This was a really cute and heartwarming story. The pacing felt a bit off at times, but I loved the writing style, which made me fly through the book. I honestly would love seeing some companion novels about Alicia and Hana.

I have to say, I was very put off by the twerking, which seemed random, while telling off your boss. How exactly do you black out and start twerking if you are a person who claims to have never done so. I did really enjoy the relationship and the way they communicated through the Etsy shop instagram. However, I’m not sure how old Kimmie is supposed to be, but she reads like early 20s. I understand she has been sheltered for most of her life, but she never took anything seriously it seemed like due to daydreaming about Matt. I know the book was meant to be light hearted, but Kimmie was really in a bad way and couldn’t focus on fixing it because a boy liked her.
This had a lot of potential, but just fell flat for me.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

This was incredibly cute! Books with a lot of texting-based dialogue can sometimes feel labored, but this one didn't.

Thank you to NetGalley and author Lyn Liao Butler for this eARC

I really enjoyed Crazy Bao You.
In the beginning I felt a bit disconnected and found the whole twerking thing was odd - like why is she twerking while yelling at her boss?? Wjat would prompt that? Especially if she doesn’t usually dance/twerk! But the book soon sucked me in and I was hooked.
I really enjoyed the romance between Kimmie & Matt - it felt very organic and believable in the way it developed. I do wish the whole lying about her looks wasn‘t dragged out as long - I didn‘t enjoy the multiple scenes where she tries to tell him but then ends up not confessing for one reason or another.
However, I also really liked that we didn‘t just get a romance.
There is Kimmies adoption & meeting her birth mother. Matt following his passion of becoming a firefighter and his complicated relationship with his dad.
The side character were also very well fleshed out. Each had their own personality and I also really like the depiction of our MCs relationship with these different people. They just all felt so real & relatable!
I could‘ve done withoit the last conflict, but all in all Crazy Bao You was a very enjoable read and I‘d definitely recommend it.
3.5 stars

a cute and charming romcom that was delightful.

thank you to netgalley and to the publisher for this review copy.

A cutesy story about falling in love with a person without meeting them. This book is a quick read filled with quirky characters who capture your heart and are super relatable. A romance which is not coated in too much sugar and moves along at a good pace. Kimmy is really the best central character you could ask for. The story touches upon adoption in a heart-warming way too. A god book to curl up with after a rough or long day.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc
I was really wanting to like this book but I had to dnf it I couldn’t deal with her catfishing and honestly just being a horrible person. She quit her job and just randomly starting twerking???? Like really that just sounds to cheesy and cringy to even imagine I got secondhand embarrassment just from that and couldn’t come back from it
Like I said I really wanted to like this book the cover the name the concept was cute and it could of been better I just felt like this just wasn’t for me I will definitely try more books from this author tho

Not going to lie- when I got this book it, was purely for the title and cover. I mean, it's so cute! But I was quickly pulled right into the story. "Crazy Bao You" is such a great balance of happy and funny with an emotional side to it as well. The characters were wonderful! Kimmie was so much fun to read about and is just so down to earth, she feels relatable- but not too 'perfect story character'. Then we have firefighter Matt, who's funny and just shy of grumpy at first, and I enjoyed his time at the firehouse quite a bit! My grandfather was firefighter, so going back to the firehouse setting was quite nostalgic for me. I loved the way the characters developed on the page, it truly felt like I was getting to know them! I also really liked how the shops' social media posts were sprinkled in, it felt like just the right amount. I honestly don't have anything negative to say about this book, it was a wonderful fun summer read that I highly recommend!

okay, i super enjoyed this book!! it was such a fun time and i really hope that you pick it up when it comes out! and as always, thank you so much to netgalley for letting me read this book early! what a delight!!!!

I started this book yesterday and just finished it. It was such a cute story about putting yourself out there even when you didn’t want to and finding more than you ever thought possible. I feel like I learned about baos and Korean culture as well as Taiwanese culture. It was a fun read.

Not a fan of book where the main character is misleading other intentionally. DNF


********************I received an ARC for my honest opinion from NetGalley,********************

The debut romcom from women's fiction and thriller writer Lyn Liao Butler. I really enjoyed this opposites attract, dual POV romance between an Oklahoma fashion designer who goes viral and an NYC firefighter who become friends online.

Full of mistaken identity and family secrets this was a heartwarming friends to lovers closed door romance. Fun and heartfelt and good on audio too narrated by Gabriel Spires and Jennifer Aquino. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

If you like cringe, this is the book for you. It wasn’t bad but there was a little too much cringe and too many problems that popped up. I might’ve enjoyed it a little more had the book just focused in on one or two.

It was an easy read and went pretty fast so I tolerated what annoyed me.

I needed just needed a little more focus or for the book to go all in and embrace the crazy.

This was an okay book.
I felt it did read a little young and at times a bit immature.
But I liked the journey Kimmie went on, the questions and issues she raised with her upbringing and self discovery.
I loved Nana she was great and needed a bigger role.
One thing I thought was weird was that there were some really racy thoughts, but the book was black out. Not even fade to black, just straight blacked out. It didn’t quite work and felt as if the spicy scenes had simply been removed. It didn’t fit.
Still, this was a solid book, with some good self discovery, if a little bit silly.

