Frankly in Love by David Yoon

 Book: Frankly in Love by David Yoon

Genre: YA contemporary

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

This is the story of Frank Li (frankly... get it?) who is dealing with the dilemma of being Korean, but also being American. He has Korean parents who have come over to the US to live the good life here. They run a store and all is well, and yet... it is not. Frank, as many kids do, feels torn between the two cultures. 

They have "gatherings" with other Koreans in the area, his parents friends, and he has grown up bonding with the kids... who he calls the Limbos. They understand each other well, experiencing all these same things. And yet they are only friends at the gatherings.

He has to deal with the racism by people toward him, but also with the racism his parents have toward others. And when he falls in love with a white girl from school, he decides to hide this from his parents, especially considering what happened with his sister. (She married a black guy and his parents disowned her.)

In order to "hide" his girlfriend, he and one of the other "limbos" decide to fake a relationship. Because their parents are SO HAPPY at the idea that THEY are dating. Yeah. 

And then everything just really gets messed up and complicated!

Meanwhile, he's trying to bond with his dad, and that also gets messed up and complicated. 

It's such a heartfelt book...very funny in parts, very sad in other parts. It covers all the range of emotions for sure. I loved his parents...and fell for them hard despite their issues. Of course I loved seeing the Korean culture so readily displayed, and I even learned more Korean! Bad words even! LOL!

Yeah, this book has quite a pile of cursing. As I've mentioned before, I can usually handle it, if the character seems to warrant it. But sometimes I felt like it was way over the top for these characters. Almost like they were trying to prove their American-ness or something. Sigh. 

But despite that, I really enjoyed this one. I wanted all the best for the characters. I got weepy at the end. I ached and rejoiced with everyone!

(PS. I tried to picture one of my kpop idols in the lead role, but alas, it didn't work. Frank just took on his own form. Speaking of, kpop and kdrama and other such things were mentioned here and there in this book, but still in a degrading way I felt. Maybe I'm just defensive, but why can't people mention this stuff without putting it down? Why? I guess our character Frank didn't want people to think he would stoop so low as to enjoy this stuff himself. And our author probably looks down on it like everyone else. Whatever.)

(PPS. David Yoon is the husband of Nicola Yoon who wrote Everything, Everything, another very popular YA book. This is his first book.) 

Book Review: Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

Book: Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
Genre: mystery, court room thriller
Rating: ★ ★ ★

This is the first book chosen by the newly created online Asian Stories Book Club (interested? follow on Twitter @Asian_StoriesBC. And no I didn't create this one, Shannon from @ShanKdramaPop got it going!) The intent here is to read books by, about or set in Asian countries. We'll see how it goes, but I'm excited to jump in!

This one is a crazy story about a Korean immigrant family who has a business where they giving pure oxygen treatments to families who have autistic kids... though they treat others too who's ailments might be benefited by pure oxygen.

The crazy happens when something goes wrong during one of these treatments, a fire and explosion happen, and two people are killed. A trial commences where a mom of one of the kids is accused.

The book is then giving us the inside story of this trial, as we go day by day through it, from everyone's different perspectives... and in so doing, we also get the flash backs as to how all this different people were involved. They are many POVs which I enjoyed (some might be annoyed by that) and it was interesting to see how literally everyone had something to hide.

In then end I'm not sure there was one redeemable character! Some were down right awful and some were victims. And in the end, we find out the truth of what really went down the night of this explosion.

It's crazy I tell you!

Anyway. The subject matter was pretty tough throughout. I struggled in parts. I also struggled with court room detail, but that ended up not being the main focus of the story. The Korean immigrant bit didn't really factor into the event itself, but did play a part in the situation these people found themselves in... and in their struggle to make it in America and deal with the obstacles they faced. So hard!

So if you are love mysteries and court room intrigue and all the complicated factors that tell the WHOLE story, you'll probably really enjoy this one.

Movie Review: Parasite

Movie: Parasite
Genre: who the heck knows!! I've seen people call it a horror/comedy. 
Starring: Choi Wooshik, Park So Dam, Kang Ho Song, ChoYeo Jeong
Rating: R
My Rating: two thumbs up, I think...lol



So I'm not one that usually watches R movies, let's just say that. But because of my "connection" (geez what word do I use there? LOL... my love of all things Korean?)   I have been intrigued by this movie from the get go. Everyone was talking about it. I knew I needed to watch it.

THEN it won best picture, best director and a couple others at the Academy Awards. It had to be done. I had to watch it!

But I was nervous actually. I knew it would be a disturbing movie. A harsh movie. A hard one to watch. And I was right about that. Though I'm glad I watched and I don't think I'll be forever tainted by it or anything! (R rating for many subtitled fbombs, a weird sex scene, and violence)

Everyone describes this move as being about class warfare. The clash between lower and upper society in Seoul. We have a family who is living in a terrible basement apartment struggling to find work. We have a family living in a huge beautiful mansion struggling to find good help for their kids and family. The two get together and we have this crazy movie!

The boy ends up getting a tutoring job for the girl in the rich family. They then infiltrate by having the sister be the art teacher for the little boy. They cause both the chauffeur and the housekeeper to get fired and manage to get their parents into both of these positions. They feel they have succeeded and finally made it!

But then...

...stuff happens.

And you are watching it going, WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING???

And then it gets weirder from there.

And it's all quite depressing. This feeling that people who are in the lower dregs of society can not escape. I hate that. But it does also give hope... like tiny shred. So...hopefully there's hope!

The acting was amazing. The music was good. The suspense was fabulous. The snark was great. The whole feel of it was pretty crazy.  I really enjoyed seeing something so different. It was refreshing in that sense.

And in case you wondered, this did NOT feel like a kdrama. Other than the subtitles and language and such. While I didn't at first recognize their names, it turns out that I have seen pretty much all of the actors in a drama though. I thought that was cool.

Speaking of subtitles, on twitter the day after it won its Oscar, there was a huge debate about subtitles vs. dubbing. I'm guessing you probably know where I land on that debate. HA. It still baffles me that people would actually rather not hear the original language. So much of the acting nuances happen through that. You would lose SO MUCH if it was dubbed!

Anyway. It was fun to finally know what all the buzz was about and to form my own opinions on everything! I truly find it fascinating that so many people loved it.

I'm dying to know if anyone who reads this has watched it, or plans to? I would love to know what you think!

Here's the trailer, which is fabulous: