YOU HAD ME AT HELLO WORLD

To escape her small town and attend a prestigious summer tech program, a Chinese American teen switches coasts.

In Chinook Shore, Oregon, Charise Tang’s life is at a standstill. Her stepfather has taken her savings, her white sort-of boyfriend persists in making microaggressive comments, and even Zach Torres, the valedictorian who escaped the town and its limited opportunities, has returned, on academic probation from Vanderbilt. After being accepted into an all-expenses-paid summer program at MIT for “the next generation of tech leaders,” Char tries to leave without telling her family. When she’s caught, her stepfather, a white Iraq War veteran, declares that she’s never allowed to return. In Cambridge, she has a quintessential meet-cute involving spilled coffee with Khoi Astor, a Vietnamese American boy who happens to be in the same program. Khoi and Char team up for the program’s hackathon, both hoping that the prize will provide Char with the financial safety net she desperately needs. Despite the sweet blossoming romance, the couple’s dynamic often feels imbalanced: Khoi feels overly perfect, while Char’s acerbic and bitter tone can become tiring. Khoi’s epilepsy mostly serves as a plot device. However, through Char’s Chinese immigrant mother and Khoi’s Vietnamese parents (one a refugee and one a transracial adoptee) the narrative effectively conveys the isolation experienced by many immigrants.

A potentially STEAM-y romance, but the code could use some debugging.