Book Review: Comeback: A Kpop Novel by Lyn Ashwood and Rachel Rose

Book: Comeback: A Kpop Novel by Lyn Ashwood and Rachel Rose
Genre: YA romance
Rating: ★ ★ ★ 

Our youtube channel email was approached by these authors to maybe perhaps read and review their book. So... I was like, of course! Why not!? So both Toto and I read it, both of us in nearly one sitting. It was a really fun read!

Yes, it's another kpop novel! (I am finding that lots of authors are out there writing kpop novels these days!) This one about a famous idol who we learn has struggled in the near recent years and almost quit his band. His parents (from America) are not at all supportive of him. It really makes him sad. But when we catch up with him, all is going well, mostly.

And our girl, she is also struggling, a Korean American, living in Korea with her cousin and trying to make a life for herself there. When we meet her, she is a style fashion helper with a girl group, and on this one particular night, she stumbles into (literally) our guy idol, since their groups happen to be performing on a TV show like MCountdown (yes the one I got to see while in Korea!) on the same night. When their eyes meet, they both freak out.

It seems like they have met before!

So we have to read quite a bit of the book to find out if that is true, and how exactly that happened. Meanwhile, our girl ends up with a job actually working for the boy band with this very famous idol, and ends up being his makeup Noona... (which is what the guys call the girls who take care of them.)

EVERYONE's biggest kpop fantasy! Doing makeup or hair or dressing the idols! Seriously though. It would be quite the fun and crazy job.

Anyway. And so we learn all about their pasts and why it would probably be a really bad idea if they get together now. But they don't care of course. Except they do, because dating is really not a good idea for the success of a band, you know? Yeah. Bad idea.

And so what to do?

It was fun. I recognized a lot of stuff based on BTS things. And our idol had some qualities of a mixture of BTS boys, but there was one scene that was so Namjoon (RM) that any BTS fan would know! I guess that was fun. Not sure still what I think about it being obviously BTS, but yeah. It was fun!

I really really loved being able to picture a lot of things. Especially the description of MCountdown, but lots of other things too. The first chapter or so was a bit annoying as so many kpop things have to be explained. I get that it might be necessary assuming a non kpop person reads it, but I'm guessing that most people picking this up will have kpop knowledge. Anyway. It was kinda funny. And makes one realize that there really is another language surrounding kpop (and it's not Korean) as there is in any fandom.

Thanks to the authors for letting us read this one! Very fun. I always enjoy a good kpop novel! It's fun to see how others imagine a kpop romance would play out! I have my own idea for one (and actually started writing it) that will never see the light of day I'm sure....

For Toto's thoughts on the book.... you'll have to ask her I guess!