The Not-So-Perfect Plan

Holly-Mei #2

by Christina Matula

Return to Hong Kong in the second book of this middle grade series starring Holly-Mei, a girl navigating her new city, new school, and new friendships.

It’s the start of a new year, and Holly-Mei Jones is determined to make the most of it. She has amazing friends, a great field hockey team, and Hong Kong at her doorstep. This semester is going to be perfect . . . right?
 
Maybe not. Despite their closeness last year, Holly-Mei’s friend group seems to be splintering. Desperate to bring everyone together, she ropes her friends into competing as a team in an inter-school tournament across the city.
 
But as Holly-Mei becomes obsessed with winning, her friends seem less interested in the tournament—and in her new attitude. Will she be able to pull off her perfect plan?

Genres: Middle Grade, Asia, Fiction, Childrens

218 pages, Hardcover

First published April 4, 2023

About the author

Christina Matula is from Canada and is of Taiwanese-Hungarian heritage. Being a child of immigrant parents, she has always been curious about other cultures and far-off places. Moving to Hong Kong gave Christina the chance to explore her Chinese cultural roots (amazing food, fascinating festivals) and learn some Mandarin (constant uphill climb). She loves eating dumplings, playing field hockey, and hiking with her family and puppy.

She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Hong Kong and is represented by Carrie Pestritto of Laura Dail Literary Agency.

Reviews

[Jaimes_Mystical_Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a cute middle grade book! This is the second book in the Holly-Mei series. I think young girls will find Holly-Mei to be a very relatable character as she starts a new school year. This book was very well written and enjoyable. I think many middle graders will really enjoy reading this one and getting to know Holly-Mei even better in this sequel to The Not-So-Uniform Life Of Holly-Mei.

[Becky B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holly-Mei is worried that her friends have drifted apart from her and each other after the holiday break. So as Lunar New Year approaches and she hears about an inter-school tournament across Hong Kong involving trivia, sporting events, and other activities, she thinks it is the perfect thing to bring them back together. But after being overlooked for field hockey MVP that goes to the "oh-so-perfect Saskia" and not feeling very special after her sister effortlessly wins a baking competition, Holly-Mei may be putting too much emphasis on the need to win the tournament. She's told her friends it is just for fun, but her actions seem to be saying this is life or death.

Everyone wants to feel special, and in that way Holly-Mei's misadventures in this book will feel relatable. She is suffering from a string of compounded events that make her feel not-so-special. So she starts scrambling to be special, and it backfires. The challenges that Holly-Mei, Millie, Saskia, and Holly-Mei's friends are facing feel very true to life for an international group of friends in an Asian context (I speak as someone who has lived in an international community in Asia for 2 decades). Saskia is facing pressure from parents to be high-achieving in sports (like Olympic level). Holly-Mei is jealous of the attention and awards Saskia gets until she realizes how unhappy she is and how the pressure is affecting her. Millie loves to bake for fun, and being creative in her baking comes effortlessly, but after winning a prize and going a bit viral online for some of her recipes she feels the pressure to keep up the content. Holly-Mei is jealous of Millie, until she realizes the success online and pressure is starting to rob the joy from Millie's favorite past-time. Holly-Mei's various friends had different experiences over break, some made new friends, some found new interests, and it makes Holly-Mei feel insecure. Thankfully, by the end of the book there's healthy steps forward for Saskia, Millie, and Holly-Mei. Holly-Mei realizes what she can control and what she can't, and thanks to her grandmother's advice, realizes that her focus is better spent on seeing how she can help others than trying to demand attention or recognition for her accomplishments. All the lessons are important ones and hopefully readers can learn some of them vicariously. The Hong Kong setting is a lot of fun. I like that swimming, hiking, and exploring green parts of the city are all part of the tournament so readers get to see that Hong Kong isn't all skyscrapers. And the setting time-wise of the winter break and then the short time back at school before Lunar New Year break will be nostalgic for many readers. Overall, a relatable contemporary fiction middle grade adventure in a unique setting.

Notes on content:
Language: None
Sexual content: Some of the middle schoolers have paired off into couples, but they aren't described as doing anything other than spending time together.
Violence: A fall results in sprained ankle.
Ethnic diversity: Holly-Mei is mixed white Canadian/Chinese Canadian, Saskia is mixed Black British/white British, others in Holly-Mei's class are from all over the world...one classmate is Korean American, several are Chinese American or Chinese British.
LGBTQ+ content: None specified
Other: Pressure from parents, perfectionistic tendencies, and social media pressures to produce likes are all prominent issues explored.

