A review by heyitsjude
The Sense of Wonder by Matthew Salesses

4.0

Matthew Salesses’ The Sense Of Wonder uses basketball and k-drama to discuss many topics such as gender, race, the complexities of relationships, and the role media plays in creating certain narratives. The story follows Won Lee a Korean American basketball player who gets drafted into the NY Knicks. He is soon dubbed as “The Wonder” after a seven game winning streak but as his success fizzles out the drama and intensity of his life outside of basketball increases. He’s met with many issues that he must confront like handling an open relationship, and dealing with the narrative that the media is cultivating.

The story is told from two perspectives Won and his girlfriend, Carrie, who is TV producer with the goal of bringing k-dramas to American audiences. She has her heart set on proposing a basketball drama. I found Carrie’s pov to be the most interesting. I learned a lot about the production of k-dramas and structure each k-drama follows. I think using basketball and k-dramas to tell Won and Carrie’s stories was very clever and engaging. I don’t know much about either of those things but I enjoyed learning about them.

Initially I was only gave this book a 3 star but the last few paragraphs of the book got me, making me bump it to a 3.5 rounded to 4 stars. I won’t spoil the last line, but let’s just say that I’ll have to give this a re-read.