Desi Lee is a straight A, type A, school president, Standford dreaming nerd. Basically she’s winning at everything in life with waaay too many extracurriculars and an almost encyclopedic/photographic knowledge of obscue things from Middle English to trees to cars, the latter thanks to her mechanic father. When she was little, she convinced herself that if she used her mind hard enough, tried hard enough she telepathically moved a pencil.

That opening scene really highlights the kind of mindset Desi has. That’s why it sucks that the one thing she fails at is in love. I mean she really fails. Her friends have dubbed it flailing because she’s flails and fails that bad every time from phgleming on a cute boy’s shirt to her pants dropping in front of another one.

So yeah, she’s pretty unlucky when she’s in a crush’s vicinity thus she has had no boyfriend ever. But as senior year comes to an end she decides she’s going to put an end to that flailure. Inspired by her father’s addiction to K-dramas and her own need for rules and steps, she will use their formulaic set-up to get close to Luca Drakos and fall in love.

As you can imagine with this sort of concept hijinks ensue with intresting results. With steps like get into life threatening danger, there are consequences that Desi really should have forseen for a future Standford scholar. But she’s infautuated so I’ll hold my disbelief. Though it does help that Desi feels guilt and is a bit self-aware of her craziness even though she decides to go through with her plans. It is a sign of a Goo’s skill that she managed to keep me on Desi’s side even though when said outloud Desi sounds like an obsessive stalker.

It helps that Goo writes with humor that not only made me smile but I actually laughed far too loundly in public. Not just from Desi’s humiliations but her relatable dry wit.

She also skillfully creates a warm relationship between Desi and her father, the two leaning on each other, trying to take care of everything themselves not to burden the other with their grief over Desi’s departed mother. Desi’s grief is actually an important plot point here tying her obssessive planning and her type A tendencies as a shield from the grief that she still can’t quite admit.

Goo also creates a lovely friend trio for Desi with two skilled flirts, Fiona and Wes who chide and help Desi with her plan yet remain their own people as Desi makes an effort to not get entirely consumed with Luca. I only wish there had been a bit more with them.

Now you might think I haven’t been mentioning the couple because I don’t like them together. Untrue. Luca and Desi were really enjoyable together and despite the manipulative way Desi orchestrated their first few meetings, they do have stuff in common that make it enjoyable to see them so happy. Luca helps Desi relax her perfectionism and Desi is a good sounding board for Luca’s parental troubles and artistic pressures. Plus, Luca initially seems like the perfect dream boy for Desi but as she and the reader comes to learn, he has his own flaws too turning this from fantasy to real life romance.

Additionally, the end has some K-Drama recommendations from Goo and her friends, highlighting the variety of the genre from contemporary romance to historical romance to historical romance with time travelling action to contemporary with military setting and so on.

The one nitpick I have is the denounment action in the classic girl loses boy and must win him back. It’s a bit out there and felt too manipulative and crazy just as when Desi resolves not to use the K-drama steps because they caused all the problems in the first place. If you can ignore it, it makes a nice book but I felt a little let-down with that scene.

Clara is the class slacker and joker so its fitting when her friends nominate her for homecoming queen as a joke. One that she revels in with a campaign centered around free tampons, and when she wins, a bloody Carrie prank. However, she rubs class president Rose Carver the wrong way with her complete “disrespect” of the homecoming queen position and fights her onstage, causing a collapse and a fire!

What a way to begin a book.

As punishment the girls are forced to work together in her father’s food truck, KoBra (a cool name highlighting its Korean-Brazilian fusion) or face suspension and in Clara’s case, possibly not seeing her influencer mom in Mexico. It’s shaping up to be the worse summer ever but Goo comes through with a hefty dose of character development and romance thrown in Clara’s way.

I’ll admit, Clara is a difficult protagonist to like at first. She can be a jerk and a brat to her father. She’s jokey and lax, super focused on her brand of coolness in a nonchalant way. Always pointing out the uncoolness and uptightness of others and doing the exact opposite.

But it is an intriguing concept for Goo to mine as Clara’s “cool” is bumped against the eager genuineness of Hamlet (yes his name really is Hamlet) and Rose.

Since her parents’ divorce, Clara has seen the abrupt ending and disappointment of high school love and her mom’s subsequent infrequant meetings is always a bandaid of disappointment that keeps ripping and ripping. So Clara keeps herself at a distance too. She never lets herself feel real emotions, get invested in a thing that may disappoint her. And that’s what this summer forces her to confront, though in a kicking and screaming way as she changes to someone who cares, and someone not content with what’s easy.

