“Crazy Bao You” is a rom-com for our times. An attraction begins on Instagram; who would have thought that an introverted Etsy seller in Oklahoma might fall in love with a handsome firefighter in New York City? Diverging a bit from her clever mysteries, Lyn Liao (Butler) has written a rom-com that could almost appear to be based on her own life. She was born in Taiwan and moved to the States when she was seven. She is married to a FDNY firefighter. She also fosters dogs in need of rescue. Are you hooked yet?
The novel opens when Kimmie, who works at Let Her Rip, a boutique in a small Oklahoma town, for an irascible owner named Rip, finally gets the nerve to tell him what she thinks about his treatment of the store’s employees. For some strange reason, Kimmie begins dancing and twerking while flying around the store enumerating all the ways in which his employees have been abused. She has no idea that a coworker has taken video of the whole thing. And while Kimmie is no dancer, in the video she looks graceful and powerful as she scolds Rip for his appalling behavior. She is appalled when that video, posted by her coworker on Instagram so that close friends can see it, goes viral instead. Luckily, her name is not mentioned, but the store is called Let Her Rip, and that becomes the hashtag for her video. Like it or not, Kimmie is famous for that act of defiance, and her hashtag is #Letherrip.
Kimmie is an introverted person. She sells purses and totes that she makes on Etsy, and she wants her Etsy store to have nothing to do with this viral madness. Her store is gaining a following, and she is kept busy filling orders. Her Aunt Hana, a writer, flies to Oklahoma from London, and her good friend Alicia comes back from NYC to help her through the emotional turmoil from the double whammy of the viral video and losing her job.
Kimmie lives in the house in which she grew up . She was adopted by a Korean couple and, because her adoptive parents never told her she was adopted, grew up thinking she was Korean. But as an adult, after thinking she was Chinese, she has now heard from her birth mother and realizes that she is Taiwanese. Her birth mother had reached out to Kimmie twice after the death of Kimmie’s adoptive parents when she was still a teenager. Kimmie vacillates about connecting with her birth mother.
Kimmie’s dream had always been to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City. But since the death of her parents on a vacation, Kimmie is afraid to leave her home. She will go shopping, and out and about. But she has no desire to travel, and attending school in NYC is out of the question, as much as she has longed to do that.
The narrative is divided into three parts. There is Kimmie’s narrative, as well as Matt’s narrative. He’s the firefighter in NYC who finds Kimmie on Instagram when he buys a tote from Kimmie for his grandmother’s birthday. Both narratives are in first person, but it’s really Kimmie’s voice that grabs us. The third part of the narrative consists of Kimmie’s Instagram posts. She posts as her Etsy store, MyCraftyBao, and ends each post with the words: “Be daring, be bold, be you.” In some of the posts she shares her story, and she has her friend Alicia model the merchandise. When everyone assumes that Alicia is Kimmie, she doesn’t correct them.
Alicia is model thin, beautifully made up, and graceful. Kimmie loves to eat, has wild black hair, and most importantly, doesn’t want anyone to connect her Etsy store with the crazy woman from the viral video, #LetHerRip. This is what leads to the “com” part of this clever rom-com.
What Liao does wonderfully in all her novels is to create main characters who are flawed in ways that we can empathize with. Not one main character is perfect, and there’s something comforting about seeing that people who might seem put together on social media might be quite different in real life. Both Kimmie and Matt have lost parents, and while Matt’s father is still around, they do not have a close relationship. For much of the story, Matt thinks that Kimmie looks like Alicia. But when Kimmie tries to tell him that she is not Alicia, he assures her that he enjoys her conversation for who she is, not what she looks like, but because of a comedy of errors, he doesn’t really understand what she is trying to explain. And we see how their communication, through Instagram and phone calls, does result in their falling in love before they’ve ever really seen each other.
Far fetched? Perhaps, but in Liao’s capable hands, it really works. This is a lovely story with a happy ending. One actual fact is that the author does have her own Etsy store where she sells purses. And the in joke in the novel is that when Kimmie exercises with “Lyn” on a YouTube channel, in real life, Liao shares a 30-minute exercise video on Instagram with her followers on Saturdays. Liao also loves to cook the food her parents made for her when she was growing up, so Kimmie’s excitement and joy in finding the food of her heritage is really something the author feels passionately about.
Enjoy the romance. Laugh at the mix-ups. Savor vicariously the descriptions of food. And maybe, even shop at a purse store on Etsy. Think about Kimmie and Matt as you do that.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.