Tag: people of colour

5 star, YA

Review: XOXO by Axie Oh

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Cello prodigy Jenny has one goal: to get into a prestigious music conservatory. When she meets mysterious, handsome Jaewoo in her uncle’s Los Angeles karaoke bar, it’s clear he’s the kind of boy who would uproot her careful plans. But in a moment of spontaneity, she allows him to pull her out of her comfort zone for one unforgettable night of adventure…before he disappears without a word.

Three months later, when Jenny and her mother arrive in South Korea to take care of her ailing grandmother, she’s shocked to discover that Jaewoo is a student at the same elite arts academy where she’s enrolled for the semester. And he’s not just any student. He’s a member of one of the biggest K-pop bands in the world—and he’s strictly forbidden from dating.

When a relationship means throwing Jenny’s life off the path she’s spent years mapping out, she’ll have to decide once and for all just how much she’s willing to risk for love.

Overall Recommendation:

Call me an official K-pop fan because XOXO has gotten me into the culture and world of K-pop stars. I loved the angst of this forbidden romance between Jaewoo, this seemingly regular boy who appears for a wondrous night in LA, and Jenny, our normal non K-pop loving girl who prefers the cello. Her journey to Korea to study abroad for a term brought such an immersive experience of the culture and the process for K-pop stars. Fast paced and wholly enjoyable from start to finish, I couldn’t stop reading this romantic story between these two musical teens.

I’m starting off the year on such a high with XOXO, a book I honestly should’ve read ages ago. While I’ve always been adjacent to the world of K-pop, I’ve never really immersed myself in it though it has taken the world, deservedly, by storm.

In this beautiful and angsty story of a forbidden romance between a K-pop star and an ordinary transfer student from America, it gave me the whole spectrum of feelings. Fast paced from the start, the magical night Jenny and Jaewoo first meet in LA in her uncle’s karaoke bar showed how much chemistry they have. I didn’t want their misadventure to end as much as Jenny didn’t. And when he ghosted her for a few months until Jenny found herself transferring to a performing arts school in Korea for a term while they tend to her sick grandmother, you know the re-meeting would be filled with complicated emotions. Axie Oh didn’t miss a beat as I held my breath for what would come of this.

The love story definitely took center stage. I love a good forbidden romance that is filled with angst. Both rule followers and passionate about their music and responsibilities, they are clearly perfect for one another if extraneous factors such as a scandal from Jaewoo’s boy band XOXO wouldn’t cause a huge problem. The tensions were so good throughout, from the fear of being caught every time they did even something more than innocent friends would to the anxiety something would give in either of their music careers due to the time they chose to spend with each other over their competing priorities. Even the initial will-they-won’t-they start dating was fun to read.

But besides the romance, there are so many other things I enjoyed! You know me, I only give the best ratings for books that have everything going for it.

I’ve loved the influx of Asian representation in stories over the last few years. This is no exception. The immersive way Axie brought us into the world of Seoul, their culture that differs from North American standards (where else would dating a celebrity be a scandal just for the fact they’re dating?), and the in-depth look on K-pop trainees and debuted groups was truly fascinating. I’ve listened to K-pop occasionally over the years but never fell in love with it. Being in this fictional world has made me more curious and perhaps even more open to joining this music fandom in real life that so many enjoy.

The food and family dynamics in Korea were also represented. You don’t know how many times I was going hungry reading about black bean noodles (jajangmyeon) and kimchi and gimbap. Jenny’s dynamics with her mother and grandmother were also an important part of her story arc. Balancing the responsibility to practice cello to get into the music school of her dreams (and her mother’s dreams) while feeling the lack of support and presence from her mom was an interesting backdrop to set the familial conflicts, but one I can understand as an Asian adult who grew up in similar familial conflicts in the community.

The one thing that was the perfect icing on top of this already fun and emotional book were the other characters, especially the XOXO members. Found family is a huge trope here as the boys only have each other when they tour and face the pressures of debuting. While Jenny may not have her family for integral support, she found great relationships with these boys. From the fun loving youngest member to the serious leader who only wanted the best for Jaewoo, their love for one another was obvious. The highlight was definitely Nathaniel and his attempts to make life easy for Jenny, even when she thought his attentions and freely given friendship would only cause issues for the both of them. Her roommate Sori also initially came across as mean and stuck up but their relationship became something I loved as she stuck by Jenny in all the things she was unprepared for.

