18-year-old* Gemma Huang has moved to LA to become an actress, and she's just got a prime role as a gender-bending lawyer in a modern rom-com remake of "M. Butterfly." There's two directors: a jerky guy, and an amazing Chinese woman, Eilene, who Gemma is a fan of. Eilene privately tells Gemma that the two of them need to work to take over the movie together, since god knows Jake, the other director, doesn't have good ideas about the movie. Which is to say that her guy character, Song, has bad hair, baggy suits and is terrible gay stereotyping. Blech! But Gemma's in her first big role ever--how much power does she have on this?
- I note that Gemma is playing a lawyer, which makes me wonder on the age here?
Added bonus on top of that job stuff, and suddenly going long-distance with her new boyfriend who seems nice but jealous of her career, is that Gemma's always had no other family but her parents growing up. Dad's an orphan and Mom won't say anything about her past, other than forbidding Gemma to ever go to China. Naturally, this new movie she booked is filming in Beijing, so she takes the job and doesn't tell them where she's going. Why didn't her mother want her to go there? I'm reminded of the comments about why Vorlons wore encounter suits on Babylon 5: we would be recognized by EVERYONE. Likewise, Gemma finds out that she has a twin: she's the spitting image of famous rich Chinese socialite Alyssa Chua and everyone thinks she's her. (In fact, that's how she's landed the role..) Gemma gets mobbed by fans and paparazzi, surprise, and one guy, Eric Liu, mistakes her for Alyssa and soon gets into conversation with her. Eric's family and Alyssa's have been feuding for years, and Eric's concerned that his little sister Mimi is now friends with Alyssa. Gemma ends up meeting Alyssa and it turns out they're identical cousins from twin mothers. Gemma's mother left/was disowned from the family years ago, and obviously she'd like to find out what the heck is going on. So in between working on the movie, Gemma teams up with Eric, on the frequent trail of Alyssa and Mimi.
I really liked this book. It reminds me a wee bit of Crazy Rich Asians, but much better written and with more depth. I enjoyed the unraveling of the family mysteries, especially regarding Gemma's mom. I enjoyed Gemma getting closer to Eric--who's legitimately nice as well as rich--and eventually Alyssa. I enjoyed the discussion of cultural differences, like how Gemma can't view the Internet outside China after a week of VMP use, Alyssa's Weibo fame, who's heard exactly what about the Cultural Revolution/Tiananmen Square Massacre and what's banned online to find out there. And I really liked how homosexuality is discussed and handled here--the book makes a point that even if the government isn't gay-friendly, in real life people are much cooler about it. This comes up both in Gemma's personal life and in the movie, as Jake doesn't like it when Gemma thinks that given the plot of the movie, it should have more of a bisexual vibe. And when we finally find out why Gemma's mom split from the family, it's like OMG! (And that will be a prequel book.) There's also a super cool family secret that I loved.
It's a really heartwarming, touching story and I really liked this one. Four stars! About the only thing I find a wee bit bothersome is that we don't really get to find out how the entire movie goes so much, as I was curious about that.
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