I did enjoy this story, but the writing style didn’t gel with me. It was an ok book overall, but am not sure if this author is for me.

3.5 stars
I enjoyed reading about Clara's (mis) adventures and seeing her growth as a character. I liked seeing her friendship form with her formerly worst enemy, although this did happen much quicker than expected. I also thought the romance was cute.

I thought Clara's family dynamic was interesting, you don't often see a stay at home dad with a mostly absent mother. I appreciated this aspect of the book and how it could be representative for a lot of teens. I also appreciated the general diversity of the characters in this book. Clara's parents are ethnically Koreans who both grew up in Brazil and it was great to see how these cultures were important to Clara and her parents. There was also a good amount of diversity featured in the side characters which was appreciated.

Overall this was a fun read with a good amount of heart. If you want an easy contemporary featuring diverse characters I'd recommend it.

Excellent book. Will recommend to my YA customers. Memorable characters. #pageturner #YAread 5 stars!

My feelings are pretty similar as the ones I had with Goo's <i>I Believe in a Thing Called Love</i>: there's some good stuff here but it wasn't quite what I hoped it would be.

What I Liked:
- Clara's absolutely the opposite of Asian stereotypes. She's a class clown who loves pranks and detests feelings. Female characters rarely get a role like that (at least as MC), so that was awesome.
- Clara's relationship with her dad is adorbs. They're like the Gilmore Girls although obviously he's a boy.
- The fact that Clara's family is Korean but her parents were born in Brazil, so there are these layers of identity that are really delightful and complex and amazing.
- Hamlet's the most precious (but on the negatives I never could get over his name being Hamlet).
- The punny food truck names.

What I Wasn't as Sure About:
- The fight between Clara and Rose at the start wasn't really established enough so they were both way over the top bitchy and it didn't really seem merited by characterization. The book improved a bunch when they became friends, but the arc felt rushed.
- Clara's friends at the start are kind of awful and there's really no resolution to that at all?
- Speaking of, there's insufficient resolution to Clara's relationship with her mom and her relationship with Rose.
- Mostly the character arcs didn't quite click and everything stayed a bit too surface level for me, and it didn't feel quite finished at the end.
- Seriously why is his name Hamlet? It's so distracting.

On the whole, this is cute and funny, but I wanted a bit more depth to it that I didn't really get. A quick read for sure and worth it for the diverse cast, I'd say.

5/5 stars!!!

This books was so sweet, I don't really have the words for how much I adored it. Somehow it made me feel like I knew Los Angeles, despite never having stepped foot in the city; I really *felt* the city's heat, the food truck culture, all of it. I love the protagonist, who is prickly on the outside but once you get past that...so good.

High-key recommend!

I dont know if its because I'm a foodie whose been working in the food service industry my whole life, or because I was raised by a fearlessly loving single dad, or because I just love romance and friendmance so much but this book hit me straight in the heart. I loved every single page in this book and read it in under 24 hours. It quickly became one of my all time favorite books. A summer vaca MUST READ!!

I posted this on May 21st but never left the review here. I'm sorry!

https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwbooks/article/BWW-Review-THE-WAY-YOU-MAKE-ME-FEEL-by-Maurene-Goo-20180521

"As I stood there surrounded by three people who had the ability to do just that-crack my chest open to all the disappointment and difficulty and grief-I knew I still wanted it. The risk of the bad stuff was so worth the good stuff. People who would be there for you even when you messed up and behaved like a little jerk? They were the good stuff."

~THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL

Are you making a list of the perfect books to read this summer? Make sure you put THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL by Maurene Goo on your list!

I've heard nothing but great things about Goo, but never read her myself until her latest release--and now I want to run out and buy her entire backlist!

What's worse than losing your entire summer vacation because of one stupid mistake? Spending it side by side with your mortal enemy. And your dad. On a sweltering food truck...


Clara Shin isn't one to take things seriously. When her friends nominate her for prom queen as a joke, she thinks it's hilarious. She doesn't intend to actually try for the title...until Rose Carver tells her to drop out. The two girls are NOT friends and Clara decides to stay in the race just to annoy her classmate. On prom night, Clara wins the crown and immediately gets into a huge feud with Rose. The two girls almost burn the school gym down and their punishment is spending the summer working on Clara's father's food truck to help pay for the damages. Neither Clara nor Rose are going to get the summer they were anticipating, and if they can learn to work together, they might find a friendship worth keeping!

