Rachel Van Dyken

My Summer in Seoul

Nat T

Trite. Grace is annoying, the male lead needs a therapist and the summary is misleading. This is clearly BTS fanfiction come to life in the worst possible way. A white woman's fantasy where the only mention of a Black person is to call them a bully. I wish I had DNF'd.

Nicki

I wish I could've gone back in time to when I didn't know this book existed. I am not the intended audience for this piece of work, and I don't think it is for anyone like me either. I think this book is for a very  specific  demographic of people.

With the rise of KPOP and Korean entertainment over here in America, it was only a matter of time before more people would try to capitalize off this. This book is exactly what I thought it would be and so much less. Let me start this off by saying that I would've genuinely never picked this book up to read if I hadn't seen the news that it was slated to be adapted into a series before it was even released. Still, I tried to keep an open mind going into this book even if I was uncomfortable with the fact that a white woman is writing about the perspective of a Korean-American woman. I should've heeded my gut feeling when I got to the Author's Note and she stated that it was a passion project and several people told her it wouldn't sell, which is obviously bullshit because this was 2019 and at this point KPOP groups like Blackpink were slated to perform at Coachella and BTS had broken many records as million dollar sellers. Somehow, I still persevered and managed to finish all FORTY chapters of this book. 

From a KPOP perspective and as someone who has been a KPOP fan for many years, who has a blog and guests on podcast discussing KPOP/Korean Entertainment. Someone who can very diligently tell you how idol culture has shifted throughout the years. Someone who has witness the loss of an idol she loved deeply. This book was a slap in the face. I understand the intent was to give people a glimpse into what goes on in Korean Entertainment industry, but in what way is RVD qualified to tell this story? There is nothing new that is being said here, tons of times we have read about the dark side of KPOP and while I agree that there is more scrutiny in the way idols have to live, there is a lot of similarities with the western music industry as well. I am also very perturbed by the way the idols were written simply because it reeked of the type of naivety that I see newer KPOP fans say when it comes to idols and this is not me bashing on newer fans by the way, I'm just saying that no matter how 'innocent' you think your oppa or unnie are, they most definitely are not. As I was reading this book, you can clearly see which groups she drew inspiration from. This book felt like a fetiziation of Asian people made worse by the fact that the author is a WHITE woman. I know there was allegedly research done for this book, but it felt like it was all surface level and KPOP 101. At this point, I am inclined to offer Jessica an apology for Shine because even though I didn't finish it cause it was hella boring, at least she brought her 'fictional' story to life and gave insight to contract situations.

Author states in author's note that she has written rockstar romances before and that she didn't think this one would be so hard. As far as the story itself goes, I just want everyone to know I will never read a RVD book again ever in my life. Grace was very clearly just a self insert for this fanfiction and I don't really understand why the author didn't just make her American and get it over with because she was still benefiting off her privilege. Fiction is supposed to be fake and you have to suspend disbelief often, but honestly you should probably just throw your own brain out when reading this because logic will not be your friend. Grace was a pickme. Lucas was an asshole. The romance was shit. It sucked. Made no sense. And the ending had me laughing for like thirty minutes straight. 

We will be having an in depth discussion of this book with spoilers on our podcast. I will update this review with the link once it is posted.

Updated w/ podcast link: https://anchor.fm/soju-chronicles/epi...

NaTasna Jiggetts

**Received Arc for Honest Review**

Living in a Korean household, I can really see the K-Pop and the image that comes with it. It can take a toll on the group and the team behind the scenes as well. So when Grace hopped on that international flight to come to Seoul she hoped for the best. Little did she know that the judgement would start as soon as she got off the plane. 
Grace was literally thrown into this..not knowing how to speak Korean (including the honorifics), not knowing anything about the industry, she is not getting any brownie points. Grace was determined to get to know the group and how to make things work for them, and she did not give up not better how bad they were. 
I really did love this book and can I just say that the cover OMG it looks amazing!!!
I am hoping that there is a series out of this and each member gets a book of their own. This would be AMAZING!!

My Summer in Seoul

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