This book felt like a K-drama with all the best parts crafted into a fast paced story. If you enjoy a good forbidden romance, excellent characterizations and found family, with plenty of Asian representation, this book is 100% for you. There’s no time to waste! Best add it to your TBR when you can!

4.5 star, YA

Review: The Space Between Here & Now by Sarah Suk

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Perfect for fans of They Both Die at the End and You’ve Reached Sam, this gripping, atmospheric YA novel follows a teen with a mysterious condition that transports her to the past when she smells certain scents linked to specific memories.

Seventeen-year-old Aimee Roh has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, a rare condition that causes her to time travel to a moment in her life when she smells something linked to that memory. Her dad is convinced she’ll simply grow out of it if she tries hard enough, but Aimee’s fear of vanishing at random has kept her from living a normal life.

When Aimee disappears for nine hours into a memory of her estranged mom–a moment Aimee has never remembered before–she becomes distraught. Not only was this her longest disappearance yet, but the memory doesn’t match up with the story of how her mom left–at least, not the version she’s always heard from her dad.

Desperate for answers, Aimee travels to Korea, where she unravels the mystery of her memories, the truth about her mother, and the reason she keeps returning to certain moments in her life. Along the way, she realizes she’ll need to reconcile her past in order to save her present.

From acclaimed author Sarah Suk comes an aching, powerful exploration of memory, grief, and the painful silences we must overcome to discover our truest selves.

Overall Recommendation:

The Space Between Here & Now delivered a capturing story about a girl’s journey in finding her mom, and in the process, finding herself. I love the themes of grief tied into memory as Aimee tackles the abandonment from her mother years later. Mixed with Asian elements woven throughout the novel as Aimee travelled back to Korea to explore her parents’ roots, this book captivated me from the start as I too yearned to learn more about Aimee’s time warp condition and her mother’s disappearance. A definitely recommendation!

You know how smell seems to always be the most powerful thing to instantly draw you back to a particular memory? I love that, being the nostalgic person that I am, but imagine this happening physically. All the time. Aimee suffers from a rare condition, Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, that transports her back into her memories at the most inopportune times when her particular sense, smell, is triggered to an associated memory.

In the same vein as If You Could See the Sun and The Other Side of Infinity, I thought this fictional syndrome was super interesting, and it never felt like just a prop to make this book more intriguing. We dive deep into what the condition entails (little is known but it varies from person to person and dependent on the sense), the people struggling to live in a world trying to avoid particular trigger senses (how awful!), and how this impacts the relationships of those suffering from such a condition.

The characters were absolutely superb. I adored Aimee as a protagonist. She felt very real as she tried navigating this condition that seemed to be triggered more often lately. Her father didn’t want her to go to therapy or additional support groups like an Asian parent may react. So how can she tough it out by herself when being in these memories were happening more frequently and taking up longer time? Her reactions and struggles just made me empathize so much for her, and it made sense she’d yearn for her mom when her dad was just a husk in the home.

The major arcing storyline was Aimee’s search for her mom who had one day just left them when she was a kid. This took her to Korea to learn more about where her mom came from in the hopes that it’d lead her to her mom in the present day. I felt this underlying plot really kept me flipping the pages as I was just as desperate as Aimee to find her mom. Did she know more about her condition? Would she be more sympathetic than her dad? Being in Korea was a plus and I absolutely loved the setting, though it never overshadowed the emotional depth to the story.

My favourite part is definitely the way Sarah Suk looked at grief and memory. Even though her mom wasn’t dead, parental abandonment sometimes hurts more because it seems like an intentional choice to leave. With the memories Aimee kept going back to somehow connected with her mom, it’s clear the years passing hadn’t helped with closure. Things didn’t happen in the way I had anticipated it would, and in that way, I enjoyed the story more. I don’t want to give away too many details so I’ll leave it at that.

