January 2, 2024 by Clarion Books
Lily's parents run a Chinese school which meets in the local community center, so Lily and her brother attend classes there. The center is having a hard time financially, especially since the building is older and in need of repairs. Lily knows that her parents are trying to help with a fundraiser, but an enormous amount of money is needed for the residents to buy the building. In addition to this worry, Lily is at odds with a boy at school, Max. The two have a long standing rivalry, at least from Lily's point of view. She is still angry because he read more books than she did, especially since they were short books and she was finishing the last in a long fantasy series. As part of the fund raiser, one of Lily's mother's friends, Vivienne, comes to teach the children in the school a Chinese dragon dance. Vivienne, who is somewhat famous and lives in the city, is the one who has been sending Lily and her brother mysterious gifts, and there seems to be some unexplained tension between the women. Max comes to visit the Chinese school, even though he is attending a larger and more prestigious one in a larger urban area, and he happens upon the dancers, and turns out to be a good dancer himself. On top of all of this, Lily is trying to film a fan fiction version of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer with her good friends Lauren and Kelli, hoping to submit the film to a local contest, and go to a nearby ComicCon with these friends. She's hiding this from her friends at Chinese school and her parents, which causes increasing tensions as her friends don't understand why she doesn't show up for all of their plans. Max turns out to be a decent guy, and Lily's friends tell her that they must like each other, but when Max's parents have a plan not only to buy the community center, but to tear it down and build a multi-use office building, she's angry. Is there a way for the center to continue, and will Lily be able to keep her world from shifting drastically?
Strengths: This was an interesting look at a particular community. I loved the community center and the wide range of activities that were hosted there. Lily has several interests and is trying to balance everything, which is a very realistic take on middle school. I loved that she wasn't happy to blindly accept that girls did the fan dances and only boys could be the dragon in the number that was being performed. I'm not usually a fan of the enemy-to-lovers trope, but this had a twist; Max had always found Lily interesting, and the "rivalry" was pretty much all on her part. Tween readers will savor all the levels of drama that this has.
Weaknesses: Lily is not very understanding of the feelings of others, and seems to create some of her own problems by being very inflexible. Also, Max's parents were very sympathetic when approached about the problems with the new center, so I was surprised that this ended the way it did. I imagine that the building that houses the center needs MAJOR updates!
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who are concerned about changes in their community and have enjoyed books like Giles' Take Back the Block , Reed's Simon B. Rhymin' Gets in the Game, or Dilloway's Five Things About Ava Andrews.
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