Shine follows Rachel Kim, an American-Korean girl, who when she was younger moved to Seoul for the opportunity to start a career as a k-pop star. Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot, and I’ll be rereading this one in the future. Not everyone there wanted to be an idol, but it kind of reminded me of some of my favourite idol series, so I found that pretty fun. This book had some very cute friendships, and I loved seeing the school. Parts of it felt familiar and other things very different.
I picked it up knowing it was set in Korea, and I was curious how different it would be from books set in Japan. I’ve not really enjoyed any of Oh’s SFF books, but she did a great job with this contemporary story. I enjoyed this book so much when I read it. Jaewoo isn’t allowed to date though, and the more time Jenny spends with him, she begins to realise that she might have to choose between their relationship and their futures. She thinks she’ll never see him again, but when she goes to Korea with her mum, she winds up at the same school as him. And yet when it comes to Jenny, he threw caution to the wind I also wish we got to see more of Jaewoo outside of being an idol- like his interest or other personality traits because honestly he felt too perfect.XOXO follows Jenny, a classically-trained cellist who one night runs into a k-pop star. He’s portrayed as more reserved and responsible, protecting his idol image and his bandmates. Jaewoo as a character doesn’t feel very developed.Not that she stalked him or anything, but she texted him a lot despite him never replying anymore and just can’t stop thinking about him. Jenny was described as someone outside of the kpop bubble so she doesn’t know who Jaewoo was, but she still got obsessed after that first meeting. Speaking about the romance, fair warning that it IS an insta-love.She’s inclined to see the best in everyone, such as Sori and Jaewoo that it can be a bit… narcisistic? I also wish we got more of her life outside of cello and the romance.
For example, the XOXO boys are too trusting and open to befriend her immediately, Sori and her became friends too quickly, we didn’t get any “reconciliation” or any explanation between her and her mom and her grandmother, and the ending, while lovely, is too abrupt.
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