There was a romantic element to this book too, but it really played more of a supporting role. He was a great help in Korea while Aimee traced her mom’s path, but he never grew larger than the arcing story about Aimee’s past and her condition. I find it refreshing that romance can have its time and place in stories without overshadowing the main plot. It’s sometimes rarer these days as audiences grow more hungry for heavy romantic subplots.

Overall, this book touched me deeply in its exploration of memory and familial relationships. It was quite different from Sarah’s first novel, but I absolutely love the direction she’s going with and cannot wait to read more from her!

2 star, YA

ARC Review: Artifacts of an Ex by Jennifer Chen

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

When Chloe Chang gets dumped via USPS after moving across the county from NYC to LA, her first instinct is to throw her box of memories in the garbage. Instead, she starts buying other teenagers’ break-up boxes to create an art exhibit, Heartifacts. Opening night is going great, until she spots Daniel Kwak illicitly filming his best friend’s reaction to his ex’s box. When she tries to stop him, an intense discussion ends up launching a creative partnership and friendship… and a major crush for Chloe.

There’s just one problem: Daniel is dead set on not being another rebound.

Five times he’s been the guy who makes the girls he’s dating realize they want to get back with their ex. And he refuses for there to be a sixth. She insists she’s over her ex, but when he shows up unexpectedly with his new girlfriend, it turns out Daniel was right. She isn’t ready for a new relationship.

She throws herself into making Heartifacts successful, but flashy influencers threaten her original vision of the exhibit. To create the exhibit she’s always wanted, Chloe needs to go back to basics, learn to work with artists in a more collaborative way, and discover what love can be. Only then will she convince Daniel she’s truly ready for everything they could be to one another.

In the tradition of Jenny Han and Emma Lord, Jennifer Chen’s Artifacts of an Ex is a story of love, art, and finding your way when everything you know has changed completely.

Overall Recommendation:

Artifacts of an Ex touches on key themes of loving yourself and learning to let go before falling in love again. While I agree with these things, the execution was not as strong as I had hoped and it was hard to believe in Chloe’s newfound love for Daniel while her breakup was still so fresh. I had also wished for more about her family as they felt like filler rather than important side themes to explore in the book. Overall it was an okay read but it did take me a while to finish it.

**Artifacts of an Ex comes out November 14, 2023**

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review

There were plenty of things I wanted to love about this book: themes of heartbreak, new love, and the feelings they invoke in us universally. Perhaps some of it was too much to explore altogether in this one novel, or my expectations were too high, but it felt like it bit off more than it could chew.

Chloe quickly gets dumped early on in the book. Her idea to form an art exhibit from people’s shared experiences of heartbreak from an ex was unique and refreshing.

But too much focus was perhaps on the actual planning and replanning of the exhibit. She is apparently a big enough YouTuber who is known for, well, planning. As PlanItGirl, she utilizes a number of, what I guess to be, sponsored items from stationery brands for her planning journals and writing utensils. I never understood all of it as it’s not explicitly explained, so either this is a popular real brand I have absolutely no idea of or it wasn’t meant to be analyzed beyond its mention in the book.

Then we have her Asian family. There are a few side plots with them, namely the fact they moved to LA to be with her ill grandmother. Their search for the recipe ingredients in her grandma’s famous pineapple cakes was fun and I loved the dynamic with her Ahma when she could remember who Chloe was. However, nothing more substantial really takes place beyond this and it leaves me wondering if they were just plot filler to pad out the story. They all feel a little too two-dimensional for characters that did take up a certain amount of space in the book.

My biggest problem, though, was how hard it was to believe Chloe could just fall in love with Daniel so fast after such a breakup with her ex. She barely had time to process her feelings, and when her ex, Jake, popped back in her life post-breakup, she clearly had hoped to still give it another try with him if he also wanted that. This was after she had met Daniel and thought he could be someone of interest to date. With Daniel’s history and his concern as the “rebound” guy, her reassurances to him that she wouldn’t do that seems super hypocritical.

For a book about love, whether new love or loving yourself with your flaws and all, I didn’t really feel either of these things from Chloe’s journey. That, perhaps, is why it was so hard to love this as much as I had hoped from the synopsis. With more focus on this main theme, I may have learned to love it more but it just wasn’t for me.