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bookswithmichellee 's review for:
Shine
by Jessica Jung
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free digital copy of this book for exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.
Shine follows teenage Rachel, a K-Pop trainee as she attempts to stay in the program, keep up with friends, ignore the bullies, and figure out her love life. I am not an active K-Pop fan, besides a few songs here and there, but I am not super invested in the genre or the world and don't know much about it. I have seen some reviews mention that Jessica Jung may have tried to incorporate her experiences in the K-Pop world, but like I said, not something I would really know. With that in mind, I did still enjoy the book to some extent besides some issues I had with it.
I did enjoy the overall plot of the novel. I liked seeing and being able to learn a little bit about the behind the scenes aspect of K-Pop. I also loved how much Shine emphasized family and putting family and friends first. I liked the travel aspects of the novel as well. I enjoyed seeing Rachel travel and especially loved the Toronto and "Brantwood" (aka Collingwood) parts. Both Rachel and Jason had strong connections to their culture and that was really lovely to see.
What I didn't enjoy was a lot to do with the characters and plots. I know this is probably partly accurate to the industry, but there was a lot of fat shaming and cattiness featured. I know it is an important issue within the industry to discuss but I can imagine for many people, reading about fat shaming and calorie counting, can be harmful and triggering. *POSSIBLE SPOLIER?? BE AWARE* There were points where it seemed like the cattiness would subside a little but I wish it tuned down at least a bit at the end, and I was disappointed that everyone was just still catty and mean at the end. *POSSIBLE SPOLIER OVER* The relationship aspect in the novel was ok, nothing super special or off the charts for me.
Overall, it was ok. I did find some entertainment to the novel and did enjoy some parts of it. I wish somethings were done differently. Happy with this as a standalone so I'm unsure if I will continue
Shine follows teenage Rachel, a K-Pop trainee as she attempts to stay in the program, keep up with friends, ignore the bullies, and figure out her love life. I am not an active K-Pop fan, besides a few songs here and there, but I am not super invested in the genre or the world and don't know much about it. I have seen some reviews mention that Jessica Jung may have tried to incorporate her experiences in the K-Pop world, but like I said, not something I would really know. With that in mind, I did still enjoy the book to some extent besides some issues I had with it.
I did enjoy the overall plot of the novel. I liked seeing and being able to learn a little bit about the behind the scenes aspect of K-Pop. I also loved how much Shine emphasized family and putting family and friends first. I liked the travel aspects of the novel as well. I enjoyed seeing Rachel travel and especially loved the Toronto and "Brantwood" (aka Collingwood) parts. Both Rachel and Jason had strong connections to their culture and that was really lovely to see.
What I didn't enjoy was a lot to do with the characters and plots. I know this is probably partly accurate to the industry, but there was a lot of fat shaming and cattiness featured. I know it is an important issue within the industry to discuss but I can imagine for many people, reading about fat shaming and calorie counting, can be harmful and triggering. *POSSIBLE SPOLIER?? BE AWARE* There were points where it seemed like the cattiness would subside a little but I wish it tuned down at least a bit at the end, and I was disappointed that everyone was just still catty and mean at the end. *POSSIBLE SPOLIER OVER* The relationship aspect in the novel was ok, nothing super special or off the charts for me.
Overall, it was ok. I did find some entertainment to the novel and did enjoy some parts of it. I wish somethings were done differently. Happy with this as a standalone so I'm unsure if I will continue