Review: I Believe in a Thing Called Love

I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo

My Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Desi Lee knows how carburetors work. She learned CPR at the age of five. As a high school senior, she has never missed a day of school and has never had a B in her entire life. She’s for sure going to Stanford. But—she’s never had a boyfriend. In fact, she’s a disaster in romance, a clumsy, stammering humiliation-magnet whose botched attempts at flirting have become legendary with her friends. So when the hottest human specimen to have ever lived walks into her life one day, Desi decides to tackle her flirting failures with the same zest she’s applied to everything else in her life. She finds her answer in the Korean dramas her father has been obsessively watching for years—where the hapless heroine always seems to end up in the arms of her true love by episode ten. It’s a simple formula, and Desi is a quick study. Armed with her “K Drama Rules for True Love,” Desi goes after the moody, elusive artist Luca Drakos—and boat rescues, love triangles, and fake car crashes ensue. But when the fun and games turn to true feels, Desi finds out that real love is about way more than just drama.

I gave this book 5 stars and I would give it all the finger-hearts if I could! THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START BUT OMG YOU JUST NEED TO GET YOUR HANDS ON THIS BOOK ASAP. Okay, so I’ll try my best to write a coherent review for this. (But I really wish I could just shout at you to read this book until you do haha)

I’m never good at writing reviews for a book I LOVED but I’ll try my best. I requested for this book for one obvious reason: KDRAMA. A girl who uses Korean drama to make someone fall in love wit her? SIGN ME UP.

That girl is Desi Lee, now I’ve read a good number of contemporaries but this girl is by far the most determined one. She excels at school because she’s hardworking, goal-oriented, determined and she always has a plan. Now, of course she’s not winning at love, to the point that she can’t flirt with someone without embarrassing herself.

Here comes our love interest, Luca Drakos, cool artist guy with a mysterious past a.k.a the perfect formula for a new book boyfriend. When Desi meets him, she is determined not to fail so like any other she excels at, she needs a plan. That’s when the Kdramas that her father always watch at night enters.

I really liked Desi Lee, I found it easy to connect with her character. She’s a strong girl who embraces her smart and nerdy self, but she’s not perfect. I’ve read reviews that said that Desi was very manipulative. And I agree, she manipulated the situations in order to get Luca but for me that just proves how little she knows about love. The great thing is as the story progressed, Desi learns a thing or two about love that made her character development one of the best I’ve read.

I don’t think Desi manipulated Luca’s feelings, she manipulated the situations not Luca directly. And Luca genuinely likes Desi, I love how he didn’t “smart-shame” her and basically fell for her wits and quirks. That being said, the romance was full-on cutesy, fluffy, and swoony. It made my heart so happy and I seriously couldn’t remove that goofy grin on my face while reading.

Anyways, the other relationships in the book were also endearing. I adored every father-daugther scene and basically Desi’s father himself. The supporting characters showed that they were truly there to support, I love the dynamics between Desi and her friends. And this book is definitely very diverse! So that’s always a plus and delight to read.

I’m definitely in love with Luca Drakos the author’s writing, it’s the kind that will make you devour page after page! She made Desi’s voice shine through the narrative, and the writing style is simple yet addictive. Not to mention that there’s a Kdrama guide or a must-watch list at the end that will surely make you binge watch a series.

I requested for this book for the most obvious reason, it has Kdrama! And if you’re an avid fan of it, this book will surely make you say ~OTTOKE~ because of all the feels but if you don’t know what Kdrama is don’t worry! This book actually did a REALLY good job explaining it. I basically, squealed with every reference it made and OMG all the things written here are so true.

You know how Kdramas can be a little over the top sometimes? There were scenes that can definitely pass that but that just made it really fun to read. It played like a perfect romcom for me—fun, romantic, and quite predictable.

I Believe in a Thing Called Love is like a Kdrama in book form, I couldn’t help imagining Luca as my favorite Korean actor. I seriously had to remind myself that he isn’t Korean and he’s not my Oppa. But seriously, this book is one of best contemporaries I’ve read. I just really loved it, so do yourself a favor and just read it! I swear that once you’ve finish it, you’ll want more pages to read just like how you want more episodes when you finish binge watching a series.

A huge thank you to Macmillan International for sending me an ARC of this book.

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That’s all, thank you so much for reading. If you want to read more book reviews from this blog, just click here. And you could also find my reviews in Goodreads.