Review: The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo

The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo

Published by Farrar Straus Giroux on May 2018
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 336
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn't so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute. Maybe Clara actually feels invested in her dad’s business. What if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind?

With Maurene Goo's signature warmth and humor, The Way You Make Me Feel is a relatable story of falling in love and finding yourself in the places you’d never thought to look

Review:

As always, Maurene Goo charms and delights in this novel about a trouble maker who finds herself working for her father’s food truck in hot LA alongside her arch nemesis.

I don’t know what I loved more – the story of friendship or the food descriptions! Through the book, my mouth watered at the very tasty descriptions of items the KoBra served up. It made me want to run out and eat while reading the book. (Thanks Ms. Goo. I’ve now gained like 10 pounds because of your book.)

Just kidding.

The Way You Make Me Feel is the right tone, tempo and feeling to pull me out of my reading slump. I really liked Clara who was equal parts smart-ass and good daughter. Her enemy Rose, her new food truck partner, was a great juxtaposition to Clara’s free lifestyle. Rose is centered, driven and straight edged while Clara is … well, not. And not in a bad way. She’s the misfit friend you would be rooting for, and probably wave at when you walked by detention. Their friendship grows really nicely, organically, overcoming obstacles and showcasing their differences. That’s the heart of the book and it made me really warm and fuzzy for my female friendships.

The guy Hamlet is cute and fun and just NICE. Yay for nice guys. I like it that he wasn’t a brooding/stalker/glimmering vampire type. He was charming and refreshingly nice, kind and oh CUTE ASIAN BOY. Swoooon.

The other big heart of the story was Clara and her relationship with her parents. I love how different each parent was and how she related to both in different ways. No one was the bad guy and I loved how her and her dad love each other so fiercely.

Overall, The Way You Make Me Feel is the perfect summer book to be read by the beach, food truck nearby. I love love love it. Now, excuse me while I go run after the  Korean food truck that just passed my house.