Title: Worth Fighting For (Meant to Be #5)

Author: Jesse Q. Sutanto

Publisher: Hyperion Avenue 2025

Genre: Romance

Pages: 320

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Finishing the Series; Romanceopoly - The Highpoint (Workplace Romance)

Spice Rating: 3

Following one’s heart isn’t easy when family honor is at stake.

As the right hand of her father’s hedge fund company, Fa Mulan knows what it takes to succeed as a woman in a man’s world: work twice as hard, be twice as smart, and burp twice as loud as any of the other finance bros she works with. So when her father unexpectedly falls ill in the middle of a critical acquisition, she is determined to see it through. There’s just one hitch: the family company in question is known for its ultra masculine whiskey brand, and the brood of old-fashioned aunts, uncles, and cousins who run it—lead by the dedicated but overworked Shang—will only trust Mulan’s father, Fa Zhou, with the future of their business.

Rather than fail the deal and her father, Mulan pretends she’s Fa Zhou. Since they’ve only corresponded over email, how hard could it be to keep things moving in his absence?

But the email leads to a face-to-face meeting, which leads to an invitation to a week long retreat at Shang’s family ranch. One meeting she can handle, but a whole week of cattle wrangling, axe-throwing, and learning proper butchering techniques, all while trying to convince Shang’s dubious family that this young woman is the powerful hedge fund CEO they’ve been negotiating with? Not so much—especially as she finds it harder and harder to ignore the undeniable spark between her and Shang. Can she keep her head in the game and make her father proud, all while trying not to fall into a trough, or in love with Shang?

Rom coms are really not my jam right now. I mostly felt bored while reading this one. I got all the Mulan references, but they seemed very off-putting to me. I truly dislike the miscommunication trope and this entire plot hinged on that. I just kept yelling at the characters to talk to each other. And then there is the family. Patriarchal bullshit really makes me angry. Shang’s family was absolutely trash and I wanted all of them to go away. And then we get to the insta-love trope. I just couldn’t really understand why our main characters loved each other. Not the book for me.

Meant to Be: