By Kayla Kuo
CW: death of a parent, grief, adoption, cancer, PTSD
I first encountered Stefany Valentine’s work while reading a YA adoptee anthology, When We Become Ours, edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung. But it wasn’t until a close friend, who is a transracial and transnational adoptee and also read the anthology, specifically pointed out Valentine’s bio that I learned of her debut novel, First Love Language.
Immediately, I felt a connection and desire to Valentine’s work, not only to support her as an adoptee author, but to learn Mandarin. In First Love Language, which I’ll talk about in depth below in the review, Valentine explores how it’s easy to let the grief, shame, and embarrassment of learning our first language hold us back from ever (re)learning it.
The news of this book arrived at a painful time in my life. With the recent passing of my adoptive dad and the news that my birth mother did not want to be contacted, I was not only looking for additional reassurance of my place in the world— that I belonged, –-but more specifically, an opportunity to connect with my culture, even if it wouldn’t be with my birth family.
Learning about First Love Language prompted me to sign up for Mandarin lessons and to share my own monthly language lesson reflections (which you can read on my blog here). I kept with the weekly Mandarin lessons for more than a year, though I’ve since cancelled them because I can’t fully dedicate the appropriate time to sustainably learn a new language (at least right now).
While I’ve tried to explain just how meaningful First Love Language and When We Become Ours has been as a book lover and as an adoptee, it’s impossible. Representation is crucial, particularly stories that offer nuanced experiences of transracial and transnational adoption, written by and for adoptees.
First Love Language was released earlier this year (January 14, 2025), though I’ve finally had the mental capacity to read it now. I’m happy to share my review and reflection, so without further ado, enjoy!
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Taiwanese American Catie Carlson is juggling layers of grief, exacerbated by her father’s death a few years ago and her severance to her Taiwanese culture and birth family. Although Catie loves her (white American) stepmom and sister, she doesn’t feel like she belongs.
Catie’s family has experienced several life changes, and due to rising rent and low rates, they can’t afford their house in San Diego anymore. Instead, they’re temporarily living in Salt Lake City, Utah with their conservative Mormon family for the summer.
To avoid spending time with her conservative and judgemental family, Catie lands a job as a receptionist at a boutique salon and spa. She soon becomes friends with Toby, the owners’ son, and they strike a deal: Toby will teach her Mandarin in exchange for Catie teaching him how to date. There’s just one problem, Catie hasn’t actually dated but, to establish some more credibility, she creates a fake boyfriend.
Inspired by her father’s favorite book, The Five Love Languages, Catie uses his annotated copy as a way to create “practice” dates with Toby. Over the course of the summer, the more Catie and Toby spend time with one another, the harder it is to ignore the mutual feelings they have for one another.
Despite this initial plot sounding like a Taiwanese drama, Valentine does a great job realistically portraying complex experiences without the reader feeling overwhelmed by the various subplots.
Stefany Valentine’s debut novel, First Love Language, is a heartfelt YA romance about grief, love, self-discovery, and transracial adoption.
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THEMES
Grief/Loss
First Love Language acknowledges the many forms and layers of grief, particularly for adoptees.
Catie is still grieving her father who passed away two years ago. But even with the passage of time, grief still lingers and makes itself known. Yet, unlike the physical loss of her father, Catie is also struggling with ambiguous loss (a term I learned in therapy and something that I, too, am working through). Catie’s father was the tie to her Taiwanese family. Without him, the answers for herself and her family are also lost, like why her parents divorced, why her dad received full custody and moved back to the United States, and what happened to her birth mother. The ambiguous loss that Catie is experiencing stems from the lack of closure and information about her biological mother and her separation from Taiwan.
There are many unresolved questions surrounding Catie’s family and her own connections to her culture and her homeland. With her father’s death, there was a funeral tradition to follow and a way for others to acknowledge the physical loss of this beloved family member. However, ambiguous losses can be more difficult for other people to recognize since it’s felt individually and internally. Grieving ambiguous losses can be lonely and isolating, especially when those feelings are kept to oneself like Catie does.
As much as Catie loves her family, she’s never really felt like she fully fits in with her white side of the family. Yet, she doesn’t feel fully Taiwanese either, something adoptees and those within the larger Asian diaspora are all too familiar with.
Love and Self-Discovery
Valentine absolutely captures the giddiness and awkwardness of first love. The infatuation between Catie and Toby was felt through the pages, as was the awkwardness and excitement of crushes and first kisses (which just speaks to the vividness of Valentine’s storytelling).
