National Parks: An Angsty Second Chance Multicultural Romance by Laikyn Meng – Review by Ayla Phipps

National Parks by Laikyn Meng
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the first book that I have read by Laikyn Meng. I found the cover interesting and the synopsis original and decided to give it a try. With so little multicultural romances out there it was interesting to find one so unique. Phoebe is a nature photographer. Kenzo is her boyfriend that loves traveling with her for her job.
From the first page the author pulls at your heart strings for Phoebe. Growing up her family was very cold, and didn’t show affection, the first time she felt happy she also felt sad. She was between the ages of eight and eleven, unsure because she didn’t always get a birthday celebration every year. While at her aunt’s house in Texas for the summer she would watch a neighbor girl wait on the front porch for her grandfather, and after several minutes of hugging each other, they would leave. In those moments she realized for the first time that there were other types of families out there, loving families. Phoebe for the first time wanted something that she didn’t have. At the age of sixteen she left home for the first time finding her passion for photography and being told for the first time that it was more than just a hobby and was paid for her beautiful pictures. She was older now, loving her work and her boyfriend but the echoes of the happiness she once felt weren’t always enough. Kenzo never thought he would be the kind of guy to fall in love and settle down, until he suddenly was willing to do anything, even jump into the murky waters of the Everglades National Park in Florida to retrieve Phoebe’s first camera that had fallen in the water. With time all things change, “Only remember the Good Echoes.”
Will Phoebe and Kenzo find their ways back to each other? Are the echoes enough to keep the spark going? The world the author created in National Parks was beautiful, while the time jumps sometimes made it difficult to keep up with what was past and present the book flowed like the rivers of Nepal. I look forward to reading more of the amazing works by Laikyn Meng in the future.

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