[Ms. Yingling · Rating 3 out of 5]

E ARC provided by Netgalley

In this sequel to The Not-So-Uniform Life of Holly Mei, Holly-Mei and her family have settled into a routine in their new life in Hong Kong, where they have moved from Toronto when her mother's job moved them there. She and younger sister Millie attend Tai Tam Prep, and Holly-Mei is on the field hockey team. She's disappointed when she doesn't make MVP, but instead gets the award for the Most Improved Player. This stings especially when Millie wins a bake off with an avocado/chocolate cake even though she wasn't baking to win. Holly-Mei is jealous of all of the attention and social media love that Millie gets, and comes up with an idea; she will put together a team and enter the annual Dragon Dash, an orienteering race around the city. It's coming up quickly, but she manages to put together a team that includes cousins, Gemma, and others from school, but not Saskia, whose mother is pushing her to do better at hockey and other sports so she can qualify for the Olympics. The team calls themselves the Tai Tam Thunder and intend to play for fun until Holly-Mei, driven by the need to win, becomes demanding and takes a lot of the joy out of the training. Will she be able to compete, keep her friends, and get over her need to win things in order to feel loved?
Strengths: I doubt that I will ever get to travel to Hong Kong, so this was a good virtual tour of the city. At one point, Holly-Mei and Millie even get to travel on their own to the market to buy supplies; one of my favorite things to do while traveling is to go grocery shopping, since it gives such a good picture of what it's really like to live in a country. The sibling rivalry was well done, and I appreciated that Holly-Mei still liked her sister and got along with her even when she was jealous. The field hockey and running training will appeal to readers who like sports, and characters like Gemma add some social drama. The other fun part about this book was all of the food descriptions; it's fairly common to get descriptions of meals, but I loved that we got to hear a lot about Holly-Mei's snacks. I feel like at some point I will need to obtain some White Rabbit candy!
Weaknesses: There were a lot of characters to keep straight, so I would have enjoyed this more if there had been a team of about four!
What I really think: This felt a bit like Harrison's The Clique books or Russell's Dork Diaries, with its ensemble cast, school related activity, and friend and family drama, but it was good to see a more international spin on realistic fiction.

[Laina SpareTime]

Cross-posted from my blog where there's more information on where I got my copy and links and everything.

This series makes me so hungry. There is so much food talk in this and it all sounds so good. I want bubble tea so badly now and nowhere here sells it XD This is truly tragic.

Much like the first book, I really enjoyed this. I feel like this is sitting in a really interesting niche where it’s very much a middle grade and not a chapter book, but it would definitely appeal to the younger side of middle grade. It also has some illustrations that I think would add to that appeal, which I think it’s doing very well in general.

The little messages Holly-Mei learns work very well, and the setting is so, so good. Holly-Mei spends a lot of this one exploring Hong Kong while being a little more confident with it as she’s lived there for five months. It’s really cool reading a little bit about the history and also just interesting places she visits.

I especially appreciated the way friendship is depicted in this one. Holly-Mei has to learn to stop pushing her friends to constantly compete, and learns about being a thoughtful, compassionate friend and it’s a really sweet plotline. Also, they talk about periods! And it’s very normalized, and reusable period underwear is mentioned which I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a middle grade book. That was great.

This was just a really sweet, fun book.

Representation: Holly-Mei is, in her words, mixed race or Eurasian and her mom is Chinese. She talks a lot about how her school in Hong Kong has a lot more mixed race kids than her school back in Toronto.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my opinion I think this book is really good and interesting. The more you read about her school and friends the more interesting the book gets. I do not like reading at all but i feel like this book made me actually like reading. For me this might be like my favorite book and i think it is really interesting and good. I would rate it 4 stars.

[Inkyard Press]

Young Adult Social Issues, Young Adult Family, Young Adult People & Places
Miniseries
A Holly-Mei Book (Book #2)

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25/5

[ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

when you see yourself in the mc who seeks to live up to the standards of people around her… only to realise it’s okay to let loose a little & embrace a lot ❤️

[Autumn Hunter · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the most boring books I have ever read.

[Daisy Strange · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the Holly-Mei books so much, I love how I'm learning about other cultures while reading a cute coming of age story.

[Shwetha Sanjay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Not-So-Perfect Plan: A Holly-Mei Book is a very heartwarming and inspirational. This book taught me many important lessons, such as how winning isn't everything and how important it is to work together and repect each other's liking. The characters showed me that perfection isn't everything and the only thing that matters is trying your best and believing in yourself. I couldn't hold back my emotions when the characters face challenges. I loved this book and I hope you like it too.!