4/5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley, the publishers, and Kara H. L. Chen for allowing me to read and review this book.

This book follows an Asian American seventeen-year-old girl who has just arrived at her fourth new school in seven years. Being used to being the new girl, she has mastered the act of keeping her head down and becoming invisible while at school. Although she never makes friends this way, she also escapes the eyes of the bullies. That is until she this school. With a racist bully, Olivia can no longer take being quiet, however, this makes her the primary target of not just the bullies at the school, but also the bullies of the internet.

This book is full of making friends, fighting bullies, standing up against racism, surviving high school, and teenage angst. There is romance, friendship, and learning to survive high school - not just disappearing.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is trying to survive high school, especially minorities and transfer students. I would also recommend this to anyone who just enjoys movies like Mean Girls and other coming of age type of entertainment.

This was an absolutely fantastic debut novel, and I look forward to whatever Kara writes next!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Though titled Love and Resistance this pleasantly seemed more about the resistance.
Resisting against racism, classism, and toxic standardized systems.
And learning that in the end it’s not always about the big dramatic things, sometimes it’s to small everyday actions of ordinary people that make the biggest difference.

I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. I have to say that I love Livvy and she just arrive at new school again. This is due to her mother being in the military. She is used to be kind of invisible but that all changes when the school's Queen Bee says something and Livvy can't let it go. She stands up for herself and this is how she ends up as part of the Nerd Net. A group who remain anonymous while fighting those that will hold others down or back while remaining invisible. It was teenage drama and high school drama that most of us know all too well. It was a book that I found relatable.

This was a fun concept! I liked the idea of it more than I actually enjoyed reading it though. I think this was really a case of me being the wrong audience for this- I do enjoy reading YA but this felt a bit younger than I anticipated.

I would love to interview Kara on my podcast, Raise Your Words. Love & Resistance is the perfect book especially during this time. It's full of heart and romance. You'll fall in love with Griff. Livvy is such a fun protagonist.

I did not have time to download and read this book before it was archived, so I'm unable to leave a review.

This was requested when I first found out about NetGalley and I had requested so many ARCs that I could not get to all of them before they were archived. I really wanted to get to this one, as it seemed interesting. If I can find this somewhere for a reasonable price, I will try to get it! I am giving this book three stars, as I don't want to give it a good or bad rating, since I did not get to it.

Love and Resistance by Kara H.L. Chen was such a cute and enjoyable read! I really liked that this book had good pacing and it never felt like a scene was dragging. I love the whole idea of a secret society of nerds! I had never read anything with that concept, so it was nice to read something a little different and nonfamiliar. Would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting a light and fluffy YA romance!
Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

This was fun, enjoyable and quick!

The concept is great and it is executed well. It was everything I'm expecting in a teen novel.

I enjoyed this book and the characters were very dynamic. The book covered some serious topics of racism and bullying, and I really appreciated the perspective of everyone having individual, complex circumstances. Olivia, the main character, underwent a lot of positive development as she opened herself up to new people and mindsets. Her interest in history and government was so cool. Overall, this was a great story with a lot of ups and downs and some really cute romance.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for the eARC!

Special thanks to Rylee from SparkPoint Studio and the publisher for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 stars rounded up!

TL;DR: Love & Resistance is a YA contemporary that has an intriguing premise and delivers on it too. The story covers some tough topics such as bullying, racism/xenophobia, and the toxicity of social media culture. Although it was at times heartbreaking and emotionally angsty, it was also powerfully hopeful and I appreciated the approach the author took to handling the tough situations that Olivia and her group of friends find themselves in. I'm sure many readers will be able to relate to this story and the experiences of these high schoolers. This was a great debut by Chen and I'm looking forward to seeing what the author puts out in the future.

Love & Resistance is set in a small town high school and is a powerful coming-of-age story about friendship, and standing up for yourself and others without compromising your integrity. This book sent me on a rollercoaster of emotions from anger, frustration and sadness to hope. We follow Olivia, an Asian-American high schooler who keeps to the fringes, strives to be invisible and passes her days noticed by as few people as possible. She has heartbreaking, although not uncommon, experiences enduring extreme bullying in her previous schools and in this new one, she simply wants to remain anonymous until she graduates. Through an unexpected turn of events, that's not how her year ends up going but along the way, she learns what true friendship means and she experiences tremendous personal growth as well.

Olivia is a smart and observant teenager who has a deep love for military tactics, history and politics influenced by her immigrant grandfather and her mother in the military. I loved the way she compared the high school popularity hierarchy to militant governments and compared historical military manoeuvres to their own resistance tactics. Maybe that doesn't sound like the most appealing subject to readers but the author doesn't linger, the story is well paced and I appreciated the uniqueness of the comparison in a YA contemporary; plus, it's not an inaccurate comparison! What I really admired was the growth of Olivia's character and how she has to overcome her own biases and judgement of others and learn how what you see on the surface or what people project to the public is not always the full story. Obviously, this doesn't excuse bullying and other nasty acts but standing up for yourself and resisting bullies does not mean they should be treated in the same demeaning and nasty way they treat others. I fully agree—even if it might mean that they don't immediately get the comeuppance you feel is warranted by their wrongdoings, and I loved how Olivia confronted her own actions and took accountability. While it did frustrate me, I respected that the author didn't make the bullies suddenly remorseful because that's not the reality for many.