First Love Language is a beautiful YA romance, but it doesn’t only focus on romantic love. First Love Language captures the blossoming love that Catie grows towards herself and her life, fully embracing her father’s wishes for herself by living authentically and following her heart.
One of my favorite aspects of the book is Catie’s journey of self-discovery, embracing who she is right now (not who she wants to be or was before her father passed away). I enjoyed watching her build confidence and reconnect with her cultural heritage, holding multitudes of joy and pain during this reconnection process. While she may have initially harbored some internal shame for forgetting her first language, Valentine refreshingly addresses the realities that some adoptees may have PTSD when relearning their first language. Even though she’s refamiliarizing herself with the tonal language, her body remembers speaking Mandarin, offering glimpses of her childhood in Taipei.
As someone who was adopted at 6 months old from Taiwan and hasn’t read too much about the impacts of adoption for younger children (ages 3-10), this addition to Catie’s character brings complexity and nuance to adoptee narratives.
Transracial Adoption
It’s clear that First Love Language was written by a transracial adoptee. Catie’s identity as a transracial adoptee is intimately woven throughout the book, as evidenced by her reconnection with her cultural heritage, her decision to search for her birth family, and in her communications with her family of what she did/did not share with them for fear of hurting their feelings.
The yearning to (re)learn her first language is all too familiar. Despite English being spoken to me by my (white American) foster parents in Taipei and my own first language spoken, the cultural significance of learning Mandarin remains steadfast. As someone who doesn’t have the opportunity to meet my birth parents, it’s even more important for me to connect with Taiwan and my cultural heritage, focusing on what I can learn and can control.
As adoptees, particularly transnational adoptees, the options to search for our birth families can be fairly limited and costly (emotionally and financially): reaching out to the adoption agency, hiring a private investigator, DNA testing, and traveling back to one’s birth country.
Given these birth search options, I typically shy away from the standard family tree since there’s very little information concerning my extended family. Yet, for Catie, she’s able to trace her family tree with the support of a friendly librarian and her extensive genealogy research and resources.
Finally, part of what makes this book so realistic is Catie’s decision to keep her emotions and birth search to herself for fear of hurting her family’s feelings. By the end of the book, Catie feels ready and safe enough to let her family in on her developments and her grief surrounding her birth family. As readers, we get to see Catie be supported without her adoptive families’ own feelings or insecurities getting in the way. I’d love to see this reflected in real life.
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As for the format and structure of the book, the chapters are written in English and hanzi (汉字) which was fun to try to read along in both languages (or at least decipher individual words within the chapter titles).
While First Love Language is a straight romance, the side characters bring a beautiful addition of queer representation and forms of love. I specifically enjoyed the blooming friendship between Mavis and her cousin, Rayleigh, and their ability to connect with one another despite their parents’ tension. For Rayleigh specifically, it was heartwarming to see her figure out who she is when she feels safe, rather than the person she is out of coercion or control. That being said, I didn’t anticipate how much religion, and Mormonism specifically, would be included in the book. It isn’t a bad thing, it was just unexpected!
The is a relatively fast read, and the pacing is well done. There’s a lot that happens, though it all feels tied up by the end of the book. My only criticism is that I’m not a fan of big gestures when the love interests haven’t communicated with one another. It felt a bit too unbelievable, though that’s less because of the writing itself and my own romance tropes/preferences.
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First Love Language represents the importance of books written by and for adoptees, particularly the ways that identity, family, and cultural loss/connections are handled realistically and with care. This book is also marketed as a YA romance, and there are so few YA books that navigate adoption. This book exists not only for a younger generation of adoptees, but also for adult adoptees to heal our inner children.
Before reading First Love Language, I had never considered how transracial adoptions and cultural losses could also occur through divorce and remarriage. I appreciate Valentine adding these nuanced experiences to the wider field of adoption literature.
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I hope that you’ll fall in love with First Love Language as much as I did, or at least better understand adoptee perspectives. The novel is a reminder that we need to celebrate and support more YA adoptee representation—nuance and all.
Kayla Kuo is a queer transracial and transnational adoptee born in Taiwan and raised in the Midwest. She is learning how to embrace slowness and be more creative. Lately, she spends her time sewing, reading too many books at once, deepening her community organizing, and snuggling with her miniature pinscher, Kenny.
You can find her book reviews on Instagram (@ThatBookBinch) and more reflections/essays as an adoptee on her blog.