Not enough YA titles focus on friendship. Or on families. THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL has a strong emphasis on both. There's still romance involved, of course, but it's more of a side story. The main focus is on Clara and her relationships with her parents and with learning to get along with Rose. I ADORED Clara's father Adrian. Clara and her dad are a lot like Lorelei and Rory Gilmore. They have a great bond and he should totally be named YA Father of the Year. He is seriously one of my all-time favorite YA dads. It's also really awesome that he steps up and makes the girls take responsibility for their actions. He came to the USA and brought his Korean and Brazilian backgrounds with him, blending the two to create the delicious food he serves on his food truck the KoBra (Korean-Brazilian food!). If the KoBra ever came to my town, I'd definitely get in line for a taste! (And often got so hungry reading this one, too!)


I really like how much Clara changes and evolves and grows throughout the novel. She forms a more close-knit bond with her father. She lets herself be vulnerable and winds up forming relationships she never thought she'd have with both Rose and a guy named Hamlet. She re-evaluates the friendships and relationships that have been so important to her for so long--and have perhaps been toxic. She discovers there is more to life than pranks and jokes. She is changing and growing and evolving. This summer changes Clara, and she exits it a completely different person from whom she was at the start. I adored watching her development and thought it was a huge focal point of the novel. I also really loved the way it chronicled growing up and the way we change and evolve and grow apart from our interests as we discover more about ourselves, which is such a crucial part of teen and young adult life. We can't stay who we are, and Clara grows up a lot in this book! Readers will really embrace her efforts as she begins her voyage of self-discovery.


I really loved seeing where Clara lives, the way she interacts with the people in her life, the things she loves that are important to her. This was a fantastic #OwnVoices book, and so much fun to read. THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL is perfect for summer. If you like contemporary, you're really going to enjoy this one!

When a summer punishment results in working with your enemy on a food truck, small spaces make holding grudges nearly impossible.Fun beach read focusing on friendship, family, and first love.

am so mad I waited this long to read! I was blessed enough to get an ARC for this but did not read it before our date. Fast forward to meeting the author at a festival, I knew it needed to be top of my new year list.

I loved Clara! She was imperfect and truly trying to find herself. Most coming of age YA is great but the voices often lack the authentic teenage feel. That was not the case here. From petty pranks to becoming an all around more invested person I was here for it! I loved the side characters just as much. He father, hamlet, rose, and of course the truck!

I enjoyed it being more focused on a father daughter relationship as well. I don’t see it as much as mother daughter.

This has romance but it was not the main plot point. The true winner of this book was friendship. If you haven’t picked this one up yet you should!

Favorite quote

“The first woman president has to happen in my lifetime, or I'm going to light this entire planet on fire.”
― Maurene Goo, The Way You Make Me Feel

This was a super cute and fun summery read. I enjoyed every minute of it. Especially the pranks. The diverse cast makes it all the better and the romance was sweet and adorable and I just.... gah! Its so cute!

A diverse cast and summer fun. This is a YA book a lot of teens will love. For me it felt a little young (maybe my age is showing) as a lot of what the characters did just felt silly. But I think teens will find this quirky and enjoyable.

This was a fun read: pranks, food trucks, multicultural foods, a little bit of a love story, but more importantly, a friendship story between two very different girls.

I can't believe it took me so long to read and review this book! It exceeded my expectations and I've found a new favorite author to follow. So cute, with realistic well-rounded characters, and such a great storyline. Would recommend!

Another strong effort from Goo and almost certain to be one of the best YA books published in 2018. She develops great characters that feel exceptionally real and there's a lot of appeal here that makes it easy to recommend to a wide swath of teens.

I thought that the book, due to the fact that the first part of it centered more on our high school cliche's, will be another disappointment for me. Yes, the typical high school drama! But as the book progressed, it tackled more important element, more issues that needs to be resolved. A really good combination of amusement and insights, plus the diversity! I, no doubt, adored this wonderfully written book. I love the witty banters, the quirkiness of some of the characters.

