Gloria Chao is one of the most prolific writers of our generation, and I was thrilled to speak with her about her latest YA novel, Ex Marks the Spot. We’ve previously discussed her 2023 release, When You Wish Upon a Lantern, and I was delighted to find that her newest book revisits similar riveting themes—young love, intergenerational tenderness (and misunderstandings!), and family rivalries—while presenting them in an entirely fresh and unexpected way.
I am always drawn to the depth and sincerity of Chao’s characters, particularly her female protagonists, who navigate complex romantic and familial relationships with nuance and heart. What moves me even more is how she seamlessly weaves entire families into each other’s schemes, dreams, and desires, creating stories that feel both intimate and expansive.
Ex Marks the Spot takes this a step further, adding even greater depth to each generation by threading together political trauma, migration, and an unexpected twist (no spoilers!) that binds grandparent, parent, and child. As each character guards their secrets, the protagonist’s unwavering determination to uncover the truth propels us into a dynamic, thought-provoking exploration of Taiwan through time and space.
It is also deeply rooted in the diasporic experience, filled with pinyin Easter eggs for Taiwanese Americans. Yet, I am confident that readers of all backgrounds will be drawn in by its cleverly crafted puzzles and enjoy solving them alongside the protagonist.
Synopsis:
This latest YA novel by acclaimed writer Gloria Chao takes readers on a soaring adventure through love, loss, and the lively streets of Taiwan.
For Gemma’s whole life, it has always been her and her mom against the world. As far as she knew, all her grandparents—and thus her ties to Taiwanese culture—were dead. Until one day when a mysterious man shows up at her door with two shocking things: the news that her grandfather has just recently passed, and the first clue to a treasure hunt that Gemma hopes will lead to her inheritance.
There’s just one major problem: to complete the hunt, she has to go to her grandfather’s home in Taiwan. And the only way she can get there is by asking her ex and biggest high-school rival, Xander, for help. But after swallowing her pride, Gemma finds herself halfway across the world, ready to unearth her life-changing prize. Soon Gemma discovers that the treasure hunt is about much more than money—it’s about finally learning about her family, exploring her cultural roots, and maybe even finding true love.
We are pleased to present the following interview with author Gloria Chao, lightly edited for concision and clarity.
L: Gloria, we have to talk about the puzzles. I was gobsmacked by their intricacy and wit. Without giving anything away… how does a puzzle begin for you? How did you develop the clues and ensure they were thematically consistent while being meaningful to Gemma’s journey?
G: Thank you so much! I’m so thrilled you enjoyed the puzzles. I knew from the beginning that I wanted the puzzles to connect, to have bigger messages that would impact Gemma’s journey, and for there to be a larger theme that would cohesively tie the entire hunt together. I also had a list of Taiwan locales I wanted to send Gemma to, a list of the types of puzzles I wanted to incorporate, and a list of ways in which I wanted the treasure hunt to be meaningful for Gemma’s journey. So before drafting, I spent a week putting all these pieces together and planning out the puzzles. It was one of my favorite parts of writing this book! Just like Gemma, I sometimes feel like I see things differently and am on a different wavelength from others, and this served me well in creating the puzzles. I especially loved incorporating Mandarin characters and trying to see them in a new way.
L: I giggled over the TARP acronym, which – for those who haven’t read the novel – stands for Taiwanese American Roots Pursuit. It’s an autological term for a program that empowers Taiwanese Americans to go “back” to Taiwan to better connect with their heritage. Have you ever done anything like this? How did that experience (or your imagination of it) inspire this element of the plot?
G: I wish I had done a program like this! It would have been so wonderful to meet other participants and explore Taiwan together. It was so much fun creating this fictional experience for Gemma and writing a big fun cast for her to interact with. I knew from the beginning that I wanted her to learn from the other TARPers and vice versa.
