The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo

Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn't so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute. Maybe Clara actually feels invested in her dad’s business. What if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind?

I went into this book super excited. Korean Brazilian food truck? Sign me up!
Maurene Goo tried so hard to make this relatable to today’s teenagers, and it worked! Clara’s parents are Koreans who were born in Brazil, then immigrated to America. Clara’s mom is a social media influencer which was literally just as amazing as you’d expect.
All the characters were brought to life so well. Clara’s snarky attitude is so much fun to read, as is her dad Adrian. Rose and Hamlet are the character foils to Clara’s longtime friends Felix and Patrick, and they really turn up the tension. But their character traits can’t do enough to save this story.
This book let me down. It felt a bit fragmented, and things were brought up that were just forgotten later on. There was no real overarching plot that carried the story. I thought that the main issue was her frenemyship with Rose. They are left together to work the food truck for one week, and they go from enemies to friends. Sounds interesting. But the week where they become friends is not in the story?! It just flashes forward and the story continues with them being friends.
Such a let-down.
Then there’s the angle with Hamlet. Why is his name Hamlet? Who knows? Not me. Why does he live with his parents' friend's parents and not his own parent's parents? Who knows. Clara gets annoyed by people that are rich (like Hamlet). What happens to these feelings? Who knows. Her best friend’s parents are filing a lawsuit against her boyfriend. What happens? Who knows.
But you do get to find the verdict of a food truck competition :))
Am I the only one who doesn’t find that to be the most interesting part of this story?
This book started off with such a great premise, but then it lost its momentum rather quickly. As a light summer read, it was fine, but it starts to fall apart if you think about it too much.