So if you’re looking for a good caracter arc, Goo does an excellent job with this one but it helps that she surrounds Clara with a dynamic cast that contrast and challenge her. Like her father, Adrian as the father/daughter relationship takes center stage again. He really is a cool dad and I enjoy his simultaneous lax ways with his no-nonsense parental worry over Clara and wondering if his lack of discipline had led to her rash actions throughout the novel. Nonetheless, the love between them is strong even though it takes a while for Clara to realize it as readers see the foil between Clara and her mother.

The animosity between Clara and Rose also shifts to friendship in an organic way as the close quarters forces Clara to re-evaluate how she viewed Clara as a nerdy robot with a stick up her bum, but someone who is a decent person with flaws and anxieties just like everyone else. She isn’t trying to make anyone look bad and yes, she’s a try hard but she’s genuine.

Know who else is genuine? Hamlet Wong who is basically a labrador. Literally that’s Clara’s first impression of him with his earnest, optimistic face and sunny personality. No wonder I adore him. I love how he’s nothing but open and honest but he’s also not a push-over. He’s kinda perfect which would normally rankle me but he’s like a Lab. So it’s okay besides Clara’s flaws more than makes up for it as she begins to worry whether she deserves a great guy like him, and if she’s really changed from how she was in the beginning of the summer and if she’s okay with that.

Goo mentions this in the acknowledgements but the inspiration was for this to be a love story in LA which is true as LA acts as a supporting character in the novel. From the different shops that Clara frequents to the cusine that they’re compeating with and just the setting as a place where Adrian (and other immigrants) can fufill their dreams. For some where you’re born is just a location but for Clara, it has seeped into her identity, a wild and wonderful melting pot.

This also connects to the lovely ending that cements LA’s beauty in a full circle way which actually references the cover art!

A princess and a reporter spend one magical day exploring the city, giving the princess a chance to rest from her duties and responsibilities and the man a chance to get the big story. Until they fall in love. They both know it cannot be but they still have this one day.

No, this is not a movie novelization of Roman Holiday but you can see the similarities and Goo writes that the black and white movies had particular influence on the story and it shows.

Lucky is not a royal princess but a K-Pop princess on the verge of her international debut in the US. She has been working for this moment since she was 13 and has now attained automatic perfection, reliability that she knows her choreography, lyrics and a squeaky clean image. But she’s missing the heart of the music she loves. Not that she can do anything about it after all the work her management has done for her, the industry that pays her, the fans the idolized her and her family has sacrificed everything for her.

She does want a hamburger though. So in a daze of sleeping pills and anxiety meds, she ventures out of her guarded room for one delicious burger and bumps into Jack.

Jack is on the gap year from boredom, interning for his dad’s bank. Luckily, he has a side hustle as a tabloid photgrapher and its after he’s escaping from a close call when he bumps into Lucky. He doesn’t recognize her but feels a duty to help this obviously lost and very drunk girl whose name is Fern apparently.

So after a string of fun near arrests, Jack takes Fern back to his house since her sleeping pills kicked in and she can’t do anything for herself. It’s in that quiet moment he realizes her true identity and comes up with a plan. Lucky is clearly running from something, he’s going to convince her to spend a day of fun and relaxation with him. He’ll be able to snap some exclusive pictures that he can release once Lucky makes it big in the US. It will guarentee a windfall and a job at the tabloid, proving himself to his family that he can make money on his own.

Goo manages to do the biggest feat here in getting Lucky and Jack to fall for each other over the course of one day. The tension between Lucky hiding who she is and Jack hiding that he knows who she is creates a riveting sense of suspense. Yes, it’s sleazy of Jack to do this but Lucky’s walls come down and he comes to see the real her. The real her that is goofy, driven, stressed, talented, all that. She’s a real person and he inevitably can’t bring himself to hurt her. He sees why she’s so magnetic and why she has fans all over the world. When she lets loose, she’s a star.

And in Jack pretending to not know Lucky, Lucky feels free to be her true, full self, divulging in some fears and anxieties she has about “church choir” and her future in singing. She does hold some of the princess tropes in sometimes formal speech (from reading regency romances), bringing out the confidant diva when they need to get access etc. I found her POV to be super interesting as Goo skillfully weaves Lucky’s gradual realization on what’s been missing, what she needs to change in her career and why she loves music and performing in the first place. Hint, it’s not about love. It’s about connection with fans and being able to share the universal feelings that music communicates. It also gets into the harsh ridgidness of the K-Pop industry like the perfectionism, contracts, diets and plastic surgery as well as how it heightens her anxiety which she can’t reveal to anyone because it will ruin her career.