Even though I didn’t get to be a part of something like TARP, I was lucky to spend many summers in Taiwan visiting my grandparents. And the time I spent there was magical, which made me want to try to capture a piece of that magic for readers. This book ended up being my love letter to Taiwan, packed with all of my favorite Taiwanese sights and food, like Yehliu Geopark, Shilin Night Market, the National Palace Museum, Taipei 101, Chengcing Hu, beef noodle soup, Peking duck, turnip cakes, boba, shaved ice, soup dumplings, and so much more. I have never been so nostalgic or hungry while writing before. I wanted to either remind readers of the beauty of Taiwan or to transport them to a place they’ve never been before.
L: For readers familiar with Taiwan in the same way as the TARPers (tourists in their own supposed “motherland”), what do you hope they take away from this perspective?
G: One thing I hope readers take away is that your connection to your culture doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. At the start of the novel, Gemma is embarrassed that she doesn’t know much about her roots, and she thinks she should be more like Xander, who speaks perfect Mandarin and knows customs, folktales, and history. But seeing all the TARPers helps Gemma realize that she can decide what her connection will look like. This is something I wish I had realized sooner, which is why I wanted to explore it in Ex Marks the Spot.
L: I found the grandfather character so astonishing – the complexity of his life, the difficulty of the choices he made. What did you enjoy most about developing this character?
G: I wrote the grandfather’s storyline wanting to capture the coming-of-age moment when you see your parents or grandparents as people for the first time. They’re humans who make mistakes. And I was so fascinated by this character who had so many secrets and different sides. I loved the challenge of showing little bits of him to Gemma (and the reader) through the treasure hunt. I wanted the reader to feel like they knew the grandfather by the end of the book even though he doesn’t appear on the page, which is exactly how Gemma feels—like she understands him and his story by the end, for better or worse. I also wanted to capture how hard it can be to tell your story, especially when it’s been a struggle, even to your own family, and how people find different ways to do it. For Gemma’s grandfather, it was through this treasure hunt.
L: The dynamic between Gemma and Xander really reminded me of the dynamic between Liya and Kai in your last novel – your heart and compassion for young adults really shines through in them! How do you develop the chemistry between your love interests?
G: Thank you so much! I always try to make it clear how the love interests bring out the best in each other and how they help each other grow, because I think that’s what makes for a healthy relationship in real life. I also like to take small pieces from my own life to develop the chemistry. For example, the way Xander jokes with Gemma and how they banter is similar to how my husband and I joke.
And Liya and Kai play charades through the shared window of their family stores just like my husband and I played charades when we first met (we were in college and other people saw; I was embarrassed).
L: I love that so much. Thank you for sharing with us, Gloria.
G: Thank you so much for having me, Leona and TaiwaneseAmerican.org! I’m so grateful for all that you do!
Gloria Chao is a screenwriter and the author of The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club (forthcoming 6.24.25), Ex Marks the Spot, When You Wish Upon a Lantern, Rent a Boyfriend, Our Wayward Fate, and American Panda. Her award-winning novels have received starred trade reviews; were Epic Reads x Target, Junior Library Guild, Indie Next List, YALSA Teens’ Top 10, Amelia Bloomer List, YALSA Amazing Audiobook, and Common Sense Media selections; and were featured on the “Best of” lists of Seventeen, Bustle, Barnes & Noble, PopSugar, Paste Magazine, Booklist, Chicago Public Library, Bank Street, The Honey Pop, and more. She graduated from MIT and became a dentist before realizing she’d rather spend her days in fictional characters’ heads instead of real people’s mouths. When she’s not writing, you can find her on the curling ice, where she and her husband are world-ranked in mixed doubles. Visit her tea-and-book-filled world at GloriaChao.wordpress.com and find her on Instagram and X @GloriacChao.
Four starred reviews for this incisive, laugh-out-loud contemporary debut about a Taiwanese-American teen whose parents want her to be a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer despite her squeamishness with germs and crush on a Japanese classmate.
At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies.
With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth–that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.
But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels?
From debut author Gloria Chao comes a hilarious, heartfelt tale of how, unlike the panda, life isn’t always so black and white.
