A romance between a K-Pop Idol and the girl next door, is the order of the day in this book and I loved it.

As someone who now wishes to be the next door neighbour of Suga (but sadly Not Today) a story about a girl who has a romance with a kpop Idol was so damn up my street, I had to request this book, Hart & Seoul, I Need U.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book, the love/hate relationship growing into friendship and more is one of my favourite things in romance tropes and this book does it so well, it’s really dope how the writer builds up the tension incredibly well through the book and the end totally does make it right. This story kept me awake at night, it would just run through my head.

I’m not a huge fan of girls screwing over girls in books, I know it happens, but I wish I didn’t and for me the side-plot wasn’t my favourite thing, but I like how Merilee has a best friend online, I feel online friendships are considered lesser, but I love how seriously this is taken in the book and how strong that friendship is shown throughout the whole of the story.

Not at all a spine-breaker to read, Hart & Seoul doesn’t need a cypher to understand and it makes for such a great read, especially when you’re not feeling great like I was when I was reading this. Probably one of my favourite books I’ve read this year, this book was paradise to read!

I don't usually read contemporary but being a big Kpop fan myself I was definitely intrigued about this book. Unfortunately I found that it just read like a fanfic and decided to put it down at 60%. Although I can appreciate that younger readers would probably love this book, I think I'm just not the target audience even though I am a Kpop fan.

If you're into Korea, kpop, dramas, Korean food, or if you've ever been to Korea, YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE THIS! If you don't, you'll probably think this is too cliché, fluffy and unoriginal, and I can definitely understand that.

Anyway, I enjoyed the heck out of this and all the Korean references made me laugh out loud so many times and are basically what made me love this book so much. I just got back from Seoul 2 weeks ago and this made me miss everything there so much more! I felt like it was meant to be that I got approved to review an ARC right after I got back.
I also loved how the author randomly name-dropped BTS and Boys Over Flowers so many times lol! They're my favorite k-pop group and first k-drama ever!

The author's note made me cry though. Kim Jong-hyun, I still miss you <3

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<p style="text-align:justify">This book shouts the cliches in BOLD letters . I mean all the cliches are wrapped together and creatively presented in this YA.This book shouts the cliches in BOLD letters . I mean all the cliches are wrapped together and creatively presented in this YA.It’s got everything from enemies-to-lovers (Lee and Merri’s terrible first meeting and their subsequent awkward interactions are absolutely hilarious. Then even fake a date and ultimately we have them falling for each other. </p>
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<p style="text-align:justify">But that's not where the story ends , there is some talk about the perks and the cons of being Famous . The glitter and glamour of being a Idol(as said in Korea). Lee Hyung Kim is a fictional character in a book but there are so many idols out there and well , they also serve enjoy life as all of us. Lee was so adorable in the book , totally boyfriend material .</p>
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<p style="text-align:justify">However, I did find that the plot was a bit predictable and some of the writing was a bit heavy-handed. Anyways the book is just quite light-hearted read . You can't expect much and you shouldn't as well . <strong>I go with 3.5 Stars . In case you are looking for a light YA - RomCom , then this is the one for you . </strong></p>
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After receiving approval from the publisher via NetGalley to read this ARC in exchange for honest review, I immediately jumped to this June 2019 release as the summary is interesting.

Focusing on the story of Merrilee Hart, a teenage American girl, who unknowingly crossed paths with the runaway K-pop superstar Lee Hyung-Kim, Hart & Seoul is a feel-good contemporary novel that will surely be loved by those who are a big fan of swoon-worthy reads, enemies-turn-lovers trope, and well, Korean pop culture.

What I loved about this book is that the characters' voice are distinctly represented and it showed in both Merri and Hyung-Kim's character development all throughout. However, there were some lines that can be considered as borderline racism and I think that is something that can be improved.

I may be biased with rating this one because I really loved the gist presented in NetGalley but I assure you that the book is more than that. There were a bunch of curveballs that were perfectly added by the author and everything felt perfectly intertwined except, because there is always an exception to the rule, for the ending. I am not a big fan of open-ended conclusion and excluding the possibility that this book has a follow-up novel, then the ending is not something notable for a feel-good contemporary read.

Anyway, if you really are interested in a book that tackles teenage love and/or Korean pop culture then you should really add this book on your TBR. Ciao.