But even though they are hiding big parts of themselves, it allows them to be more themselves as they feel unihibited in asking each other challenging questions that even readers can think about-What is the quality of life? Does it come from selfish ego? Selflessness? Success? Connection? You’ll be able to make your own decisions as you read. Also their differences in life and career allow them to challenge each other.

For example, Lucky is driven but scared of disappointing everyone who has helped made her, losing her control. Jack fearing that he’ll fail at something he loves and thus avoids and denies everything just as he tries to avoid thinking about the extent of his newfound feelings. Their conversations and their day together gives them what they need to make the changes and big leaps in their futures.

Goo also makes Hong Kong as important as the main characters, revealing its beauty, delicious food and big attractions. Her landscape descriptions and culture of the area adds to the fantasy of the day and the magic of the day. It all creates a perfect storm to make a memorable romance.

As for the big reveal, Goo deals with the fall out realistically but manages to keep the relationship afloat in a way that will satisfy romantics and give the happily ever after you will crave after reading the two together.

This was Goo’s debut book and stands out from the others, not only in length but in being a pure coming of age story rather than romance. It centers around Holly Kim who pretty much fades in the fringes of her school. Which suits her as that allows her and her best friends plenty of leeway to bitch and judge everyone else. That is till the fateful day in journalism where she jokingly rips into her school in a column that no one else was supposed to see. Well it gets printed in the Weasel Times (so unfortunate but so much snark mileage there) and launches her own monthly column. Apparently her frank honesty brings readers, and haters and thus shapes the rest of her school year as she is assigned different events and navigates her own personal struggles with family and friendship.

It also has extra mediums imbedded in it like Holly’s column, pictures, and secret admirer notes like one would save in their diary, making it feel tangible and breaks up the font.

Like Clara, Holly can be a bit of a brat, but her mindset is understandable considering how strict her parents are with things like prom and meeting out with friends. The latter bringing a lecture of why not eat at home, is lunch with family not good enough? So yeah, strict. But part of it is just going through that teenage angst phase which Goo hits at the right zeitgest where everything is momentous and boring all at once.

Her voice is just very fun and honest so even when Holly gets melodramatic or things take a downturn, she always has a snarky comment that keeps things engaging.

The book was published in 2013, but the atmosphere feels like it’s set in the early 2000s with throwback like Mean Girls, celebrities I haven’t heard of and her description of the school cliques being such a high school movie cliche. But Holly is aware of it so it almost feels meta.

I also appreciate that even though the high school seems Hollywood cliche, the storyline is not. Goo shows all of high school life. That it can be mundane which Holly highlights in column that movies set such unrealistic high expectations. It can have great highs like the escatic feeling of Holly’s friends’ band, The Raw Meat Demons winning the school talent show which gives such an underdog story. High school can feel unjust like when Holly is accused of trying to rig Homecoming nominations for her friend when its quite obviously the other way around.

High school also has romance but unlike Goo’s other books, it’s not the foucs. It’s quite refreshing as it reflects that crushes and secret admirers do flit in and out, it doesn’t always take over Holly’s life. Rather friendship is at the center and can be the true core of the book with Holly’s friends being there for her during the biggest moments thus the biggest memories.

Family also takes a big part as Holly’s frustrations with her traditional Korean parents are a source of major angst and frustration though there are funny bits as Goo mines the chaos of extended family gatherings of which the Kims meet weekly. Holly’s relationship with her mother especially isn’t fully resolved but they do share a nice moment in the end illustrating the complexity of their bond.

As for Holly, her character development is subtle as the story can be seen as a series of vignettes rather than focusing on Holly. She remains primarily grouchy and angsty and supportive throughout but she does have moments where she breaks away from her “edgy” attitude. In Las Vegas of all places as she finds a moment of piece and happiness watching the waterwork light display. She had thought it part of the tacky outrageousness that is Vegas. But in that moment she sees the beauty and why others are drawn to it. It moved me too.

As you can see, Goo’s books each have a distinct feel, bringing new ways to view love and growing up, adding details of Korean culture and family to create three-dimensional characters and romances that readers will root for with a feel-good cup of cocoa.