ARC Review: Epic Crush of Genie Lo – F.C. Yee

Book cover: Genie crushing the book title

The struggle to get into a top-tier college consumes sixteen-year-old Genie Lo’s every waking thought. But when her sleepy Bay Area town comes under siege from hell-spawn straight out of Chinese folklore, her priorities are suddenly and forcefully rearranged.

Her only guide to the demonic chaos breaking out around her is Quentin Sun, a beguiling, maddening new transfer student from overseas. Quentin assures Genie she is strong enough to fight these monsters, for she unknowingly harbors an inner power that can level the very gates of Heaven.

Genie will have to dig deep within herself to summon the otherworldly strength that Quentin keeps talking about. But as she does, she finds the secret of her true nature is entwined with his, in a way she could never have imagined…

I received an ARC of Epic Crush of Genie Lo through NetGalley. I requested this ARC because of the cover. It looks absolutely awesome! Also, someone on Twitter (I forgot who, sorry!) said that it would fit the requirements for some of the boxes for Asian Lit Bingo.

This book is #ownvoices for Chinese American representation.

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I am so in love with this book. I’ve been reading so many superhero books at the moment, so I kind of thought that Genie was going to a superhero school – thus I was confused for a few pages.

I was really interested in how Genie was dealing with the revelation of who she is and who she was in her past life and how this influenced her thoughts and actions.

The worldbuilding is epic in this book. It’s solidly written and once you read the revelations and get past all the twists and turns, you’ll see how much sense it makes. It fits in smoothly with the workings of the real world and doesn’t feel out of place in any way. Like seriously, I could imagine this happening in our world.

Genie’s allergic to pollen and I totally feel her, especially due to the high-pollen-count days I’ve been experiencing at the moment. This was so cool to read about, because, let’s be honest, how often is someone allergic to pollen in a book? Not very often. Also, I could totally relate to Genie’s reaction to the tattoo. I’m a huge Genie fan!

The humour in this book is wonderful. Quentin is hilarious. I laughed at the reference to white vampires. It was so funny, not only what Quentin said to Genie, but also his other reaction to her action.

It’s an unusual story, and I don’t think I’ve ever read something quite like this. It provided a non-dry analysis about choice and whether objects can think for themselves.  I also learnt quite a bit about Chinese mythology through this book.

The romance aspect was great and seriously, I know I’ve never read of a romance quite like this one and I doubt that most of you will have. I liked that it wasn’t the main focus of the story. It was so adorable!

There are a few ableist terms in this book. For example: “crazy”, “putting deposits into the First National Bank of Sanity”, “psycho” and “craziness”.

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I am so happy that I was able to read Epic Crush of Genie Lo as an ARC and I really hope that you people are interested in this book after my review. It’s a light and fun read. I highly recommend it!

4 stars

Have you read Epic Crush of Genie Lo? Is it on your TBR (I seriously recommend that it is!)?