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miss__manga__'s review
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Go read K-Pop Confidential instead
This book had no right to be as long as it was with as little content as it had. The V storyline was interesting but poorly handled and ended abruptly. So-ri had no reason to use other languages as frequently as she did except as bad writing to show she was well traveled and worldly. So-hyun enabled a lot of Alice’s antisocial nonsense.
Much more time should time should have been spent on Aria, always doing her best and trying to deal with Alice’s attitude, and Joon, who is bisexual and that coming out story would have been far more interesting than anything Alice did. Most of the other girls were barely given more than a surface level personality.
Alice was stubborn to the point it was a fault and caused harm to her and others, both emotionally and in their careers. She was so unlivable and even her aha moment came too late and was too weak. I could suspend my disbelief for the audition and her being accepted into the agency (because otherwise how would we have a story?), but the ending ofwhite ocean? It would have been more satisfying to leave the book open to sequel with the black ocean.
I was baffled by one of the relationships in the book. The male was constantly said to be “old enough to be her father”. He was 14 years older. Yes, that’s a big gap, but not old enough to be her dad, nor was it illegal. Is it icky that someone in their late 30s, almost 40, is dating someone who is 24? In my opinion, yes. But it didn’t need repeating two or three times he was old enough to be her dad when he wasn’t. Plenty of good couples have massive age gaps - it felt like the author was projecting their own ideas in a not so subtle way. It would have been much more interesting to comment that some idols either try to sleep their way to more roles or he was clearly using her - there was a throwaway comment that the girl was getting the blame and the guy walked off Scott free. Commentary like this was good but didn’t go deeper, which was disappointing, and I feel like this type of criticism was meant to be a defining feature of the book but ultimately went nowhere.
The writing wasn’t great or terrible. It was clearly a debut work. More editing really could have refined it. The plot was fine but too much attention was spent on Alice being a brat or whining. The irony is, Alice gave her sister a lot of the advice she herself should have followed. That made things far more frustrating than it would have been otherwise. Also, her sisters character didn’t really serve a purpose except for getting her through the audition. Neither did her parents except to be disapproving if her life choices before giving in easily. Also shout out to dad for making his daughter cook most of the time while he sat on his butt in front of the tv. Again, brief discussion that it was her who did everything but the criticism of the eldest daughter lifting more than her weight went nowhere.
I would have liked to see racism explored more - the fact she was not from Korean and was half Chinese was almost so irrelevant it didn’t need mentioning (yes, I am aware not every novel with non-white characters needs to or should be about racism. However, Alice showed a massive lack of cultural understanding - regarding Korean culture and idol culture - that this definitely should have been a focus). The fact she described her half white side as “half-miscellaneous” is hilarious in a bad way- either the author was trying to be quirky or this is some weird thing that only Americans do that I don’t understand. Absolutely nobody I know would speak this way.
I did enjoy the criticisms of the industry, but they didn’t particularly go anywhere. Essentially, this book was a whole lot of wasted potential. If I read another of this authors work, I’d get it from the library to ensure I liked it first. Unfortunately, I know I’ll remember how much I hated Alice for a very long time.
This book had no right to be as long as it was with as little content as it had. The V storyline was interesting but poorly handled and ended abruptly. So-ri had no reason to use other languages as frequently as she did except as bad writing to show she was well traveled and worldly. So-hyun enabled a lot of Alice’s antisocial nonsense.
Much more time should time should have been spent on Aria, always doing her best and trying to deal with Alice’s attitude, and Joon, who is bisexual and that coming out story would have been far more interesting than anything Alice did. Most of the other girls were barely given more than a surface level personality.
Alice was stubborn to the point it was a fault and caused harm to her and others, both emotionally and in their careers. She was so unlivable and even her aha moment came too late and was too weak. I could suspend my disbelief for the audition and her being accepted into the agency (because otherwise how would we have a story?), but the ending of
I was baffled by one of the relationships in the book. The male was constantly said to be “old enough to be her father”. He was 14 years older. Yes, that’s a big gap, but not old enough to be her dad, nor was it illegal. Is it icky that someone in their late 30s, almost 40, is dating someone who is 24? In my opinion, yes. But it didn’t need repeating two or three times he was old enough to be her dad when he wasn’t. Plenty of good couples have massive age gaps - it felt like the author was projecting their own ideas in a not so subtle way. It would have been much more interesting to comment that some idols either try to sleep their way to more roles or he was clearly using her - there was a throwaway comment that the girl was getting the blame and the guy walked off Scott free. Commentary like this was good but didn’t go deeper, which was disappointing, and I feel like this type of criticism was meant to be a defining feature of the book but ultimately went nowhere.
The writing wasn’t great or terrible. It was clearly a debut work. More editing really could have refined it. The plot was fine but too much attention was spent on Alice being a brat or whining. The irony is, Alice gave her sister a lot of the advice she herself should have followed. That made things far more frustrating than it would have been otherwise. Also, her sisters character didn’t really serve a purpose except for getting her through the audition. Neither did her parents except to be disapproving if her life choices before giving in easily. Also shout out to dad for making his daughter cook most of the time while he sat on his butt in front of the tv. Again, brief discussion that it was her who did everything but the criticism of the eldest daughter lifting more than her weight went nowhere.
I would have liked to see racism explored more - the fact she was not from Korean and was half Chinese was almost so irrelevant it didn’t need mentioning (yes, I am aware not every novel with non-white characters needs to or should be about racism. However, Alice showed a massive lack of cultural understanding - regarding Korean culture and idol culture - that this definitely should have been a focus). The fact she described her half white side as “half-miscellaneous” is hilarious in a bad way- either the author was trying to be quirky or this is some weird thing that only Americans do that I don’t understand. Absolutely nobody I know would speak this way.
I did enjoy the criticisms of the industry, but they didn’t particularly go anywhere. Essentially, this book was a whole lot of wasted potential. If I read another of this authors work, I’d get it from the library to ensure I liked it first. Unfortunately, I know I’ll remember how much I hated Alice for a very long time.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming
Minor: Abandonment, Alcohol, and Bullying
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