Because k-dramas can be written in book form too.
Song Vibe Check:
"Butter" By: BTS
"Pop/Stars" By: K/DA, Madison Beer, Sooyeon and Miyeon from G-IDLE, Jaira Burns
"No Shame" By: Eric Nam
Fun fact: I didn't go to prom and ALSO didn't have a desire to go to it. Of course, the difference between me and her is that I couldn't have gone even if I wanted to given the fact that it was the disastrous year of 2020, and she did have the chance to go but...
Whatever. Read the book to find out if she goes or not.
Her disagreement of prom is one of the things I can relate to the protagonist of the book, Elena Soo. I also had a hunch that the love interest was a Gemini by the way he acted since the first scene. And I WAS RIGHT. And I was super pleased to know that the book took place in Chicago. Add that on top of that the embarrassing prom-posals, overwhelming concerts, hiding out in a bookstore and swooning over heartfelt scenes that make you tear up and you all have the literary embodiment of a K-drama in book form.
I AM HERE FOR IT.
The last book that gave me all the feels that had to do with K-pop stars was this book from Maurene Goo called Somewhere only we know and from there, it's hard to find another good successor. Until now.
I like that this year it seems that Asian- American reads have been populating my book read list and that THEY HAVE BEEN DELIVERING THE GOODS. Because I can say for sure that this book gets added to one of my favorites of the year.
Short summary: Childhood friend leaves to come back as a k-pop star to fulfill a prom promise he made to his best friend and first love, Elena Soo. But she doesn't want to go.
Long Summary? Elena Soo has been overlooked. Invisible in many cases. The perfect planner and the horrible risk-taker, she is used to staying in the sidelines until her childhood best friend, now turned popstar Robbie Choi asks her out to prom. Multiple times. And, the abandoned love story we all thought was lost sparks again. Robbie has a secret that could tear their budding relationship and Elena must decide if she is ready to love the childhood friend she thought she knew... or just let him go. But with a community center she holds close to her heart on the line, she realizes that nothing that involves emotions will ever be clear. Or easy. Or predictable.
Because everything with love is meant to be unpredictable.
It was an absolute joy to read this book and the characters were fun and many were relatable. Admittedly, her twin brother was wack and the distant relationship with Elena's family was a bit tragic, but the ties to her Korean heritage was visible and being able to see the Korean names and phrases gave me the time to practice my pronunciation and hope I wasn't butchering up the words (even if it took google translate to see what they meant!) I would have appreciated that the author would have done more research about our city since you could almost not tell she was setting this book in Chicago. Also we needed more Robbie perspectives! If she wouldn't have said the name of our city in the book, I would have thought the setting was in somewhere like California or wherever the usual setting of YA rom coms are.
So, there goes the reminder over why research is important.
But, despite that shortcoming, it was all super joyful until towards the end, when one of Elena's friends is leaving and then she says something that broke my heart and had me in tears. I spent the rest of the book with teary eyes and with my eyesight getting blurry because of the tears because it truly did seem like everyone was always leaving her behind and it was just heartbreaking. Elena is the type of introverted character that you root for with your entire heart. Robbie is also the adorable soft boy that we all cheer (and smack our heads for) but their story is a heartfelt one that will give you all the feels and a worthy read until the end.
Overall: 5/5 stars.
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