Somewhere Only We Know

The essentials:

• Publication date: May 7, 2019 from Farrar, Straus & Giroux
• Advanced copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher (for an honest review)
• #YA, minority lit, K  pop, romance, multicultural lit

From the publisher:

10:00 p.m.: Lucky is the biggest K-pop star on the scene, and she’s just performed her hit song “Heartbeat” in Hong Kong to thousands of adoring fans. She’s about to debut on The Tonight Show in America, hopefully a breakout performance for her career. But right now? She’s in her fancy hotel, trying to fall asleep but dying for a hamburger.
11:00 p.m.: Jack is sneaking into a fancy hotel, on assignment for his tabloid job that he keeps secret from his parents. On his way out of the hotel, he runs into a girl wearing slippers, a girl who is single-mindedly determined to find a hamburger. She looks kind of familiar. She’s very cute. He’s maybe curious.
12:00 a.m.: Nothing will ever be the same

My thoughts:

When I find a writer whose voice I trust for whatever reason, I tend to watch for them and scoop up whatever they publish until they either stop publishing or I do not trust them anymore.  Maurene Goo, author of The Way You Make Me Feel  can be trusted to bring readers attractive, conflicted, sweetly broken characters who  by the end always do the right thing for their families, for their culture, for their community, and for themselves without being disrespectful, spoiled or obnoxious. Goo brings her Asian/American multicultural characters into the mainstream YA market and normalizes the minority teen experience even as her teens hold onto their strong cultural values and expectations. The best thing is that as an author, she does this in the most non political way and just tells a feel good story.