Rating: 3.5stars

On the whole, Hart & Seoul was a wonderful, fluffy contemporary that I wouldn't mind revisiting in the future. I ran through the Korean phrases and culture points with a Korean friend to check the accuracy; I go through these in my quick review below.

What I liked:
- Merri and Lee's relationship. It was clean, cute, and a fun enemies-to-lovers story.
- Lee's humor -- some of his lines managed to make me smile!
- All the Korean food and parts of the culture (some were accurate, some... maybe not.)
- Good structure. Hart & Seoul follows the three-act story structure, providing for an overall strong novel. If I look back, I can quickly recall the hook, setup, buildup, pinch points, supposed victory, dark moment, climax, and of course, resolution.
- I also appreciated the subplot on studying the arts as that's something that many people struggle with.

What could use some work:
- The writing and prose itself could use a bit of work, but once you get sucked into the plot, it doesn't matter as much.
- This has already been said quite a few times, but the romanization of some Korean words are a little questionable. Examples include "bo" (what) which is really pronounced "mwo", and "deh" (yes), which should be "ne" or something similar. Speaking of Korean, the phrase Lee uses " joesonghapnida" (I'm sorry) is what you'd use when speaking to someone older, not someone younger, in the case of Lee to Merri.
- Plus, the epilogue was a bit abrupt. The novel would have been fine without it, but ultimately, this is the author and editor's choice.

I don’t usually read contemporary, YA or otherwise. But for the right theme, or if it looks exciting enough I am more than willing to give it a go! Hart & Seoul is a book I was pretty excited about, and in some ways it really fulfilled my expectations and in others it didn’t. I wanted a fluffier read than some of the books I have been going for recently. Something interesting with a focus on romance, which I can be a total sucker for when I’m in the mood for it. In this aspect, ‘Hart & Seoul’ totally delivered. There was romance, heartbreak and a good chunk of predictable drama. I also picked this up because I used to watch K-dramas occasionally with my uni housemate, and am somewhat of a K-pop fan, so this sounded like a good read.

The plot read a bit like a super cheesy K-Drama, and I feel these two quotes kind of sum it up: ”It was like my life had become a K-drama episode” and “This is ridiculous. K-dramas are ridiculous. So unrealistic”. I did feel that the plot ended up on “ridiculous” and “unrealisitic” territory at times. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because the whole premise of the book is, after all, fangirly wish fulfillment. A young K-Pop Idol and an All-American Girl Next Door isn’t exactly going to be your normal pairing. It’s a bit silly, a bit fun, and I loved Lee Hyung-Kim as a character. He was interesting, flawed, and had a lot of issues, but was also sweet, kind and caring. He felt the most rounded and complex character in the book, and I do wish I had gotten to see more inside his head. Some of the supporting characters were great - Ema, Merri’s dad and Mrs Park - and made the story more rounded out and heartwarming. Merri had her moments of charm, however throughout the novel, she remains almost willfully ignorant about Korean culture to the point that it feels like an insult. She calls Lee Hyung-Kim ‘Mr Kimchi’ for about half the novel which I think is supposed to be ‘cute’ nickname in response to being called Christmas, but just comes across as rude. I would not like to be called Miss ‘Baked Beans’ by anyone, especially not someone I barely knew.

I was a little surprised by the fact that the book didn’t cover things like the dating ban on idols, especially considering some events in the past year that anyone who follows the world of K-pop would surely have read about. I also found that despite the potential for discourse about the pressures of being an idol and the mental health implications on this, it felt a bit brushed under the carpet. It was briefly touched upon, but Merri didn’t seem to care enough to continue it. This led me to feel that some of the other things in the book that didn’t sit quite right with me were also somewhat of an issue. Obviously I am not Korean, and some of the things that made me uncomfortable because they felt like insults, lack of research or ignorance may not have been, but I do think that ‘Hart & Seoul’ could have done with an own voice editor. It felt a little like someone had listened to a bit of K-pop, watched a few dramas and thought that showed them enough of the culture that they thought they had a solid understanding of Korea, it’s customs and culture. As I said, I could be wrong on that, but that was the impression I got.

