Patti Yoon is a first-generation Korean American high school senior who has worked hard all her life to make her parents happy. Their happiness is directly tied to Patti’s academic success. It’s not enough that she’s destined to be her class valedictorian and is an accomplished violinist, she must also get at least 2300 on her SATs and be accepted by Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (HYP for short). The wheels start to come off of Patti’s success cart when she first lays eyes on Cute Trumpet Guy (Ben Wheeler) during tryouts for All-State Orchestra. Patti has been concertmaster for the past three years, and she is a shoe-in again this year, but Cute Trumpet Guy distracts her so much during her audition that she flubs a few notes and ends up as Assistant Concertmaster. Throughout the school year, Ben becomes a major distraction, and Patti struggles with wanting to please her parents and wanting to be master of her own fate. For one thing, she thinks she might actually want to go to Juilliard to study music rather than HYP. With Ben’s help and encouragement, she secretly applies. There have been a number of good young adult novels over the past several years about first-generation Asian American teens facing this sort of conflict. What lifts this one above the rest is Yoo’s tongue-in-cheek humor about parents’ expectations. Chapters frequently begin with lists that have titles such as “How to Make Your Korean Parents Happy, Part 4,” and Yoo manages to share the humor in Patti’s situation without belittling Patti’s parents’ aspirations for their daughter’s future. (Ages 13–16)

Paula Yoo scores big in her hilarious debut novel about an overachiever who longs to fit in and strives to stand out. The pressure is on!

How to make your Korean parents happy:

1. Get a perfect score on the SATs.
2. Get into HarvardYalePrinceton.
3. Don't talk to boys.*

Patti's parents expect nothing less than the best from their Korean-American daughter. Everything she does affects her chances of getting into an Ivy League school. So winning assistant concertmaster in her All-State violin competition and earning less than 2300 on her SATs is simply not good enough.

But Patti's discovering that there's more to life than the Ivy League. To start with, there's Cute Trumpet Guy. He's funny, he's talented, and he looks exactly like the lead singer of Patti's favorite band. Then, of course, there's her love of the violin. Not to mention cool rock concerts. And anyway, what if Patti doesn't want to go to HarvardYalePrinceton after all?

*Boys will distract you from your studies.