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ellytheskelly's review
0.75
Korea is all of these people just as I am not one thing or the other. I am complicated and contradictory and I don't know how all of it can coexist, but it has to because these versions are all me.
I can't speak on the struggles of an adopted child. I've heard that part of this story is accurate, and I'll take that.
However, when reality (people being rude to adoptees) is so outlandish, WHY make your plot so contrived and crazy that it makes it feel like the very real struggles are also made up and contrived???
The main character, Hara, is irritating. She repeats herself constantly and asks questions with obvious answers like "how did you know I was American?" (BESTIE, you're speaking ENGLISH and you do a blank stare when they speak Korean to you. YOU LOOK AMERICAN.) She asks this question and gets the exact same response, verbatim, twice in this book. Also the trope of "oh a cute local will just teach me the language 3 days into my trip abroad teehee" trope bothers me a LOT. Like please just take some time to learn some basic words and phrases. Write them down! Why did she wait until day 3 to download a translation app????
And now it's time for SPOILERS.SHE HAD SEX WITH HER STEPBROTHER.... TWICE????? AT LEAST ONE OF THEM KNOWINGLY????? AND THEN THEY HAD THE AUDACITY TO JOKE ABOUT HOW "it could be worse, we could be actually related" I LITERALLY DRY HEAVED.... Yujun was the FIRST FREAKIN MAN you encountered you can move on!!! YOU MET HIM LIKE 7 DAYS AGO YOU CAN MOVE ON!!! Bro literally what happened to her whole no strings attached vacation boyfriend thing?
However, when reality (people being rude to adoptees) is so outlandish, WHY make your plot so contrived and crazy that it makes it feel like the very real struggles are also made up and contrived???
The main character, Hara, is irritating. She repeats herself constantly and asks questions with obvious answers like "how did you know I was American?" (BESTIE, you're speaking ENGLISH and you do a blank stare when they speak Korean to you. YOU LOOK AMERICAN.) She asks this question and gets the exact same response, verbatim, twice in this book. Also the trope of "oh a cute local will just teach me the language 3 days into my trip abroad teehee" trope bothers me a LOT. Like please just take some time to learn some basic words and phrases. Write them down! Why did she wait until day 3 to download a translation app????
And now it's time for SPOILERS.
zohajavaid's review
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
1.0
I felt like this book was so boring and the story kept dragging/moving too slow. It was a disappointment and waste of time.
ceviche4breakfast's review
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
zieismynickname's review
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
jackiehorne's review
3.0
As my daughter is currently working in South Korea as an English teacher, I was eager to read Frederick's story of a Korean American adoptee who travels to her birth country in search of her birth parents. It was fun for me to see many of the cultural and social differences my daughter has told me about, as an American navigating South Korea, reflected in Frederick's story.
The novel is marketed as a "heart-wrenching yet hopeful romance," which is a misnomer. It mixes a women's fiction story about a Korean adoptee who travels to South Korea after the death of her estranged American father to track down her birth father with elements of what I'd call soap opera: lots of plot coincidences and a highly idealized male romantic lead. I don't know much about K-drama; might those soap-opera-like elements be best understood within that generic context?
Frederick does great work conveying the difficulties growing up as an Asian adoptee in the middle of very white midwest America. The cultural embarrassment, and even self-hatred, that develops when one looks nothing like everyone else around one; the way one almost forgets that one doesn't look white like everyone else until confronted by a microaggression or a mirror; the way that as a child one rejects every attempt to teach more about "your" culture, fearful of being labeled even more of an outsider than one already is; one's regret as an adult that one is so entirely ignorant about the culture of one's birth.
Hara, the book's twenty-five year-old protagonist, comes across rather immaturely at times, perhaps because she's only just on the beginning of her path to understanding the ways that straddling two cultures, and not feeling a true part of either, has influenced, and continues to shape, her life and her sense of self. Over the course of this book, she doesn't seem to have much of a character arc, one that would show her coming to terms with her identity in some way that would give her peace; she still seems as conflicted and confused at book's end as at its beginning, often falling into quick, hurt anger with her birth mother and her adopted mother with little understanding or empathy for either.
The searching for the birth parents plot takes interesting twists and turns, but the way that it ends up intersecting (and ultimately derailing) the romance plot made me distinctly uncomfortable. Hara must.
The novel is marketed as a "heart-wrenching yet hopeful romance," which is a misnomer. It mixes a women's fiction story about a Korean adoptee who travels to South Korea after the death of her estranged American father to track down her birth father with elements of what I'd call soap opera: lots of plot coincidences and a highly idealized male romantic lead. I don't know much about K-drama; might those soap-opera-like elements be best understood within that generic context?
Frederick does great work conveying the difficulties growing up as an Asian adoptee in the middle of very white midwest America. The cultural embarrassment, and even self-hatred, that develops when one looks nothing like everyone else around one; the way one almost forgets that one doesn't look white like everyone else until confronted by a microaggression or a mirror; the way that as a child one rejects every attempt to teach more about "your" culture, fearful of being labeled even more of an outsider than one already is; one's regret as an adult that one is so entirely ignorant about the culture of one's birth.
Hara, the book's twenty-five year-old protagonist, comes across rather immaturely at times, perhaps because she's only just on the beginning of her path to understanding the ways that straddling two cultures, and not feeling a true part of either, has influenced, and continues to shape, her life and her sense of self. Over the course of this book, she doesn't seem to have much of a character arc, one that would show her coming to terms with her identity in some way that would give her peace; she still seems as conflicted and confused at book's end as at its beginning, often falling into quick, hurt anger with her birth mother and her adopted mother with little understanding or empathy for either.
The searching for the birth parents plot takes interesting twists and turns, but the way that it ends up intersecting (and ultimately derailing) the romance plot made me distinctly uncomfortable. Hara must
Spoiler
give up her romance in order to "save" her birth mother's company, a company that her birth mother has taken over and reshaped based on decidedly Western (and feminist) values—a rather colonizing tack, I feltonceuponthesewords's review
DNF @ ~30% because it has taken me over a month to get this far, and I still can't bring myself to pick this book up without getting a headache/falling asleep.
As a Korean-American, I absolutely wanted to love this book! But I just couldn't get into it. I even tried to switch to the audiobook, but that put me to sleep even faster than the actual book did. I'm sorry, ugh!
As a Korean-American, I absolutely wanted to love this book! But I just couldn't get into it. I even tried to switch to the audiobook, but that put me to sleep even faster than the actual book did. I'm sorry, ugh!
tonib_'s review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This book turned out so different than what I had expected. Not in a bad way. Seeking the truth is often hard but for the main character, the twist and turns were so unexpected, one after another. It is such a good read.
my_bookish_diary's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
motmoove's review
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75