I did not finish this book... maybe I'm just not a fan of the author's writing, but just wasn't my cup of tea. The author writes about mixed race identity in a way that makes them exotic ("Her father was half white and half Mexican, while her mother was Japanese. She'd gotten the best of both her parents, with long dark brown hair...") which I've seen in her other book, Someone Else's Life. As someone who also lived in Oklahoma for five years, it also doesn't really seem like the book is contextualized (more like, let's pick a random state that's in the middle of nowhere). Oklahoma has its own rich history and Asian American communities. While the synopsis seemed interesting, the author seems to exoticize and decontextualize their writing.

Everyone knows someone who always has bad luck following them at every turn. It’s like watching Lindsey Lohan constantly trip and spill and get rained on in the movie Just My Luck.

Kimmie Park is that unlucky soul in Crazy Bao You by Lyn Liao.

While Kimmie’s happy making tote bags and wristlets for her Etsy customers, working her day job at craft boutique Let Her Rip is becoming intolerable, especially when the store’s owner Rip van Patten becomes too much to handle. So, one day Kimmie says adios with dramatic flair, twerking and dancing while making a speech to Rip about his treatment of fellow worker bees.

Unfortunately this little display, recorded by fellow coworker friend Michelle goes viral at the same time Kimmie’s Etsy business, My Crafty Bao, takes off. And that’s not the only bad luck she stumbles into. Kimmie posts a photo of her best friend Alicia modeling one of her creations to her store’s Instagram profile. Her followers love the photo, mostly because they think that Alicia — who is actually a part-time model — is Kimmie.

This is a bit of a problem considering she’s hit it off with recent customer Matt West via Instagram and he’s never seen her before. Now, he thinks Kimmie is Alicia. But who knew she would meet a firefighter from across the country online and connect with him while discussing a handmade tote bag for his grandmother?

Deferred Dreams and Cultural Identity
Lyn Liao also writes women’s fiction, and that’s evident through the heroine’s emotional journey of dealing with her fears of loss and guilt for pursuing her own dreams. Kimmie has been stuck in Oklahoma all her life despite wanting to go to New York City and study fashion at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) because of a fatal hiking accident her parents had when she was a teenager. A crippling fear that she would lose everything if she went after her dream kept her from boarding a plane or leaving Oklahoma and getting a fashion degree.

Another strong theme here as in most if not all of Liao’s books is cultural representation and the sense of belonging that one can achieve when connecting with their culture. Kimmie was given up for adoption to Korean parents, and while she knew she was adopted, she thought that her mother was Chinese. It turns out that her birth mother is Taiwanese.

Similar to Liao’s domestic thriller Someone Else’s Life (which is penned under the name Lyn Liao Butler), the main character — and the reader — explores her culture through, among other things, food. In Crazy Bao You, we’re not only exposed to Chinese baos, but many other Asian dishes as Kimmie not only relishes in the culture she grew up with but is now being exposed to a part of her that she didn’t know before.

Happily Ever After Romance
Even with all the serious issues and cultural representations, above all this is a romance, HEA included. NYFD Firefighter Matt West buys a tote from Kimmie’s Etsy store for his grandmother’s birthday. He meets Kimmie sight unseen in the zoomer version of online dating: sliding into someone’s DMs on Insta (and if you don’t know what I just said … get in the know, like Matt’s grandma). Kimmie doesn’t have a personal social media account, and other than this viral video — which she refuses to link to her Etsy shop because she’s embarrassed by it — Matt has never truly seen Kimmie. But he can’t help but fall in love with her personality, her wit and her charm, as they take their relationship from the ‘Gram to phone conversations.

The heat level here is sweet-steamy, which if you haven’t heard of it you’ll probably think it’s an oxymoron. I did. This means that while there is a little more than kissing on page, the book doesn’t have any open-door love scenes. In a lot of sweet-steamy books, the language is also somewhat risqué — there may be cursing and other colorful language. This heat level is perfect for those who love a romantic comedy but aren’t fans of too much steam. If you were comfortable with, for instance, Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron, you’ll be comfortable here.

For readers who love to see the unlikely heroine come out on top and get a hot firefighter to boot, this book is for you. This cute romantic comedy will make you laugh and give you hope with its guaranteed HEA.

The title was the first thing I noticed about the book. The title is so cute and the book lived up to it. I really enjoyed the premise of an Etsy shop owner finding love through Instagram dms. It's a modern love story that I don't find myself reading a lot and I liked how the story played out. I would have liked to see some of the serious conversations flushed out a bit more, but overall I thought this was a fun book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Lyn Liao Butler for access to an arc of the book.

I’ve never read a book by this author before but it was really cute rom com! I liked the relationship Matt had with his Nana and how Matt and his dad worked things out.

Some things I didn’t love was how long it took for Kimmie to tell Matt about who she really was and Matt’s nonchalant reaction to it when she did. It seemed like there was a lot of build up for a few paragraphs of resolution.

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I loved the title and the characters themselves, and I especially loved reading about the characters' jobs because i haven't read many books with main characters being an Etsy store owner or a firefighter. The catfishing trope and the instant love trope has mostly been a miss for me but I still wanted to give this book a try because of the characters but the pacing of the book felt off and the book just wasn't keeping me engaged in the story. The characters had some cute moments which I enjoyed and some other nice aspects like the found family trope with the FMC, her aunt, and her best friend.

Crazy bao you, a cute title and a good romance book.
I like the storyline of the book and how matt and Kim developed their relationship through various mishaps like catfishing , long distance and all. But the book was pretty much predictable but fun too. What I would've appreciated really is , IF the book had been edited a little bit more decently. The pacing was off for me and there were times when I was just browsing through the book.

It's a cute story and a fun romance to read on a simple day.