Name: Lauren Forester's review of Comeback by Lyn Ashwood
Item: Comeback
Rating: 4
Author: Lauren Forester

Lyn Ashwood

Rachel Rose

Centered around the exciting world of K-pop and Korean entertainment, Comeback depicts the story of two Korean Americans-Emery, the main vocalist of rising K-pop boy group NEON, and Alana, a former NEON fan reeling from recent trauma-whose chance reunion in Seoul sparks a journey of friendship, love, and healing.

A K-pop Novel

Comeback

Lauren Forester

Amanda

This book has some great moments (I cried a little in chapter 19) but I honestly found the romance (and consequently half the book) uncomfortable to read and rather boring. I found myself skimming through large portions where the author described the kpop music industry in detail. As a kpop fan, none of it was new to me. That said, the story of Emery/M and his bandmates and the industry was the best part of the book. The character of Alana annoyed me more than anything. I would have really enjoyed reading a story that fleshed out M's relationships with his bandmates more and gave their characters more to do. 

The themes and storyline of the romance are very much for a young adult audience, but the writing creates more of a middle school vibe making some of the things that happen seem very out of place and even shocking. I kept forgetting the character of Alana was meant to be 20 years old since she behaved much younger. 

As I said, I did enjoy portions of this book, but if I had been reading it purely for pleasure, or found it on Wattpad, I would have dropped it after a couple of chapters and never managed to find the parts that I enjoyed. It's a cute idea for a story, but it is unevenly told (the flashback of how they met should have come much, much earlier in the story) and would have benefitted from some editing beforehand.

Marloes

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was a fun look into the world of K-pop, as well as the intersection of Korean and American cultures. Even though I don't follow K-pop, I found this book entertaining, and the way the author's incorporated Korean vocabulary and K-pop concepts felt educational but not condescending. I found it pretty easy to follow along. The main characters are Korean American, and I found their Asian American struggles very relatable. Parts of the story are quite sad, so be prepared with tissues!

Admittedly, finding a book about Kpop may have gotten me a bit too excited and raised my hopes a bit too much. Its a nice, fairly light-hearted short book. But don't expect much else. 

Leelynn Brady

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to BookSirens and Ashwood & Rose for this free copy.

I’m not gonna lie. The biggest appeal to me when I requested this on BookSirens was that it was a K-pop novel. I freaking fell in love with the K-pop world thanks to BIGBANG and their song “Lollipop” with my other favorite group 2NE1 (so sad that they disbanded, but that’s a whole different story).

But I ended up falling in love with this book in the same way that I fell in love with BIGBANG and 2NE1 and the other groups that I will occasionally follow, because I feel like Ashwood & Rose really brought life into the group NEON that they created for their novel. I almost thought that they could have been a real group that I could look up on YouTube right now and watch their videos. That’s how believable this felt to me.

Read the rest of my review on my blog Sometimes Leelynn Reads after 8am EST on August 4th.

Becca Futrell

Thank you to Book Sirens for giving me an e-ARC of Comeback: A K-Pop Novel by Lyn Ashwood & Rachel Rose in exchange for an honest review!

It’s not everyday that you come across a book the features the world of K-Pop (& if it is, can y’all send those books my way — please), so once I seen Comeback: A K-Pop Novel, I just knew that I had to read it. Comeback centers around the K-Pop group NEON during their.. well, comeback. We’re introduced to the high & low times of a K-Pop group: from backstage shenanigans to the strict rules the members must abide by. All of this, while keeping a close eye on Emery & Alana’s story..

There are a lot of cute scenes, which can be expected of a book like this; however, as much as I adored the relationship between Emery & Alana (which is what 99% of my notes for this read are), Comeback dived much deeper into their individual lives & struggles. When it comes to K-Pop & his musical dreams, Emery’s family is not very supportive. Especially his father, who makes it well-known that he believes his son to be a failure. This lack of encouragement leads Emery down a path of self-destruction & insecurities.

& on Alana’s side of the story, she’s just trying to forget. Avoidance is her answer when it comes to moving on from her brother’s suicide. Instead of embracing grief, she’s, instead, doing whatever she can to ignore the things that she once loved; fearing it’ll remind her of who she couldn’t save.

There’s a lot of emotion written into Comeback, which makes it stand out as more than just a fluff read. I really went into this read just expecting to say a lot of aws, but ended up with a lot more.

One of the biggest downfalls of Comeback is that there were some character’s reactions that just seemed so out of left field; but hey, I’m not writing the story & I don’t know these characters as well as the authors do. At one point, a character has an angry outburst that to me didn’t seem to add up to how the character acted prior to this. There is an explanation as to why the character is upset — but again, didn’t seem to add up to me whatsoever.

I had fun reading Comeback: A K-Pop Novel; by no means did it blow me out of the water, but it was still enjoyable for what it was & I absolutely loved diving into the world of K-Pop!

Lauren Forester &
Comeback by Lyn Ashwood

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