Sixteen year old Clara Shin is forced to work in the foodtruck owned by her dad after a prank at school that she was involved in turned in a big bad riot and a fire.
The Los Angeles based foodtruck is called the KOBRA as it serves a fusion between Korean and Brazillian food, because her family on her father's side is Korean, but has lived also in Brazil. Clara's absent mom is always on travel, as she is a famous Instagram influencer. Being forced to work in her father's food truck is one thing, but things take a turn for the worse when the other girl that was involved in the school prank, Rose Carver, who is Clara's polar opposite, has to work there too as a punishment. This is sooo not the summer Clara had in mind! But during the long hours of work in the food truck, Clara discovers that Rose isn't that uptight and stupid as she thought.

And beside that, there is some pretty cute romance. A very cute boy from her high school, Hamlet, has a crush on her and he seems to be a perfect fit for Clara. Soon her summer turns from meh into pretty awesome, and Clara seems to leave her old self behind for a complete new and better one..!

I loved Maurene Goo's previous book I Believe In a Thing Called Love (read my review here) so I was pretty curious for her newest book and even exicited when I got approved for a digital review copy! The story started so funny with the prank where everything that can go wrong goes wrong. Then it takes off for even more fun stuff in the food truck, and this is where we get to know Clara's family and friends circle. I really loved the family dynamics between her and her dad. He is strict and Clara is totally a spunky teenager, who for now needs to be disciplined because of her earlier actions. But there is a lot of love in between the lines between them which was just so cute!The friendship and love interest in this book where also really awesome. I loved how the coldness between Clara and Rose turned into something completely different and the romance between Clara and Hamlet, just wow!
Further on, there is a lot of love for Los Angeles, the homebase of the author in this book, you could just taste and feel all the different cultures between the lines, which I LOVED!
Overall, this book is just as brilliant as Maurene Goo's previous book!!

I'm a little conflicted about how to rate this book. I absolutely hated the first third or so; the tone and language were so snide and amateurish it was off-putting. However, the writing changed and matured as the character changed and matured -- which would have been a masterful move, but I don't know. It didn't quite click, which I suppose is my problem with this book. I wanted to love it more than I did.

(Also Hamlet is the stupidest name and it bothered me literally every time I read it.)

OH, THIS BOOK was fantastic! I was two pages in and laughing out loud in public; it is hilarious. Clara is forced to work alongside her archenemies Rose in Clara’s father’s cramped food truck. It is not the summer they both had in mind. In her signature spunky, quirky style, Marueen Goo explores the Los Anegles food scene, the delicate, beautiful yet complicated father/daughter relationship and what it means to be a true friend. Throw in a fun, feisty heroine and hero named Hamlet and you have yourself a warm, fuzzy beach read that will satisfy. I ADORE THIS BOOK!!

I really enjoyed How You Make Me Feel.

Clara's the one of those girls I wished I was when growing up. Apathetic, too cool for you, always has a comeback, fearless standing up to authority and in the pursuit of fun with guy friends. She is not nice nor considerate. She's not the usual teen girl protagonist or mean girl villian either.

Her single father is just as complex and varied. I love their relationship. Single parent-child relationships are different then with paired off couples. Given how common and normal it is, I don't actual see many in fiction.

Especially not with the mother that's away. I grew up with my dad while my mom was in another state and I never saw that part of my life in books growing up.

That was alone was enough to make me love this. But the good stuff keeps coming.

Rose is, as Clara puts is, an eager beaver overachiever and her exact opposite with anxiety.

Hamlet is an actual good guy.

All of them actually talk through issues, comfort and sharpen each other.

Some events are obvious before they happen. The ending is ridiculously cheesy. And we know nothing about the next school year.

But it's so damn good. YA contemp fans rejoice!

FYI: I haven't read her other book, I am waiting for my hold for it to come through now.

Quotes:

Rose looked like a long-lost Obama daughter.

She was one of those insufferable snobs who pieced together a personality with obscure music facts.

And for some reason, the theme of our dance was 1001 Arabian Nights, which I found offensive. It just manifested in colorful scarves draped around the cafeteria and rugs tossed on the ground.

I hated when my dad gendered the stupid truck. To retaliate, I called my boobs Brock and Chad, which my dad hated with equal fervor.

Typical boy gaslighting crap.

Continuing my life's goal of watching every episode of Supernatural, the show that would not die.

And I related, deeply, to a home that was a little messed up, but ever-evolving.

This book was a little too over the top for my taste. I really like this author, and I would like to read more from her, but not this book.