Author Corner| Interview with Kara H.L. Chen

As you know if you’ve been following the blog for a while, is that I love books with letters/emails, etc. Besides that I also love the idea of characters having a blog or, in the case of the book I want to talk about, a dating-advice column.

Asking for a Friend releases today and I had the opportunity of asking the author, Kara H.L. Chen, a few questions for my post today. Keep on reading to find out more!

This charming YA rom-com follows a strong-willed, ambitious teen as she teams up with her childhood frenemy to start a dating-advice column, perfect for fans of Emma Lord and Gloria Chao.

Juliana Zhao is absolutely certain of a few things:

  1. She is the world’s foremost expert on love.

  2. She is going to win the nationally renowned Asian Americans in Business Competition.

When Juliana is unceremoniously dropped by her partner and she’s forced to pair with her nonconformist and annoying frenemy, Garrett Tsai, everything seems less clear. Their joint dating advice column must be good enough to win and secure bragging rights within her small Taiwanese American community, where her family’s reputation has been in the pits since her older sister was disowned a few years prior. Juliana always thought prestige mattered above all else. But as she argues with Garrett over how to best solve everyone else’s love problems and faces failure for the first time, she starts to see fractures in this privileged, sheltered worldview. With the competition heating up, Juliana must reckon with the sacrifices she’s made to be a perfect daughter—and whether winning is something she even wants anymore.

Author Interview

What inspired you to write Asking for a Friend?

I wanted to explore the unique position that children of immigrants face when living in America. They may have been lovingly taught the values of their parents’ home country, but those values may not be as applicable in American culture. But I also wanted to write a fun, romantic book about two characters who fall in love while writing a dating advice column. So I did both!

What has been your favorite part of your publishing journey so far?

I feel really privileged to have been able to meet readers, booksellers, librarians and other authors. I love speaking to people who also love books!

If you were a character in Asking for a Friend, what kind of character would you be? 

There is definitely a lot of Juliana in me, so I would have to pick her.

Describe Asking for a Friend in five words or less.

Grumpy meets sunshine advice columnists.

What is your favorite quote from Asking for a Friend?

“[My mom] pounced, like a plastic-hair-rollered tiger, as soon as I walked in the door.”

What do you hope readers take away from your story?

That we need to make our own decisions about what constitutes the “good life.”

Could you give us 5 random facts about Asking for a Friend (think the story, writing, publishing, anything that comes to mind)?

  1. Like me, Juliana’s skills with the Taiwanese language exceed her skills with Mandarin.
  2. The main characters spend a significant summer together at a Taiwanese cultural camp. This setting was loosely based on the Taiwanese American Foundation (TAF) camp that I attended when I was a kid (though nothing nearly as exciting happened to me while I was there, ha ha).
  3. There were three color choices for the cover: yellow, green and blue. We picked blue! (I adore the cover so much!)
  4. I like to think that my driving skills are on par with Hattie’s.
  5. I create playlists for each book that I write. The top artist that I listened to while drafting and revising ASKING FOR A FRIEND was – by far—BTS. To me, the songs  “Lights” and “Life Goes On” were especially evocative of Juliana and Garrett’s relationship.

About the Author

Kara H.L. Chen grew up near Cleveland, Ohio, where she once had to shovel snow off her car with a plastic trashcan. She now lives on the West Coast with her husband and daughters, and is learning how to use an Instapot. She has undergraduate degrees in English and economics, a J.D., and a MFA in fiction. She has used her economics degree exactly once, when she tried to make a joke about marginal costs and marginal returns. It did not go well.

 

A big thanks to Kara for taking time to answer my questions! I’ll definitely be reading Asking for a Friend after I finish my current audiobook! Have you ever read dating-advice columns? Or any other kind of column? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

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