Never Thought I'd End Up Here Review

 

Another great book by Ann Liang!

Never Thought I'd End Up Here is about Leah, a former teenage model who messed up in trying to congratulate her cousin at her wedding in broken Mandarin. Her mother thinks she can sharpen her Mandarin skills by going on an immersion trip to Shanghai sponsored by the department her aunt works in at Stanford. Also going on this trip is a guy named Cyrus--who has been Leah's number one enemy for the last several years. He was responsible for "the Incident" at Leah previous high school. 

But when Leah gets to Shanghai--it ends up becoming an unforgettable trip! New friends, new places--and she gets to learn who Cyrus really is, while also confronting her past. 

I love how at first this book seemed like it was going to be a silly enemies to lovers story, but it ended up being a lot deeper than thought. This book explores so many themes ranging from connecting to your roots, finding out what you really want in life, overcoming low self-esteem, etc. 

I did give it 4.5 stars, but that was just because there were some plot threads that weren't fully resolved towards the end. Other than that, this book was so great!

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