SPOILER FREE REVIEW: THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL BY MAUREEN GOO

Title: The Way You Make Me Feel

Author: Maureen Goo

Pub. Date: May 8th 2018

Genre: YA Contemporary

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Pages: 336 Pages

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This book will forever go down in my little corner of the universe as THE book that snuck up & delivered such a beautiful message of finding yourself and the connections we make along the way. Our MC Clara Shin is known as the school prankster & she sort of thrives on being disruptive. When one of her pranks goes a bit too far, she comes face to face with her archenemy. Rose Carver is the polar opposite of Clara, she’s very rigid and serious about her academic journey. Rose has made it very clear to Clara that she can’t stand her chill laid back approach to school. This last confrontation ends up getting a bit physical and both girls get heir parents called. Clara’s dad is a single parent trying to run a successful food truck in hopes of one day opening his own restaurant. It’s his idea to have the girls hash out their issues by working together at the food truck. The Way You Make Me Feel serves up delicious Korean-Brazilian dishes, teenage drama, cute romance, new found friendships, and parent/child relationships. 

At first glance I thought I was getting into a cute light hearted Contemporary & to some extent it is but at a further glance, it’s so much more. Clara doesn’t know why she’s never taken school all that seriously however in her efforts to maintain a relationship with her mother, she discovers some truths about herself. I loved seeing the teens & parents in this story take on the hard task of introspection, facing that which drives them to behave a certain way. There’s discussion of the after effects of separation, academic pressures, anxiety, as well as the challenges of parenting for a single dad. My favorite aspect of this book revolved around the father/daughter relationship, Adrian gets all my love for being a rockstar Dad. Those that have been around my blog long enough know I have a weakness for father/daughter bonds as I had an amazing one with my own. Adrian doesn’t pretend to be perfect, he’s just a single dad trying to get back on track with providing some structure for his teen daughter. He’s known as the cool, fun, handsome dad & that worked for some time but he has a what I call “get real” moment. Finding a balance between Cool Dad vs. Tough Love Dad which he handles so well! On the topic of writing I will say there were times where Clara’s attempts at sarcasm felt a bit awkward. I don’t think the humor hit home with me & at times I sort of just looked past it. Instead I took away the bigger message and that’s that the road to self discovery is a journey worth making.

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