This touching and entertaining YA graphic novel follows an endearing Vietnamese American teen who desperately seeks true love despite her family's history of tragic romances.
High school junior Valentina Trãn once adored Valentine's Day--so much so that she imagined a cherubic cupid "Saint V" was her guide. When Val learns that her mother didn't die years ago as her father claimed, but left him, Val disavows the holiday that brought her parents together. Saint V transforms into the specter of the man he really was and promises to guard Val still. The girl will give him her heart in a year if she fails to find true love--something that eluded every one of her ancestors.
When Val sparks a connection with a boy in a lion dance costume, she is determined to make the ensuing relationship with Chinese American Leslie succeed. She joins his lion dancing group, but even as Val and Les go on dates and lion dancing becomes Val's "everything," Les doesn't see Val as his girlfriend. Although Val and Jae (fellow lion dancer and Leslie's Korean and Chinese American cousin) had an awkward start to their friendship, it's Jae, not Leslie, who is open, supportive, and immediately in sync with her when they perform. Though Jae has feelings for Val, he won't pursue Val romantically after Les admits he is interested after all. Time is almost up on her bargain with Saint V, and though Val doesn't want to give up on true love with Les, she isn't sure she's found someone worthy of her heart.
Lunar New Year Love Story is a buoying tale about being open to the pain of love from Gene Luen Yang, who received an Eisner and Printz award for American Born Chinese. Val's journey to find love parallels a careful nurturing of frayed familial ties with her father, who lied to "protect" her, and with her previously estranged grandma, a firecracker of a woman who likes Jesus, poker, and dishing out both indulgent meals and hilariously savage perspectives. Caldecott Honoree LeUyen Pham (Outside, Inside) brings remarkable depth to Yang's heartfelt story through her digital illustrations. Pham's blush-toned palette allows more brightly hued moments to hold the eye longer and becomes ominous with a switch to swirling grey and black for Saint V's scenes. Throughout, beautiful spreads evoke the flouncing effects of the intricate costumes. Yang and Pham together equate the lion dance to love in this charmingly sweet comic. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer
Shelf Talker: The Vietnamese teen in this romantic and hilarious graphic novel believes her family is cursed with bad luck in love, and must give her heart away if she does not find true love within a year.