‘Hart & Seoul’ was overall an enjoyable, easy read (it took me 2 days) and had a lot of potential. The story was fun, I enjoyed some of the characters, the basic plot, and the romance. If I overlook the cultural issues I had with it, my star rating would have been higher, but I don’t feel comfortable giving a higher rating due to my misgivings about the way some things were presented.

Hmmmm. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book now that I've finished it. On the one hand, I loved Hart and Seoul. I liked the characters well enough, the plot was fun and it made me laugh quite a lot.

On the other hand, I had my concerns about it. But I'll get to that. 



First what I liked. 

This book really did make me laugh. It was sweet and funny and stuffed with YA Rom-Com cliches and troupes, which are fun to read once in a while. I don't watch K-Dramas (I mean to, I have a To-Watch list of titles about the length of my arm but I just don't have the time) but I know how they work and the formulas and it certainly felt like this story was heavily inspired by them (Merri even comments on it). 

Merri and Lee were fun to follow along - a tad bland at times - but for the most part, they were enjoyable to read. Lee could be a little hard to get a handle on at first but then Merri struggled to get a handle on him so that could easily be intentional. Merri was nice enough, I appreciated her personal growth and learning to move on because, to be fair to the poor girl, she went through a whole lot in a very short space of time.

Obviously, you KNOW they're going to get together but it didn't QUITE feel like there was enough chemistry between them yet, when it finally happened. Like, I couldn't really see why Lee would like Merri that much when all they'd done was annoy each other and she had no idea who he was (makes a change from his usual life, I guess) And Merri, well she was just in lust with him - kind of admits it as well tbf. 

All that was fine though. Again, YA Rom-Com with all the usual troupes, happy to go along with that. The plot was 100% predictable. That's all there was to it, you're not going to read this book and choke on a gasp because you didn't see something coming. I could plot the whole things after reading the first couple of chapters but, again, happy to go with it. It was funny and enjoyable.

Then we hit the mid-point zone and that's where it started to lose its flow a little. I got a bit bored and sped through it and then all the big stuff happened and THIS is where my issues lie with this book and why it dropped from a 4.5 star to a 2.5. 

This book touches on some very serious psychological topics in the second half of the book. It also makes comments on the lives of Idols in K Pop-Culture (lives I'm sure Idols from other cultures share as well, like J Pop-Culture). 

Lee talks about how brutal the lives of Idols are behind the scenes and we learn he's gone through A LOT - like a distressing lot-a-lot - over the years.

This would all be fine, but I didn't feel this book handled it very well. Like, all this stuff was really only crammed into... what? 5 pages? 

That's a lot of hell and havoc to just throw in (even if hints had been dropped a couple of times before this). 

Lee is a very disturbed young man, and Merri admits that, but it felt like she only admitted that because the author knew she should acknowledge it. Basically, I didn't feel like the book showed the seriousness of the issues and lifestyle brought up in their true light. 

As if they're too heavy for YA Rom-Coms but add that edgy edge. Touch on them - but only with a ten-foot-pole. 

(I also did not care for Lee's big apology call at the end. The whole 'I was scared for you' after outright accusing her of You Know What (You will if you read) and then turning it around like it was all done under good intention and not apologising for what he'd actually accused her of.... excuse you, sir.

(Frankly, couldn't see the relationship lasting if it were real but that's neither here nor there lol. It's YA, so I insist they get their happily ever after. Even if it feels like Lee's problems just get brushed under the rug). 

Cover: Really simply - honestly I thought it was the draft cover at first - but there's something nice in its simplicity. 

Overall: Started out great. Was fully ready to give it a high rating for the first half of the book. Then it started to stumble. Then it's handling of major issues turned me off. This book was almost certainly heavily inspired by the tragedy surrounding SHINee's Kim Jong-hyun, (the author talks about him in her author notes), and I feel like she felt passionately about that tragedy and wanted to highlight some of the very unhealthy issues in the Idol Cultural (which frankly exist around the world, not just in K-Pop) - I just didn't feel like it was handled right. It felt like it was shoe-horned in there to give the book an edgy feel. I'm quite sure that was not the intention, but that's just how it felt to me. Still, glad I got to read the book.

