Jisu’s traditional South Korean parents are concerned by what they see as her lack of attention to her schoolwork and her future. Working with Seoul’s premiere matchmaker to find the right boyfriend is one step toward ensuring Jisu’s success, and going on the recommended dates is Jisu’s compromise to please her parents while finding space to figure out her own dreams. But when she flubs a test then skips out on a date to spend time with friends, her fed-up parents shock her by shipping her off to a private school in San Francisco. Where she’ll have the opportunity to shine academically—and be set up on more dates!

Navigating her host family, her new city and school, and more dates, Jisu finds comfort in taking the photographs that populate her ever-growing social media account. Soon attention from two very different boys sends Jisu into a tailspin of soul-searching. As her passion for photography lights her on fire, does she even want to find The One? And what if her One isn’t parent and matchmaker approved?

This was a pleasant rom-com to pass the time. I feel like this won’t be an in-depth review as there was not much depth to the book. A lot of YA try to put a little more of an emotional arc for the main character, but Jisu didn’t have anything to fight really.

Yes, there’s her parents’ suffocating control over her future with their pushiness to get into a good college, and the seons (arranged dates), but Jisu never confronts them on this attitude. She’s a good daughter because she knows that ultimately they want her to be happy in that they don’t care what she does in college as long as she gets into one sort of thing. But there’s never a confrontation or a talk to let all those feelings out. I guess it would be anticlimatic because they’d never see her pov and accuse her of being too Americanized.

There were relatable feelings like Jisu’s feeling of being stuck because she doesn’t have firm ideas of what she wants in her future much less a five year plan. Same with waiting to get an acceptance while her friends are speeding through early acceptance. Same with her confusion over the rules of dating in America with its mind games compared to the frustrating feeling of being on love interviews with how candidly business-like the Korean seon dates.

Some of it felt like it was trying to be as polite as possible. There’s been some controversy since Melissa de la Cruz is not Korean, she’s Filipina. But it was based on her sister-in-law’s experiences as a foreign exchange student in senior cram year, and said sister-in-law added her insight to the manuscript. I don’t know I’m not in charge of #ownvoices.

But I think that controversy blunted the emotional impact of it. Like in the beginning when Jisu’s parents blindside her by sending her to the US, the narrative repeatedly has Jisu remind herself that they did it out of love and for her future. Almost as if to comfort the American reader that the Koreans are not pushy Tiger parents with no thought to their daughter’s happiness.

Otherwise, there’s nothing too bad yet nothing remarkable of the book. The characters are nice, some of the seons are funny in relatable “oh those bad blind dates” way, and the ultimate romance is sweet albeit predictable. This book is fluff but not the most wholesome fluff that makes me unable to stop smiling and wanting to reread it again.

If you want a nice rom-com to fill your time in the style of 27 Dresses or Never Been Kissed, here’s a good pick. Othewise, I give it three stars.