BITE ME, ROYCE TASLIM

After an injury derails her track career, a high school senior in Kuala Lumpur enters a stand-up comedy contest and finds an unexpected source of friendship and romance.

Chinese Malaysian Agnes Chan is a winner. A nationally ranked junior sprinter, Agnes plans to spend her senior year breaking records and closing in on her life goal: to win Malaysia’s first Olympic gold medal. First, though, she must beat out her track team co-captain, Royce Taslim, for their school’s Athlete of the Year award (and the accompanying prize money). Competition is one thing, but when the competition is rich, handsome, and polished Royce, who’s never wanted for anything? It’s infuriating. Then, Agnes is struck in a hit-and-run accident that leaves her with a fractured fibula, a rescinded college athletic scholarship, and nothing to show for years of hard work. As she recalibrates, Agnes falls into the city’s stand-up comedy scene, where Royce has long been performing. When she and Royce, who’s Indonesian, both decide to enter a contest for teen comedians, their rivalry finds a new battlefront. Still, as they follow each other from one open mic event to another, combative, defensive Agnes finds it increasingly difficult to deny the sizzling tension drawing them together. Conflicts around class and gender are introduced but not fully resolved, although a strong central romance and a relatable coming-of-age story redeem the narrative.

A solid addition to the list of rivals-to-lovers romances.