Do they bang in this one? No, dear reader, they do not. Everything is OMG!SUCH A BIG DEAL, even when it's not, and that can get exhausting. I think this is a reflection on Jas, who is immature, and that's okay because people grow and develop at all stages, but that being said, there is a very 'YA' flavor to the writing that's kind of reminiscent of Meg Cabot's flighty, super breathless style of narrating. There's lovely descriptions of food (YAS FOOD), and the heroine also talks about the struggle of growing up and finding her own path while bearing the weight of her parents' struggle and hardships, and I feel like that message is probably going to resonate with a lot of people who are the children of immigrant parents. The heroine's parents are Cambodian refugees of Chinese descent who lived briefly in Vietnam, so they can speak Mandarin, Khmer, and Vietnamese. 👍 The way the heroine's cultural heritage is integrated into the book. I also like how they fight about realistic things and not ridiculous things for the sake of drama. Alex was really cute and I liked his interactions with the heroine. A four-year college is not a guarantee of a job right after school. So I appreciated seeing that rep here, especially since the heroine went to a four-year college. Sometimes it's literally the only option apart from being unemployed and people judge you so hard for it. It sucks when people you know are either happily married and/or working at a tech company, and you're the person who can't 'adult' working minimum wage with a bunch of teenagers. 👍 The anxiety of being the person in your social circle with a 'bad' job. I want a matcha donut right now, and let's leave it at that. I could get on my soapbox and rant about how people take way less from heroines than they do from heroes, and basically seem to look for any excuse to hate on women in fiction for being too-too anything, but we'll save that for another time, yes? I felt like her worrying and fretting and stalkerish tendencies were actually pretty accurate for someone (i.e.

Honestly, I was surprised at all the hate Jasmine got as a heroine. That said, there were a couple flaws, so this ended up being a three star review. The many donut references were also on point. Now that I've read it, I'm kind of surprised it has such low ratings! It's very cute and well-written and I really related to Jasmine, the heroine. and then never read it! I know, right? The shame! Especially since it's a food-themed romance and I tend to really love those, even though I'm not usually a fan of fluffy romance (food ones being the obvious exception). I bought THE DONUT TRAP when it went on sale on Kindle a while back.

It's AAPI month and I've been trying to read as many of the Asian-authored books on my Kindle as I can.

The donut trap a novel