First Love Language, Stefany Valentine
First Love Language, Stefany Valentine
List: $25.00 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.50

First Love Language

Author: Stefany Valentine

Narrator: Jen Zhao

Unabridged: 8 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/14/2025

Synopsis

Two teens discover that love defies the boundaries of any spoken language in this debut romantic dramedy about finding love and reconnecting with your culture in the most surprising ways.

A WILLIAM C. MORRIS AWARD FINALIST

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 door: 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.

Stefany Valentine’s debut novel is both a fresh, fun romance as well as a profound, luminous story about grief, family, transracial adoption, and what it means to truly follow your heart.

About The Author

Stefany Valentine is an emerging young adult author. Her first publication is featured in the adoptee anthology, When We Became Ours, and her sophomore title, Love Makes Mochi, is expected to release with Joy Revolution in 2026. Follow her for updates on TikTok, Instagram, and X @BooksByStefany and on her website, stefanyvalentine.wordpress.com.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nilufer on September 18, 2024

Beautiful cover, sweet characters, a heartfelt love story, and inspirational representation of LGBTQ+ identity, language barriers, and embracing cultural heritage make this surprisingly adorable book a hidden gem that fully deserves my five stars! I lost count of how many times I sighed and smiled w......more

Goodreads review by sakurablossom95 on January 13, 2025

This was such a beautiful read about reconnecting with your culture, language and embracing your heritage as well as learning to be true to yourself while navigating the messy, awkward, and fun times of being a teenager. It beautifully explores themes of identity, culture, family, sisterhood, love,......more

Goodreads review by Noi (in & out) on January 17, 2025

This was cute but I kind of wish they picked one 'thing' to talk about because it felt like a bit much for a 320? page book and a YA one at that but still. - Moving - Looking for a connection (diversity representation in a mainly white-dominant area) - Lessons - First love (not a spoiler, it's in the n......more

Goodreads review by zai on December 22, 2024

A gorgeous debut, has me in my feels right from the first sentence ( i made my friends read the first sentence and they were gasping as well lmao ). firstly i would love to thank prh international for the arc. now where do i even start, this book is forever who; -`♡´- like friends to lovers -`♡´- lik......more

Goodreads review by AK on January 19, 2025

Real Rating: 4.5 Stars This book is a great example as to why we need more diversity in books! I loved seeing an adoptee try to get back to their roots in a world that has left them unmoored. To learn this was inspired by the author's own experience made it that much more important. Catie's parents di......more

Quotes

A WILLIAM C. MORRIS YA DEBUT AWARD FINALIST

Amazon Editors' Best YA Book of January 2025
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
A Forbes Most Anticipated Book of 2025
A Kobo Best YA Book of the Month

"A poignant and emotional story of immigration, adoption, and family, and was the Amazon Editors’ top YA pick for January 2025." —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor

“A funny and deeply moving exploration of family, love, grief, and self-discovery. As a fellow adoptee, I’m grateful to Valentine for illuminating an experience seen too rarely in young adult literature.” —Nicole Chung, best-selling author of All You Can Ever Know and A Living Remedy

“A masterfully written story [and] a must-read for anyone searching for hope and home.” —Mariama J. Lockington, Stonewall Honor and Schneider Family Book Award–winning author of In the Key of Us, Forever is Now, and For Black Girls Like Me

“The yearning for a language lost or never known tugs at an unspoken sadness familiar to many in the diaspora, but Valentine handles the added complications of religion, grief, and love with a lightness and relatability that will have readers flying through its pages.” —Anna Gracia, author of Boys I Know and The Misdirection of Fault Lines

"An engaging plot and details of daily life provide glimpses into the diversity within LDS and adoptive family cultures. A sweet, thoughtfully developed romance with some unusual twists and layers." —Kirkus Reviews

"A white and Taiwanese American adoptee reconnects with her roots and experiences first love in Valentine's romantic and profound debut. Humorous moments of joy and connection—facilitated by the love interests’ shared cultural appreciation and deepening attraction, as well as Catie’s desire to broaden her understanding of her personal history—deftly buoy sensitively rendered depictions of heavy topics surrounding grief and transracial adoption." —Publishers Weekly

"Brave, curious, and determined Catie is a protagonist to root for throughout her experience of love and heartbreak in this stirring, beautifully written story." —Booklist


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