WHEN YOU WISH UPON A LANTERN

Best friends reunite to make other people’s wishes come true—and maybe even their own.

Chicago teens Liya Huang and Kai Jiang, childhood friends whose families own a lantern shop and a bakery respectively, have been avoiding one another ever since Liya threw up her boba tea on Kai and he assumed it was because he had asked her out. Their friendship is further strained by the fact that their families have been feuding since a dumpster incident in their shops’ shared Chinatown alley. Nǎinai, Liya’s paternal grandmother, was the peacekeeper, but since her passing, every argument between the families has only escalated. Also, Liya has stopped trying to make customers’ wishes—written on the shop’s lanterns—come to pass, something she used to secretly do with Nǎinai. Eager to fight her loneliness from missing both Kai and her Nǎinai, she decides to start working on granting wishes again, beginning with arranging a meet-cute between two community elders. Liya enters the Jiang’s bakery to order a mooncake as part of her plan, and Kai, who misses her and is dealing with strained family relationships, offers to be her new wish-granting partner. Their friends-to-lovers romance is an endlessly frustrating yet adorable cycle during which there are frequent misunderstandings and oh-so-close moments. Chao immerses readers in Chinese culture, incorporating a variety of Chinese traditions and folktales that are relevant to the couple’s story.

As delectable as a mooncake.