The hits keep coming, friends. I'm absolutely exhausted. This is me screaming out for help, and also begging YA e★½
Because tonight, the world is ours.
The hits keep coming, friends. I'm absolutely exhausted. This is me screaming out for help, and also begging YA editors to have a firmer hand with their authors.
For anyone who doesn't know, I'm a huge k-pop fan (girl groups, specifically). And yet, not a single book about k-pop that I've picked up has satisfied me. They have all been so undeniably and unbearably cheesy. Sadly, this one is the worst of the bunch.
Prior to this, I've picked up I'll Be the One by Lyla Lee, and Shine by Jessica Jung('s ghostwriter). What garnered those a slightly better rating was, well, the fact that they were far more readable.
My central gripe with this book branches out to every other issue I have with it. Namely, it is so, so poorly written. I've never read anything on Wattpad, but I'm certain that the writing quality here is on par with what you'd get there. It commits the biggest "tell and no show" sins I've encountered in quite some time. There is barely any description (aside from the occasional location description, and some effort into what the male idols are wearing) and tons of repetitive syntax, making it near impossible to sink into the world.
Even worse, the characters are so poorly drawn. I know nothing about the main character, Jenny, really. I know she's apparently a good enough cellist to be attending college for it, despite the fact that she doesn't seem to practice nearly enough. I know that she has a mother and a grandmother. I know that she likes an even less interesting character named Jaewoo. And that's about it.
The side characters are no better; they are, in fact, interchangeable in my mind. They are given no backgrounds and speak in the same manner and tone, completely cut and paste onto one another. I'm meant to invest in their relationships and conflicts when I have no investment in them as people. It's completely bizarre.
The plot construction is equally egregious. Conflicts are either solved in an instant — ergo, Jenny becoming best friends with her incredibly hostile roommate Sori after one conversation — or just forgotten about entirely. A bully somehow stops being a bully because Jenny befriends the person she was bullying? A rookie idol's relationship — which would be a huge scandal in real life — is completely accepted by his company and his fans with absolutely no repercussions? The last act of the novel is absolutely stuffed with Issues™️ to make up for the fact that the first three quarters are completely meandering and plotless, leaving untied threads or hastily created conclusions. Why didn't an editor take a red pen to all of this, I beg.
This barely escapes the lowest rating I dole out because two of Jaewoo's groupmates were pretty adorable. Despite their lacking in the personality department, they got a smile or two out of me. I wish we had gotten more of their group dynamics and their experiences as idols rather than...whatever this was....more
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