Bubbling up with Helena

• Title: Worth Fighting For
• Author: Jesse Q. Suntanto
• Publisher: Hyperion Avenue
• Release Date: 6/3/25
• Genre: Romance
• Age Range: Adult
• Rating: ★★★.5
• Publisher’s Summary: Laugh and swoon with the next book in Disney’s Meant to Be collection by bestselling and award-winning author Jesse Q. Sutanto, whose novel Dial A For Aunties Emily Henry called “Utterly clever, deeply funny, and altogether charming.” Mulan is reimagined as a contemporary romance about family expectations, mistaken identity, and high stakes mergers—of both business and the heart. 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 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 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?

The five books (so far) of the Meant to Be series have my name written all over them. They are reimaginings of Disney films as contemporary romance novels. Each book in the series is written by a different romance author. The newest installment, Worth Fighting For, is a modern Mulan retelling. It fell a flat for me in a way the other books in the series, and other books by Jesse Q. Suntanto did not.

The romance was hard for me to engage with here because of how much Mulan keeps from Shang. They have a very intimate relationship without Shang even knowing Mulan’s real name. In the original film, Shang finds out who Mulan really is before confessing his love to her. It made me uncomfortable to know how much Mulan is lying to Shang while reading about their romantic relationship.

I do appreciate how this book used Mushu. In the movie, Mushu is a little dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy. Suntanto re-imagines Mushu as Mulan’s cousin who helps and supports Mulan as the dragon counterpart does in the film. She’s not quite as funny as the little dragon, but I found it to be a creative use of the same kind of figure.

Maybe because I love the Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night and its modern adaptations so much, but I couldn’t help thinking that this story is ripe for a queer storyline. In Twelfth Night, Duke Orsino realizes he has feelings for Caesario, who he thinks is a man. Spoiler, Caesario is actually a woman named Viola pretending to be a man to gain access to spaces where women are not welcome. Sound familiar? The parallels between Mulan’s story and Viola’s are pretty clear. We definitely could have had an element to the story where Shang has a queer awakening.

This story had me thinking about the moment in the 2023 Barbie film where Ken approaches a businessman and asks him why the patriarchy isn’t in charge anymore. The man assures Ken that the patriarchy is still in charge, but they’ve gotten better at hiding it. I found that the men in Shang’s family were too overtly sexist to feel realistic. Mulan would totally face sexism as a high powered woman in venture capital, but the blatant sexism felt like it was too much. Greta Gerwig’s words in Barbie rang much more true to me.

I cannot wait to find out what the next book in the Meant to Be series will be. Are we going to see a modern Jasmine story? Whatever it is, count me in.