The other thing I really loved about this book is the friendships. This self-proclaimed nerd group that acted as an "underground network" that worked to subvert the powerful group of populars at school was like a found family. Their friendship gave them space to be themselves and they were so supportive of each other while still encouraging one another to consider different perspectives and to always choose kindness to not stoop as low as their "oppressors". This was the first time Olivia had been surrounded by a steady group of friends and it was great to see her slowly open up and accept their friendship, albeit begrudgingly at first. There's also a very sweet romance between Olivia and Griff, and another couple in the friend group and it was SO ADORABLE—ah, those butterfly feels. 🥰

Overall, this was a really enjoyable YA contemporary and I'm glad that it was put on my radar!

Enough is enough for one Taiwanese-American teen who goes up against her school's VIPs - with the help of some new friends. Olivia Chang, daughter of a military mom, is at her fourth school in seven years; she's created rules for survival: stay anonymous. Embrace isolationism. Soon enough, she'll be out of this little Ohio town and off to college, and leave this toxic mess behind. But she ends up on the In Crowd's radar when she hears Mean Girl leader Mitzi Clarke make a racist comment about how certain students skew test results; Livvy speaks up, and war is declared, taking place on the social media battlefields that Mitzi and her minions dominate. Until NerdNet comes to the rescue: a quietly operating group of students who use their know-how to defend the bullied, they take up Livvy's cause and bring her into the group. Empowered by their friendship, Livvy and NerdNet work together to upend the system: but Livvy may push too hard, go too far. Taking on the cult of social media and casual racism, Love & Resistance is reading teen readers will dive into. Livvy is a complicated heroine who risks becoming the type of bully she's pushing back against, and her fellow NerdNet members have fully realized backstories, making them as realistic and likable as our heroine. The pace moves quickly and the book is compulsively readable, with much food for thought and discussion.

I should have reviewed this as soon as I finished it, because now I'm sick and can't remember anything. This was ok? A cute YA and I did really like the characters. I especially appreciated the main characters love of war history. Ha. That said, the end was lacking for me. I wanted more. I felt like they deserved more.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review!

This was a fun romp down memory lane, but it left a lot to be desired for by way of real character development that wasn't completely situationally framed. FMC's relationship with her mother is basically nonexistent, and for a high school student, she has a lot of free reign.

I enjoyed the idea of a secret nerd society - and wish I had one when I was in school! But I feel like this missed the mark on discussing why bullying, especially racist bullying, is bad.

love & revolution

“it wasn’t only in america. and it wasn’t just this time period. in other places, throughout history, people of certain races or nationalities or religions couldn’t access particular jobs or positions of power. privileged people sat in their comfortable lives and didn’t feel the need to think of others.
until the others made themselves heard.”

this book meant a lot to me. growing up, i was always the kid that wouldn’t let people pick on me. i was always the winner of verbal sparring matches, and i wasn’t afraid to make the people picking on me feel stupid for even trying. i’ve always had a strong sense of justice, and maybe it’s the tism, but i hated seeing people being picked on, especially when it was for something that they couldn’t change. double if it was just to inflate their own ego or sense of self-importance. i was never one to keep my head down and just let it happen, but sometimes it felt like i was the only one.

we open this book meeting our main character, olivia chang. she has one rule when it comes to dealing with people in her school: don’t. keep your head down, don’t make waves, be invisible. but she wasn’t always this way. however, bad experiences and her moving around a lot due to her mom’s job with the military wasn’t really conducive to making and keeping friends anyways.

olivia is fine to keep her isolationist policies until, as per usual, a partner project is assigned in her french class. while olivia wasn’t hoping for this, it’s fine. it’s whatever. it’s cool, she guesses. she’s partnered up with this guy, griff, who seems to be really nice. he’s conversational, sweet, and kinda cute. not the worst partner she could’ve ended up with.

this leads her to meeting the nerd net. it’s basically just a group of griff’s friends. they each have their own specialties, which comes in handy for what they try to do: help the little guy.

as in every school, there’s always the popular crowd. in this school, there’s mitzi. the daughter of a once-famous actress, her and her lackeys seem to rule the school. not through respect, but through fear. the nerd net, however, tries to combat this with subtle behind the scenes maneuvering in hopes of maybe changing the way things are.

