Right when I heard that this was going to be about a Filipino girl with parents who immigrated from the Philippines, I just had to get to this. Being Filipino Chinese with parents who also were born and raised from the Philippines, I was hoping to have fun trying to find some things that I could understand and relate to. 
 Although I never was in a serious situation like what Jasmine had to go through in this story, I was still able to relate to her so much in how close she was with her family. Many of the things that her family did together and how her parents sometimes acted about some things, I was able to relate to somewhat because I have either experienced it myself or have seen family relatives be like that with each other or have seen other friends that are Filipino be like that with their family. It was just so great to read about family dynamics that I'm used to seeing, and not once was I ever bothered with what the parents and what they were doing. 
 Also, I need to stop taking synopses so seriously because it totally mislead me about how the main character was going to be. I went into it with fairly low expectations for Jasmine, but I came out loving her so much. Not once was she super whiny or too rebellious for my liking. She was a great friend to everyone around her, she knew what she wanted and fought for it, and she always put her family before everything else. I could really feel how much the situation affected her throughout the entire story, and it was great seeing how much she grows to find herself. 
 As for the romance, it did start of a bit rocky for me at first. I did find it cute but at the same time it did happen fairly quickly, but Melissa de la Cruz did a great job at developing the relationship and making it a lot better than how it was in the beginning. Royce and Jasmine were a really cute couple to read about, and although their relationship was not perfect (they had quite a few problems throughout the book), they found their own ways to get through all of them and come out with an even stronger bond than before. There was just a lot of love, caring, and respect between these two and it did add a nice touch to everything. 
 Overall, this book was amazing and has become one of my favourite contemporaries. It does start off sounding very chick-lit-like, but I honestly wasn't bothered by it. Whether it is written to be more in the chick-lit genre or not, it is something that I think everyone should give at least one try. It was really great to read about the perspective of how hard it can be to get citizenship in another country, especially in the US. I especially really thank Melissa de la Cruz for taking the opportunity to use this theme to create such a great story about the bond between a Filipino family. Lately, I have not read any YA books that had main characters who were of one of my ethnicities, and it was so refreshing to get that.