XOXO

 

My Thoughts:

This is the perfect summer read, no thinking necessary, just enjoy the ride as these two high schoolers in an elite performing arts school in Seoul Korea live out their K-pop lives. Jenny is a Korean American from Los Angeles who is a serious concert cellist. She is technically flawless but she is missing the soul and passion that will take her to the next level. 

Jaewoo is a BTS style K Pop star. Their group has recently debuted and he has a lot of rules to follow as part of the K Pop boy band machine. He cannot bring scandal to his family or to his group by being in a relationship. But then he meets Jenny as he is hiding in the dark in a private karaoke room that is managed by Jenny's uncle. 

This story is deliciously unrealistic and saccharine. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, there is too much reality and drama happening around us. Why not escape for a bit. Everyone deserves a little escape and this is it. 

From the Publisher:

Jenny’s never had much time for boys, K-pop, or really anything besides her dream of being a professional cellist. But when she finds herself falling for a K-pop idol, she has to decide whether their love is worth the risk. A modern forbidden romance wrapped in the glamorous and exclusive world of K-pop, XOXO is perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Maurene Goo.

Jenny didn’t get to be an award-winning, classically trained cellist without choosing practice over fun. That is, until the night she meets Jaewoo. Mysterious, handsome, and just a little bit tormented, Jaewoo is exactly the kind of distraction Jenny would normally avoid. And yet, she finds herself pulled into spending an unforgettable evening wandering Los Angeles with him on the night before his flight home to South Korea.

With Jaewoo an ocean away, there’s no use in dreaming of what could have been. But when Jenny and her mother move to Seoul to take care of her ailing grandmother, who does she meet at the elite arts academy she’s just been accepted to? Jaewoo.

Finding the dreamy stranger who swept you off your feet in your homeroom is one thing, but Jaewoo isn’t just any student. Turns out, Jaewoo is a member of one of the biggest K-pop bands in the world. And like most K-pop idols, Jaewoo is strictly forbidden from dating anyone.

When a relationship means not only jeopardizing her place at her dream music school but also endangering everything Jaewoo’s worked for, Jenny has to decide once and for all just how much she’s willing to risk for love. XOXO is a new romance that proves chasing your dreams doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your heart, from acclaimed author Axie Oh. 

Author: Axie Oh

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publication date: July 13, 2021

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.