50books_poc | #3: Nothing But the Truth (And A Few White Lies) by Justina Chen Headley

Patty Ho is a half-Taiwanese/half-white teenager who lives in an almost all-white community. Her father ran off when she was two, and her mother is almost obsessively restrictive, and is adamant that Patty can’t attend and dances and can’t date until after high school. And when she does date, it can only be a Taiwanese boy. But then a fortuneteller predicts a white boyfriend in her future, and her mother ships her off to math camp for the summer.

The book is very funny, and often tongue-in-cheek, though a bit too slang-ridden for my taste. I like all the debunking and subversion of stereotypes, both Asian and white, and love the scene where Patty is almost overwhelmed at the airport when she sees more Asian people in one place than she’s seen in her entire life. I think this is also the first piece of fiction I’ve ever seen to go “Dude, Taiwanese and Chinese are not interchangeable and here’s why.”

I’m not a math person, but I was disappointed by how relatively little actual math there was at math camp. We got some bits on patterns and group theories-primarily in Patty applying them to her life-but not a lot else. I also wish Patty’s friends, Anne and Jasmine, had been developed more.

This is, I think, overall a good but fairly standard YA chick-lit, though I haven’t read much of that, as my tastes run mostly to historicals and fantasy. It is, however, exceptionally fun, though there are some triggering reveals later in the boo