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punsandpaperbacks's review
3.0
First-person present-tense narratives have never been my favourite books to read, but this book wasn’t terrible. The story could have benefited from editing because there were several grammatical errors. Sometimes it threw me out of the story. I’d be reading and then scratch my head and go, ‘Wait, this doesn’t make sense,’ before making the correction in my head. Also, author needs to learn the difference between “then” and “than.” Once, was a grammatical error. Twice, a minor annoyance, but after several, and I mean SEVERAL times, it’s an issue that makes you question if the author knows the difference.
The story was a fairly straightforward one. Expat in Korea, opens her own business, falls in love with orphan boy, work towards adopting him and along the way falls in love with K-pop idol. I don’t know much about K-pop and I won’t begin to pretend to. However, the way the events unfolded in this story seems a tad unrealistic. Especially for a K-pop idol that Joon was. From what little knowledge I have of idols, they do their best to avoid anything that would cause a scandal and the way Joon handled the social worker was most definitely not avoiding a scandal. Or the possibility of being sued, which from what little knowledge I have, is a major occurrence in Korea. I mean, he pulled dude’s arm back until he heard a pop. Sounds like a lawsuit to me. Additionally, wouldn’t Joon be walking around in a mask? Sure they’re not SUPER famous, but they are well known. Enough that they can buy their own place and purchase all these luxury vehicles. It just wasn’t believable to me that he was walking around doing all these things with Imani and wasn’t recognised by anyone.
Like I said, I am not a fan of first-person narratives but I preferred reading from Joon’s perspective. Imani’s annoyed me so much. Every other line was, “my son,” “my boy,” “my child.” I started rolling my eyes and gnashing my teeth every time I saw the phrase. I get it!! You consider him your son. It was becoming borderline obsessive and creepy and it was super annoying. Pronouns exist for a reason. And names. Names also exist. The number of pages this book would have been reduced by if the child’s name was used would be astronomical. Ughhhhh!!
In the same breath, let me say, I didn’t feel the chemistry between the two leads. It was lukewarm, at best. In the beginning chapters, I felt the sparks, and I was rooting for them, but then it fizzled into something akin to, I guess, sparkling water. Got a very “let’s remain friends” vibe. Hell, even their first time was so dry and devoid of any passion that I decided to put the book down and go to sleep for the night. Side note, did anybody else get an immature vibe from Joon? The man locked himself in the bathroom because he thought his wife may want to get some sex. The man is 30!
The story was a fairly straightforward one. Expat in Korea, opens her own business, falls in love with orphan boy, work towards adopting him and along the way falls in love with K-pop idol. I don’t know much about K-pop and I won’t begin to pretend to. However, the way the events unfolded in this story seems a tad unrealistic. Especially for a K-pop idol that Joon was. From what little knowledge I have of idols, they do their best to avoid anything that would cause a scandal and the way Joon handled the social worker was most definitely not avoiding a scandal. Or the possibility of being sued, which from what little knowledge I have, is a major occurrence in Korea. I mean, he pulled dude’s arm back until he heard a pop. Sounds like a lawsuit to me. Additionally, wouldn’t Joon be walking around in a mask? Sure they’re not SUPER famous, but they are well known. Enough that they can buy their own place and purchase all these luxury vehicles. It just wasn’t believable to me that he was walking around doing all these things with Imani and wasn’t recognised by anyone.
Like I said, I am not a fan of first-person narratives but I preferred reading from Joon’s perspective. Imani’s annoyed me so much. Every other line was, “my son,” “my boy,” “my child.” I started rolling my eyes and gnashing my teeth every time I saw the phrase. I get it!! You consider him your son. It was becoming borderline obsessive and creepy and it was super annoying. Pronouns exist for a reason. And names. Names also exist. The number of pages this book would have been reduced by if the child’s name was used would be astronomical. Ughhhhh!!
In the same breath, let me say, I didn’t feel the chemistry between the two leads. It was lukewarm, at best. In the beginning chapters, I felt the sparks, and I was rooting for them, but then it fizzled into something akin to, I guess, sparkling water. Got a very “let’s remain friends” vibe. Hell, even their first time was so dry and devoid of any passion that I decided to put the book down and go to sleep for the night. Side note, did anybody else get an immature vibe from Joon? The man locked himself in the bathroom because he thought his wife may want to get some sex. The man is 30!
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