A teen outcast is simultaneously swept up in a whirlwind romance and down a rabbit hole of dark family secrets when another Taiwanese family moves to her small, predominantly white midwestern town in this remarkable novel from the critically acclaimed author of American Panda.
Seventeen-year-old Ali Chu knows that as the only Asian person at her school in middle-of-nowhere Indiana, she must be bland as white toast to survive. This means swapping her congee lunch for PB&Js, ignoring the clueless racism from her classmates and teachers, and keeping her mouth shut when people wrongly call her Allie instead of her actual name, pronounced Āh-lěe, after the mountain in Taiwan.
Her autopilot existence is disrupted when she finds out that Chase Yu, the new kid in school, is also Taiwanese. Despite some initial resistance due to the “they belong together” whispers, Ali and Chase soon spark a chemistry rooted in competitive martial arts, joking in two languages, and, most importantly, pushing back against the discrimination they face.
But when Ali’s mom finds out about the relationship, she forces Ali to end it. As Ali covertly digs into the why behind her mother’s disapproval, she uncovers secrets about her family and Chase that force her to question everything she thought she knew about life, love, and her unknowable future.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before meets The Farewell in this “entertaining and nuanced” (Kirkus Reviews) romantic comedy about a college student who hires a fake boyfriend to appease her traditional Taiwanese parents, to disastrous results, from the acclaimed author of American Panda.
Chloe Wang is nervous to introduce her parents to her boyfriend, because the truth is, she hasn’t met him yet either. She hired him from Rent for Your ‘Rents, a company specializing in providing fake boyfriends trained to impress even the most traditional Asian parents.
Drew Chan’s passion is art, but after his parents cut him off for dropping out of college to pursue his dreams, he became a Rent for Your ‘Rents employee to keep a roof over his head. Luckily, learning protocols like “Type C parents prefer quiet, kind, zero-PDA gestures” comes naturally to him.
When Chloe rents Drew, the mission is simple: convince her parents fake Drew is worthy of their approval so they’ll stop pressuring her to accept a proposal from Hongbo, the wealthiest (and slimiest) young bachelor in their tight-knit Asian American community.
But when Chloe starts to fall for the real Drew–who, unlike his fake persona, is definitely not ‘rent-worthy–her carefully curated life begins to unravel. Can she figure out what she wants before she loses everything?
Acclaimed author Gloria Chao creates real-world magic in this luminous romance about teens who devote themselves to granting other people’s wishes but are too afraid to let themselves have their own hearts’ desires–each other.
Liya and Kai had been best friends since they were little kids, but all that changed when a humiliating incident sparked The Biggest Misunderstanding of All Time–and they haven’t spoken since.
Then Liya discovers her family’s wishing lantern store is struggling, and she decides to resume a tradition she had with her beloved late grandmother: secretly fulfilling the wishes people write on the lanterns they send into the sky. It may boost sales and save the store, but she can’t do it alone . . . and Kai is the only one who cares enough to help.
While working on their covert missions, Liya and Kai rekindle their friendship–and maybe more. But when their feuding families and changing futures threaten to tear them apart again, can they find a way to make their own wishes come true?
This latest YA novel by acclaimed writer Gloria Chao takes readers on a soaring adventure through love, loss, and the lively streets of Taiwan.
For Gemma’s whole life, it has always been her and her mom against the world. As far as she knew, all her grandparents—and thus her ties to Taiwanese culture—were dead. Until one day when a mysterious man shows up at her door with two shocking things: the news that her grandfather has just recently passed, and the first clue to a treasure hunt that Gemma hopes will lead to her inheritance.
There’s just one major problem: to complete the hunt, she has to go to her grandfather’s home in Taiwan. And the only way she can get there is by asking her ex and biggest high-school rival, Xander, for help. But after swallowing her pride, Gemma finds herself halfway across the world, ready to unearth her life-changing prize. Soon Gemma discovers that the treasure hunt is about much more than money—it’s about finally learning about her family, exploring her cultural roots, and maybe even finding true love.
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