Review – Stuck in Her Head by Kylie Wang and Liana Tang #YA
Synopsis
15-year-old Emma Chan is an aspiring musician with her eyes aimed at the stars. Sure, she might not have won any notable competitions, but she isn’t “bad” by any means… unless you’ve met her easygoing and charming best friend, Naomi Lin, who seems to have the unique ability to accelerate Emma’s heartbeat.
On the surface, Naomi has her life together. Outside of being dubbed a child musical prodigy, she’s just another 15-year-old who likes coding, spending time with her friends, and reading celebrity gossip. But deep down, she longs to escape her life of expectations and build one that she truly desires, even if she doesn’t know what it means yet.
When the two friends team up to compete in a coding contest hosted by their childhood idol, their seven years’ worth of friendship falls into the danger of being jeopardized by deepening feelings, desperately hidden secrets, and the pressure of growing up. Emma and Naomi will have to adapt to the changing shape of their relationship, even if it means realising that life can be so much more complicated than they imagined.
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Review
While I am not a teenager anymore, I found this book to be engaging and hit on some important topics that impact teens today – mental health and sexuality.
Naomi and Emma met through music and became fast friends for many years. They happened to be at the same school, which helped forge that friendship. It was never easy; they lived different lives, but their love for music is what bonded them. However, the path wasn’t always easy. Emma is somewhat confident in her sexuality (Bi, but it isn’t clear until much later in the book), while Naomi is not. A misunderstanding of Emma’s feelings that are not reciprocated leads to more issues for Emma. But it was really just that final straw since she was having issues at home with her parents fighting and a path towards divorce. I appreciated how the authors made Emma vulnerable and did not shy away from her suicidal thoughts.
Naomi’s issues were different. She didn’t love music anymore, or at least not playing, performing, or competing. She may have been a prodigy at a young age but started losing that love for the piano. Perhaps it was the pressure of practicing and competing, or maybe this wasn’t what she was meant to do in the long run. Or maybe she just needs a break to rediscover who she is.
I enjoyed the world that this book opened up for me. I have never visited Hong Kong, but I felt like I had an insider’s look into that city. The situations that these teens face are very common, and they are not hidden in this book. They are brought out into the open for us to understand and perhaps even relate to.
We give this book 4 paws up.
About the Authors
Kylie Wang was born in Taiwan in 2006 and moved to Hong Kong soon afterward, where she attended school until she was 12. She is now a high schooler in the San Francisco Bay Area who writes to procrastinate on her school assignments. So far, she’s been awarded or published by YoungArts, the Ron L. Hubbard Writers of the Future Award, BlueFire, and more than 30 other venues. She started her first book, Stuck in Her Head, with her friend Liana when she was 14. You can find her editing her latest short story or attending California Writers Club meetings in her spare time.
Liana Tang is a 17-year-old writer from Hong Kong who has been published or is forthcoming in 55+ publications. When she was 14, she reached out to Kylie to craft a #ownvoices book that would hopefully resonate with other teens’ experiences. She is enrolled at the University of Toronto and plans to study English Literature. She started playing piano when she was 3 and acquired an ARSM Level 4 Diploma in Music Performance with distinction when she was 13. She plays Pokémon, Identity V, and probably watches YouTube more than she reads.
