First Love Language — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Stefany Valentine
Published Year: 2025
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Pages: 304

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion of this novel.

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Taiwanese American Catie Carlson has never fit in with her white family. As much as she loves her stepmom and stepsister, she yearns to understand more about her culture and find her biological mother.

So Catie is shocked when an opportunity comes knocking on her Her summer spa coworker, Toby, says he’ll teach her Mandarin. In exchange, she needs to teach him how to date so he can finally work up the courage to ask out his crush. The only problem is that Catie doesn’t actually have any dating experience. But she can fake it.

With her late father’s copy of The Five Love Languages and all his annotated notes, Catie becomes the perfect dating coach. Or so she thinks. As she gets dangerously close to Toby and to finding out what really happened to her biological mom, she realizes that learning the language of love might be tougher than she thought.

First Impressions

Love the cover! It’s so pretty. My friends even complimented I when they saw me reading it. I was immediately intrigued by the summary too. It sort of reminded me of the Netflix show XO, Kitty with her wanting to find out about her mom from another country. I also was intrigued by the concept of setting up dates based off of the 5 Love Languages.

What I thought

I liked this book much more at the beginning than I did towards the end.

Catie’s dad passed away 2 years ago and she currently lives with her adoptive mother and step-sister. When they have to move from San Francisco to Salt Lake City for the summer, Catie decides it’s time to get in touch with her Taiwanese mother’s side and see if she can find out more about her. Unfortuantely, she does not speak Mandarin anymore and she doesn’t know anyone in Salt Lake. When she gets a job, she becomes friends with the owner’s son who speaks Mandarin and is willing to teach her, if she will teach him how to go on dates. She finds her dad’s copy of the Five Love Languages, and even though she has no dating experience, she lies to Toby and uses the book to help teach him how to date.

There was a lot that went on in this book for being under 300 pages. I liked the beginning of the story because I enjoyed the teen angst of being dropped in Salt Lake in a community you no longer relate to and no friends. Catie’s adoptive mom’s family is Mormon, so there is a lot of discussion about Mormonism and how strict the church is.

Catie’s dad met and married her birth mom in Taiwan, but they divorced and she moved back to America with her dad. She kept in touch with her mom for a little bit but then eventually they stopped talking when she was little. She never asked her dad why they divorced or why her mom wasn’t in contact with her, so a lot of this story is Catie trying to figure that out. I would say that is the majority of the story and a little less so the fake dating.

I did like Toby and I liked when they went on dates. I didn’t like how easily things seemed to fall into place. Catie never planned these dates. She would just wing them in the moment and they always turned out perfectly. I would’ve appreciated if she had put at least some sort of effort into the dates.

I also understand that this is a YA novel, but I felt like the romance was so flat. Like, at one point she just goes “oh my God I love him.” Even though they have only known each other maybe a month? Like, they’ve never dated or kissed or anything and she decides that’s love? And then a little later, her sister and cousin say “Dude. Toby loves you too.” And immediately Catie goes ‘Oh my God he dose love me. Hoe could I have no seen it? There’s no way they’re wrong about this.” So it was a little bit too insta-lovey for me and I didn’t like how quickly she just decided that yes, they are in love and it’s the truth. I know I’m no longer a teen, but even back the I don’t think I would’ve decided I was full on in love with someone I had a crush on.

I think the author bit off a little more than she could chew given this was a debut novel. Between the Mormonism, the divorce, the cancer, the love, the abandonment and the move it was a lot going on. Not that that’s not necessarily realistic, but I just think there was a lot that got left behind.