly all-too-serious, uptight, and with a short fuse. A great place to start from and a fantastic character to counter Clara.Hamlet, Clara’s love interest is a little straight-laced, and the most stereotypical of all the characters, but I had boy envy and was wishing for a Hamlet of my very own.Have to say, I love the role of a present and involved parent. Adrain, Clara’a father is a tattooed hot D.I.L.F... ‘nuf said. But it was endearing how he cared for Clara, and juggled a small business with being an outstanding parent.It is predictable, I pretty much guessed every plot point in advance – and even thought of one that never happened. But that is pretty much how it goes in most contemporaries I read. Its why I read them. The happy ending, the promise.Definitely see what all the hype was all about and keen to check out a few more of Goo’s titles. A solid recommendation from me.

this book was adorable, it was a cute summer read that I lovedI loved seeing clara's evolution as she gains more and more experience at her job, becomes friends with rose and starts to question her life choicesher relationship with hamlet was so cute, it made me smile several times while reading because they were just perfect for eachother