i really liked griff’s character. he was a bit mysterious at the beginning, but very fun in a nerdy peter-parker-esque way. a bit goofy, teasing, and just super adorable in his interactions with olivia, or livvy, as he calls her. he has his own motivations for combating the bullying that happens in their high school, which i won’t spoil, but it’s something that really impacted his character. i knew from the beginning that livvy and griff were going to be more than friends. it’s like my sixth sense. but i enjoyed every step along the way.

one of the biggest things that i liked was the fact that livvy learns that not every person is as they seem. they all have these internal struggles that we would never know about unless they tell or show us. but i also love how the overall message is that, yeah, we all have our own crap to deal with, but it doesn’t excuse our actions. it doesn’t mean that we can be a crappy person because of it. i think that’s something we should all learn to a degree.

the rest of the nerd net was also amazing. i loved each of them so, so much. i wish we got to see more of will and peter’s backstories, though. i feel like they weren’t nearly as developed as livvy, griff, and heidi. also HEIDI. i love her so much she’s amazing and ill never stop wanting to be her with her amazing hacking skills. she’s everything i wanted to grow up to be.

Olivia is the new girl - again - who accidentally gain notoriety at her new school when Olivia stands up against a racist comment made by a popular girl, Mitzi.

Olivia joins a group who is going to take down Mitzi and restore the peace at their school. In the group, Olivia finally starts to make friends.

My Thoughts:
When I was in high school, my parents moved to Hawaiʻi island and set up a mini ranch in Volcano. I was in charge of the chickens or rather retired hens. What I learned from these old biddies (or birdies) is that the pecking order is part of the social culture of the flock. If I separated the low hen on the pecking order, the biddies already had the next lowest hen in mind. More shockingly, if I put another hen in isolation with the lowest hen, the lowest hen gleefully would become the top hen and do the same thing that was done to her. What I learned from these observations in the hendom is that social justice is antithetical to pecking order. However, these are hens, not humans. I still have hope for humans. However, social justice and equity in education has been a lifelong endeavor for me and I am entering my 31st year in education. In my observations in the middle school culture, I have also seen that how you react to the bully is also complex because they may be bullied at home, or they may be hurting too, so a hard stance on "not in my classroom," but also a hard stance on no to the behavior, not no to the person is necessary so that all middle schoolers can continue to fully form into 3 dimensional whole humans with their identities and self worth intact.

This book by Kara H.L. Chen comes pretty close to understanding that weird dynamic of facing bullying without becoming the bully. If students like this book, another book that you can give them is Queens of New York by E.L. Shen for more of what I call the strong "systems of support" that is seen in Love and Resistance.

A darker read set in a middle school, students can also be given Jennifer Chan is Not Alone by Hawaiʻi born Korean American author Tae Keller. And yes, the reason I revealed that Tae Keller is from Hawaiʻi is that even in a minority majority school system like Hawaiʻi, bullying still happens. This story is really about the cost of being different, and how the "be invisible" strategy that Olivia uses in Love and Resistance does not work. I realize that my three books I talked about in this post are all from Asian American authors who write about Asian American characters, but I think that is only as purposeful as the books I choose to read.

From the Publisher:

Seventeen-year-old Olivia Chang is at her fourth school in seven years. Her self-imposed solitude is lonely but safe. At Plainstown High, however, Olivia’s usual plan of anonymity fails when infamous it-girl Mitzi Clarke makes a pointed racist comment in class. Tired of ignoring things just to survive, Olivia defends herself.

And that is the end of her invisible life.

Soon, Olivia joins forces with the Nerd Net: a secret society that's been thwarting Mitzi’s reign of terror for months. Together, they plan to unite the masses and create true change at school.

But in order to succeed, Olivia must do something even more terrifying than lead a movement: trust other people. She might even make true friends along the way . . . if Mitzi doesn’t destroy her first.

Publication Information
Author: Kara H.L. Chen

Publisher: Quill Tree Books (July 4, 2023)

Olivia Chang’s method for staying invisible as the new Asian girl at several high schools has worked out for her. It’s lonely, but safe, and she’s pretty sure that is better.

What a unique book! Sometimes, the underdogs might get a chance to win, and this is their story. Olivia just can’t keep her mouth shut anymore when the most popular girl in her newest high school makes a racist comment blaming the Asian students for her own less-than-stellar grades. While Olivia initially regrets not holding on to her invisibility, she soon meets the secret Nerd Net, where she’ll find friends and maybe even love.

Besides just teen angst and drama, the story really makes use of Olivia’s interest in government and military strategy and structure. As the Nerd Net made plans of how to "even the playing field" at Plainstown High, Olivia weighed it all against her previous experiences, the lessons her grandfather and mother had taught about navigating the world, and what she had learned through her interest in history and governments.

While not necessarily the expected teen contemplations, Olivia’s assessments and reactions made the book so enjoyable and overall uplifting. The book earned 4 out of 5 stars and would be easy to recommend to any reader who enjoys contemporary YA fiction.