Private Label by Kelly Yang

Publisher: Harper Collins

Publication date: May 31st 2022

Pages: 416

Seventeen year old Serene Li loves to design fashion and is an intern at her mom's Los Angeles based fashion label. Her mom is in the middle of important fashion shows when she is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And this turns both of their worlds upside down. Serene has to take over her mom's place at the business, and has to deal with the difficult, demanding, and deciding business partners and investors, mostly older white man who think a seventeen year old Chinese-American girl can't run a fashion business. Meanwhile her mom has to undergo chemo therapy. Without her mom knowing , Serene tries to figure out what happened with her dad, who left before she was born, in Beijing. 

Lian Chen moved from China to the same California beach town as Serene. His strict Chinese mom is at his back all the time because he has to reach the highest score at his SAT's, and to get in a good engineering college. But that is what his mom wants for him, he wants something entirely different, being a standup comedian. But his mom ofcourse doesn't agree with this, so he tries to do some things without his mom knowing it, and this leads him to meet Serene, at the Chinese club he starts after school. They find support in each other and a very cute teen romance starts...

Wow, wow, wow!!,That was my first thought after finishing this book. I have read all of Kelly Yang's previous books (I truly recommend her Front Desk series) which where all just brilliant, but this book even topped it!!

The story of Private Label is just beautiful and very moving, it has so many layers and ..i find it difficult where to start with this review, because everything about Private Label is so good, I just want to do this amazing book justice with this review.

I loved the love between Serene and her mother Lily. It was so real and beautiful, it was wonderful how Serene supported her mom during the diagnose and harsh time during the chemotherapy. The love between them just jumped of the pages and steals your heart as a reader. Beautiful!!

Serene has to deal with all the difficulties of running a fashion business, she comes up with all kind of new things for the brand, like a fashion app that can be used in China, which she creates behind the back of the investors to see if it works, and it does! But the investors keep holding on to old ideas and do not agree. But Serene is a strong willed girl and doesn't give up, as this brand is her mothers life and legacy. The romance between Serene and Lian that started slowly was also portrayed really good. It was nothing too much, and they truly fit together! 

Without further ado, I absolutely love this new book by Kelly Yang, I think it is the best YA novel that comesout this year! Highly recommended!!