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True Love and Other Impossible Odds

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks

Inventing a formula to predict people's perfect partners doesn't equate to love in this contemporary YA novel that New York Times bestsellers Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick call "honest, raw, and breathtakingly real."

College freshman Grace Tang never meant to rewrite the rules of love. She came to college to move on from a grief-stricken senior year and to start anew. So she follows a predictable routine: Attend class, study, go home and visit her dad every weekend. She doesn't leave any room in her life for outliers or anomalies.

Then, Grace comes up with an algorithm for her statistics class to pair students with their perfect romantic partners. Though some people are skeptical, like Julia, Grace's prickly coworker, Grace is confident that her program will take all the drama out of relationships. That's why she keeps trying to make things work with her match, a guy named Jamie. But as the semester goes on and she grows closer to Julia, Grace starts to question who she's really attracted to.

In award-winning author Christina Li's YA debut, Grace will have to make a choice between the tidy equations she knows will protect her from heartbreak or the possibility that true love doesn't follow any formula.

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    • Kirkus

      June 15, 2024
      A highly logical college student attempts to quantify love. Freshman Grace Tang is rational, viewing not just her math classes through a logical lens but also life itself. While she enjoys her time with roommates Ruhi and Ava, every weekend Grace drives the half hour home to be with her recently widowed father. Li skillfully contrasts Grace's family dynamics and history with typical college student life, including strategic flashbacks that also boost the narrative tension. When Grace is faced with a group project for her Game Theory and Market Design elective, she proposes applying the stable match algorithm, designing what she's sure is a foolproof quiz for Leighton College students to find their true loves. Although her intimidating library co-worker, fellow freshman Julia Zhang, who's also Chinese American, writes a scornful op-ed for the college paper, the app gains in popularity. Grace even starts dating her match, Jamie, a boy from one of her classes. But when couples start breaking up, Grace's faith in the algorithm wavers, and her world begins to crumble, although her growing feelings for Julia are a bright spot. The book's themes--self-development, core living values, the impact of grief, and changing friendships--are well woven into the plot and support the characters' development. While the romance starts off slowly and contains some predictable twists, the emotions and the relationships overall feel realistic. An engrossing and original coming-of-age story. (Fiction. 14-18)

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • School Library Journal

      June 14, 2024

      Gr 10 Up-Can an algorithm help you find your perfect match? Grace Tang, a Chinese American freshman at a small liberal arts college in Vermont, is determined to find out. As a project for her Game Theory class, Grace helps create a survey designed to find people's ideal romance on campus. After the project goes viral, Grace is full of optimism, not only that her own match with classmate Jamie will grow, but also that the success of the algorithm will guarantee her a prestigious summer research position. But as the promising relationships start to crumble, and her feelings for Julia, a classmate on the ski team, become harder to ignore, Grace wonders if she's missed other variables in her quest to systematize love. This sweet romance stands out for its nuanced exploration of the pressure of parental expectations and the complexity of grief. High school readers will be intrigued by the glimpse at college life and root for Grace as she begins to define love and success on her own terms. VERDICT Li's YA debut is a hopeful coming-of-age story with a cozy New England setting.-Emily Yates

      Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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