Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through | Review: Super Fake Love Song by David Yoon

One of the books I’ve been meaning to read for a long time is David Yoon’s Super Fake Love Song. My cousin had recommended it years ago and after a friend on Bookstagram gifted it to me, I just finally had to read it. And guys - this book is so fun! 

Sunny Dae is a nerd in comparison to his older brother, Gray, who was a popular musician in high school now trying to make it in Hollywood. When Sunny meets Cirrus, he’s smitten by how confident and worldly she is. What could she ever see in him? After she mistakes Gray’s old room, with its posters of rock bands and electric guitars, as Sunny’s, he decides to go along with it and pretend that he’s in a super cool rock band. He soon gets his friends involved and starts wearing Gray’s old clothes, but once Cirrus starts asking to hear Sunny play, well, he’s going to have to actually perform as if he’s done it before.

Remember that Boy Meets World episode when Cory and Shawn pretended to be in a band after they’re seen holding guitars? This book is just as funny, but also grounded and relatable for anyone who was ever a teenager or is still trying to figure themselves out.

I really liked seeing Sunny get out of his shell as he goes from an introvert afraid of the world to just letting go, even if he had to pretend to be someone else to get there. Yet, don’t we all pretend sometimes between who we are and who we want to be? It may have begun as a lie, but along the way he starts to rediscover himself that ends up changing his life and his outlook on it.

Despite the title, it didn’t cross my mind that this is also going to be a love story. Sunny and Cirrus’ relationship is wholesome, especially as they grow close and Cirrus shares some of her insecurities. It’s something Sunny is familiar with, making his guilt and what’s at stake all the more real. I was nervous waiting for the other shoe to drop, but don’t worry, it works out in the end.

This has easily become one of my new favorite YA books. There’s friendship, love, family, the trials of growing up and how it’s not all that different as you get older, and of course, the power of music.

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Currently Reading

Books I’m currently reading and books I keep close by to read next

📖 Currently reading:
King of Wrath by Ana Huang
Never by Jessa Hastings
A Night at the Tropicana by Chanel Cleeton (short story ebook)

📚 Next Reads:
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei
Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

I need to give a spotlight though to King of Wrath. I started it sometime last year when I had Kindle Unlimited, but never got to finish it and forgot about the story when my Kindle Unlimited free trial expired 🙆🏻‍♀️ So, now I’m reading it again and I. Am. LOVING IT! Dante and Vivian 😮‍💨 Fire. Just fire. I think I’m a pretty calm reader, but this book has me legitimately giggling, kicking my feet in the air, and as Filipinos know, “kilig” - major “kilig” 🫠

💭 What is everyone else reading? 

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My Most Anticipated Read: What The River Knows by Isabel Ibañez

She’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she is the moment ✨

Excuse me while I lose my mind over this book 😝 I have been so excited for Isabel Ibañez’s What The River Knows that I watched The Mummy on repeat for the majority of October leading up to pub day. I even bought the Barnes and Noble edition with plans on getting other special editions as well. Obsessed much? Yes.

After taking a minute to just stare at the cover, I started reading it this weekend and I already love it. I’m saying it now, it’s going to be a 5 stars, 10/10 read. There’s adventure, magic, a brewing romance (Whit Hayes - wow okay, giving some Rick O’Connell vibes), and a mystery that’s about to unravel.

Have you started reading What The River Knows? Is it on your tbr?

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An American Girl | Throwback by Maurene Goo

This is my new favorite book of all-time. At most, in the top 3 and I don’t think I will be over it any time soon. If you love mother/daughter stories, the 1990’s, or are a huge fan of Back to the Future, then you will most definitely love Maurene Goo’s Throwback. 

Samantha Kang is a Gen Z teen in 2025, who hasn’t quite figured out where life is headed yet. She often argues with her first-generation Korean American mother, Priscilla, who had a very different high school experience when she was a teenager. After an argument with her mom that leaves her stranded, Sam books a ride via a mysterious rideshare app that ends up taking her all the way back to the year 1995, where she meets a 17-year-old Priscilla. Sam may be stuck in the past with outdated views and tech as she helps her mother win homecoming queen - a defining moment that changed Priscilla’s relationship with her own mother, Sam’s grandmother Halmoni - but, she also begins to realize that there is more to her mom than she thought, as well as what her own future may be.

I absolutely love this book! I cried seeing Sam and Priscilla’s relationship grow and the impact they had on each other that becomes, quite frankly, timeless. As a mother/daughter story, I like how Goo looks at it through a time traveling perspective. By being in the past and witnessing first hand who Priscilla was and the relationship she had with Halmoni, Sam begins to understand why certain high school aspirations like popularity and becoming homecoming queen mattered so much to her mom. There is an idealism to it tied with a youthful first-gen optimism of the American Dream. It’s a simple but indelible reminder how parents were teenagers once too with hopes and dreams.

Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies. So, to see it in a similar form set during a decade I grew up in and featuring Asian characters instantly stole my heart. It’s nostalgic in reminding me what that era was like (for better and for worse), and at the same time feels so relevant. 

Throwback is a must-read that everyone needs to pick up soon! It’s funny, sentimental, relatable, and will make you want to hug your mom a little bit tighter.

Additional Thoughts:

• The other characters apart from Sam, Priscilla, and Halmoni are just as great.
• There is a subplot involving a time-crossed romance that makes the ending even more perfect.
• Don’t overthink too much on the science of time travel here. Just know that much of it is similar to how it was handled in Back to the Future but without The Delorean and Sam having to worry about if she will be born.
• The pop culture references had me laughing, especially through Sam’s honest POV. I will now be using “Jordan Catalano bad news” when referring to questionable men.

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Can You Read My Mind? | Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond

Superman is one of the greatest comic book superheroes of all time, and my personal favorite. He is the original superhero that started it all and while Batman is cool, Superman has a lot of heart. Alongside a great hero however, is a great partner and her name is Lois Lane. 

You may know Lois Lane as being an intrepid reporter for the Daily Planet or as Superman’s girlfriend, but she is a lot more than that. She’s smart, ambitious, and a total badass on her own. So when I saw this YA novel, Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond, which follows a teenage Lois Lane moving to Metropolis at the beginning of what would become her eventual career as a journalist, I knew I had to read it.

This book was fun, fast-paced, and gives a great introduction to the character, while offering a new take on her origins. It reminded me a lot of the show Smallville, but instead of seeing a teenage Clark Kent navigating his super powers and high school, we follow military-brat Lois Lane get adjusted to her new school in Metropolis. Although she promises to stay out of trouble this time, she cannot help but investigate a story about a new form of cyber bullying while working as an intern at the Daily Planet’s teenage online newspaper, the Daily Scoop, under the tutelage of a young Perry White. 

I also liked that we got to meet some new characters that include the rest of the Daily Scoop interns as well as see some familiar faces from the comics that include Lois’s father, General Sam Lane, and her sister, Lucy Lane. There is even a character you will immediately recognize who communicates with Lois online, who only goes by the username SmallvilleGuy. (I think I pretty much gave that one away). The world building of modern day Metropolis also felt like something that could appear in Batman: The Animated Series, while the story could fit into the realms of Ready Player One. 

Once I finished this book, I immediately bought the rest of the trilogy: Lois Lane: Double Down and Lois Lane: Triple Threat. I cannot wait to read them all.

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