The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F.C. Yee

The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F.C. Yee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is one of those I kind of wanted to read on first glancing at it. Well, that'd imply gazing upon the cover, though I think I first say the book in a review or something. No matter. Wanted to read it when I first noticed it. Which is strange for me since it stars a young woman in high school. I do not recall her exact age now, but I would not be surprised to find out she was/is 16.

This is a neat book about a young woman in high school named Eugenie Lo. She's abnormally tall (well, she's tall, taller than all but the tallest boys), has kind of a fiery personality, and is good at volleyball. Though she admits, herself that her volleyball abilities come from being so really tall, as opposed to natural skill. Unless 'tallness' is a skill (insert here someone pointing out 'the appearance of height' or something like that for 'skill of tallness', as in, appearing taller/larger than actually are - doesn't apply here, she's just that tall).

The book is called 'Genie Lo', while I just called the young woman Eugenie Lo. Yeah, I'm not sure even her mother calls her Eugenie - Genie puts it that, for some unknown reason, a whole lot of American Chinese suddenly decided, at the same time, to give their daughters the name 'Eugenie'. Genie notes that she became friends with another Eugenie, and she took the Eu part (and gets called Yunnie), while Genie took the Genie part (there was a third they were going to give some other part, some weird thing like Ergie, but they decided they didn't like her).

Besides being tall, being able to use her height for sports (which isn't actually a given, some tall people suck at sports), and of Chinese descent, Genie is also super busy studying and doing even more studying. Under hobby would be 'studying'.

Well, I'm kind of leading into this wrong on several levels. For, you see, the book opens with Genie watching a young man be beaten by a gang. Genie attempts to help by screaming at them, throwing her backpack at them, then running away. She had been on the way to school - she ended up there and spent the morning talking to the police. At some point after that, during the same school day, Genie's in one classroom or another, during class, when a new student is introduced. He called himself Quentin. And, going by how often his shortness is mentioned, is about 4 foot 3 inches tall (if that). Though he has a rock hard body, and movie-star looks. The women in the class room instantly begin making noises indicating they find him attractive. He gives a good showing of himself until he takes things one step too far after spotting Genie. Quentin leapt onto the desks, walked along on top of them until he reached Genie. Whereupon he leans towards her and whispers, loud enough for everyone to hear 'Mine'.

And fade to next scene. Whereupon there's some words indicating that Genie had reacted to Quentin's antics by attempting to remove his eyeballs from his head. See, I said she was fiery. One day I'll learn how to spell that word.

Right, so, I included all of that above, the opening scene stuff, well the school stuff, to note that the book started strong. I was having fun. Up until aggressive super handsome dude whispered that 'mine' stuff. Whereupon I wondered if I'd be able to continue the book. But I did. And loved it, mostly.

Right, so. There actually is a legitimate reason for that 'mine' stuff. And I wouldn’t have believed it myself, that the author would come up with something to work there, until I saw what was occurring, what unfolded. And it worked, it did. I’m being purposely vague, for . . . reasons.

The story that unfolds uses Chinese myths and folklores, unfolded upon American Chinse people. Well, except Quentin, who claims to be from China (there’s a reason I worded it that way, but don’t read too much into that).

I’m being overly wary of spoiler-revealing, and I’ve told less than what could be seen in the book description on Goodreads. Meh, those who want to be slightly more spoiled than this can go and read.

There’s a somewhat odd mix of grim reality (even though she studies super hard, has the highest grade-point average possible, Genie still might not get into the best schools, because there’s a ton of girls just like her in the Silicon Valley to the point that being the best isn’t good enough); with fantasy (demons, gods, goddesses, monkeys, etc.).

Well, it’s a quite good story. Not much more I can say than that. *nods* Oh, right – there’s mention of a sequel. I’ll read it when it appears.

Rating: 4.63

October 20 2017



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