When You Wish Upon a Lantern
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Acclaimed author Gloria Chao creates real-world magic in this luminous romance about teens who devote themselves to granting other people's wishes but are too afraid to let themselves have their own hearts' desires—each other.
Liya and Kai had been best friends since they were little kids, but all that changed when a humiliating incident sparked The Biggest Misunderstanding of All Time—and they haven’t spoken since.
Then Liya discovers her family's wishing lantern store is struggling, and she decides to resume a tradition she had with her beloved late grandmother: secretly fulfilling the wishes people write on the lanterns they send into the sky. It may boost sales and save the store, but she can't do it alone . . . and Kai is the only one who cares enough to help.
While working on their covert missions, Liya and Kai rekindle their friendship—and maybe more. But when their feuding families and changing futures threaten to tear them apart again, can they find a way to make their own wishes come true?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two Taiwanese American teenagers explore friendship, romance, and family in this humorous and sincere novel by Chao (Rent a Boyfriend). Liya Huang and Kai Jiang have been best friends since they were children, but they haven't spoken in the months following a deeply awkward and embarrassing incident: Liya vomited on Kai while he was trying to ask her out. And their parents' mutual feud doesn't help matters. After Liya finds out that her beloved family store, which sells paper wishing lanterns, is in debt and in danger of closing, she embarks on a scheme to try and save it. Believing that there's no magic in the world, she works to secretly grant customers' wishes herself, something she used to do with her paternal grandmother but stopped doing after her death. Missing Liya and hoping to rekindle their friendship, Kai offers to help her carry out her mission arranging meet-cutes and perhaps granting a wish of her own. Together, they navigate their insecurities, evolving feelings for one another, and duty to their families. Laugh-out-loud dialogue, the pair's simultaneously innocent and snarky alternating POVs, and a vividly captured Chicago Chinatown setting imbue this memorable narrative with warmth and joy. Ages 12–up.
