The Fold by An Na

The Fold

Joyce never used to care that much about how she looked, but that was before she met JFK—John Ford Kang, the most gorgeous guy in school. And it doesn't help that she's constantly being compared to her beautiful older sister, Helen. Then her rich plastic-surgery-addict aunt offers Joyce a gift to “fix” a part of herself she'd never realized needed fixing—her eyes. Joyce has heard of the fold surgery—a common procedure meant to make Asian women's eyes seem “prettier” and more “American”—but she's not sure she wants to go through with it. Her friend Gina can't believe she isn't thrilled. After all, the plastic surgeon has shown Joyce that her new eyes will make her look just like Helen—but is that necessarily a good thing? from GoodReads.com

I have an ARC copy of this book that I got from the publisher at my writing camp this past summer. Let me tell you, I never was very interested in this book. It didn't catch my attention. But I remembered that I have and maybe I should read it for Yay! Reads, right? Well, I have mixed feelings about the book.

For the good stuff: I liked the message of the book and how everything seems to tie together in the end. I was glad that the characters found some depth and meaning at the end. But the bad stuff: I didn't really connect with any character. It felt more like reading a middle school story than a story about high school juniors/seniors. To me, the characters seemed very immature and superficial. The only part that I really thought that I enjoyed was the end when we see Joyce in a more deep aspect, but even then, it was pretty much it. Nothing really attracted me about any of the characters. It felt flat.

Now, on some parts I got really confused with the dialogue. This may be because I read too fast but at the same time it felt that all of the characters had the same 'voice'. Maybe this was the problem.

In one sentence:
It quite wasn't there for me.