Her ex-boyfriend wants her back. Her former best friend is in town. When did Hannah’s life become a K-drama?
Hannah Cho had the next year all planned out—the perfect summer with her boyfriend, Nate, and then a fun senior year with their friends.
But then Nate does what everyone else in Hannah’s life seems to do—he leaves her, claiming they have nothing in common. He and all her friends are newly obsessed with K-pop and K-dramas, and Hannah is not. After years of trying to embrace the American part and shunning the Korean side of her Korean American identity to fit in, Hannah finds that’s exactly what now has her on the outs.
But someone who does know K-dramas—so well that he’s actually starring in one—is Jacob Kim, Hannah’s former best friend, whom she hasn’t seen in years. He’s desperate for a break from the fame, so a family trip back to San Diego might be just what he needs…that is, if he and Hannah can figure out what went wrong when they last parted and navigate the new feelings developing between them.
Seoulmates gets published September 20th, 2022!
This book opens up so hilariously, I immediately fell in love with it.
Imagine this: you’re in the middle of a party, locked in the bathroom with your boyfriend. He’s throwing up, you’re rubbing his back, and when he says “we need to break up,” you assume you misheard him and come up with hundreds of examples of things he actually said.
Because he can’t be breaking up with you while emptying the contents of his stomach in a toilet, right?
… Right?
The biggest thing I enjoyed in this book was the discussions it brought up. Our main character, Hannah, is a Korean-American teen who has had to hide her Korean heritage all her life in order to fit in with her peers. But, when practically everyone she knows becomes obsessed with K-dramas and Korean culture, she finds herself on the outskirts of her class with no way to remind everyone that hello, she’s Korean-American.
Meanwhile, our other main character, Jacob, is the newest K-drama star and absolutely hates his job. I enjoy practically any book that talks about celebrities and how awful it is to be one, so I knew I was going to really like the discussions of how predatory the idol/entertainment industry is in his side of the story.
These two characters are childhood friends, and I really enjoyed seeing them grow closer together throughout the course of this book. Their (eventual) relationship was super cute, and I liked seeing them explore San Diego together to complete Jacob’s vacation bucket list.
However, this book definitely put me into a reading slump! A 300 page book generally takes me up to three days to finish, and I found myself still slogging through this book a week after starting it. I picked this book up hundreds of times, reading, at most, a page every time before needing to put it down and take a break, and I really worried for my ability to get through this book!
I’m not sure if my inability to get through this book in a good amount of time is more of a me-problem or a book-problem, but it really lowered my enjoyment of this read. While I liked the discussions brought up in this book and seeing the characters through this story, my feelings overall are somewhere between indifferent about this book and liking it.
KiiitasticBooks 