Jen’s Book Nook

When I started reading this, I almost had flashbacks to Alice Chen’s Reality Check. This is definitely not like that book. While Alice has to go on a reality show to earn money for her family, The Cuffing Game is the brain child of Mia Yoon, a freshman in film school, and Noah Jang, a senior in the same school that helped steer said school project into what it became. Everyone that participated were also students so it made for a very interesting read.

I liked how this touched on the cultural shunning of the queer community in Asian culture. Especially with the older generation, anyone not heterosexual or that identifies as male or female are frowned upon or worse. As a Chinese American, I know what it’s like to live with this sort of thing hovering over you. My parents may have been accepting of a lot of things, but that didn’t mean the rest of my family or others did. But there was a lot more going on and you’ll see it when you read more about Noah when he talks about his family back in Korea. 

I feel this is one of many great books in the YA category that took on stereotyping and nudged it over. That just because someone looks and sounds a certain way doesn’t mean they’re what you think they are. That what you see on the surface or in a video is exactly what you’ll get all the time. There’s enough drama in this that it has the college feel to it. Possibly even a kdrama-ish vibe if it was put on scene.  If that happens, someone please tell me! I need to see it!

Thank you to Colored Pages Book Tours, Epic Reads and Lyla Lee for the gifted copy.