Each week Merri/m\Mer created a new cartoon with each panel capturing some event that happened to her. It had started as a homework assignment in third grade but merri loved it so much she just kept going. Merri loved it so much she just kept going. Merri had seen her neighbor across the street Ms. banks come skidding in her driveway and was yelling at someone and someone yelled back at her from the car. Than he finally got out of the car and was tall, hot, and sparkling. He was angry. Than he yelled At Merri saying” what are you staring at?” Merri best friend was Bree they kept in touch online with the time difference and their busy schedules as Merri was in Sydney Australia with her father. It had been a long two months Merri had missed Bree came over and told her not to travel things weren’t the same without Merri. Bree and Merri had been best friends for thirteen years. Bree planed on specializing in social media marketing in college. Merri’s boyfriend was Luke they had been together two years. Merri mom had left Merri and her dad as she left to follow her passion at the time art- Merri and her dad both knew that. She had sent merri at text saying she was sorry to please forgive her. Merri’s parents had been married twenty years. Bree had came over been when she heard Luke was coming over she quickly left. Luke did come over and merri was glad to see him. Than he got a text and said he had to leave. Both Bree and Luke had came over and left shortly after they got to her house. Than “sparkle boy’ -Lee-as Merri called him came over asking to borrow some sugar he told Merri she looked bad and very tired than he asked if she wanted to go to the hospital. Five days had went bad and nothing form Bree or Luke. Than her father told her they were going out to dinner with Ms. Banks and her nephew the next night. Lee Hyung-kim was Ms. Banks nephew and was part of the Korean band Thunder and had been missing from Thunder’s last interview. Lee was a celebrity. When Merri saw him again she saw just how good looking he was. But that didn’t change that he was the rudest boy Merri had ever met. Than Ms Parks set up for Lee and Merri to run. As they were running merri didn’t see a pothole and and hurt her ankle. The pothole hadn’t been there before she went to Sydney. Lee ended up carrying her on his back they went by Bree’s and Luke was in the truck kissing Bree than Bree came up for air and noticed her but Merri just asked Lee to take her home. Lee and Merri became friends. Merri learned through another girl the whole school knew about bree and Luke. than Bree admitted they had been seeing each other for four months. Long before merri had left with her dad. Bree wanted the three of them to meet up and talk but Merri told Bree she had a date and Lee went along with it. Later that evening Lee showed up to take Merri to dinner and they did go to a Korean restaurant and merri found out Lee was a very popular celebrity with a fan following called Storm Chasers. Than Lee started taking Merri back and forth to school every day as he saw how hard taking the bus was with crutches and her badly sprained ankle.
I loved this book. I have a new favorite. I loved this sweet romantic story with just enough drama in it. I love Merri and Lee together and how they interacted. I felt like I was there with Merri and Lee. I chuckled at times and choked up at others while reading this book. I didn’t want to put this down and basically didn’t. I read this in one setting. I was drawn in from the very beginning and that lasted until the end of this book. I would love to see another book come out to let us know how things went and if Lee and Merri made it. I loved the characters and the ins and outs of this book and I highly recommend it.

What a lovely book. Hart & Seoul is a cute contemporary featuring all romance lovers' favourite tropes: fake dating, enemies to lovers and the one that never gets old: celebrity dating a nonfamous person. Kristen Burnham's debut book is a wonderful and heartwarming book that kept a smile on my face throughout. The characters' story was amazing to read and very well written.

I loved how social media was incorporated into the story in the form of posts by fans and the development of Meri and Lee's relationship, how she tackled the themes of abandonment and anxiety within the book.

I was instantly sold on the blurb of this YA rom-com: girl meets boy, boy happens to be a runaway k-pop star...? Sign me up!

Sadly Hart & Seoul didn’t quite live up to my expectations. It reads like fanfiction - which in itself is no bad thing. I liked the use of classic tropes, and there are some cute moments inspired by k-drama, but it ultimately makes for predictable reading. The prose is a little clumsy and the narrative is erratic in places - although this improved as the book progressed.

It's interesting to see Korean culture through the eyes of an outsider, but at times this approach sadly proves problematic. Merri's ignorance too often takes the form of painful cultural insensitivity and she never seems to learn from her mistakes. There are some dodgy romanisations, a lot of generalisations and a lack of awareness of k-pop culture (how can you have a k-pop romance without any mention of dating bans or recent career-ending scandals?).

That said, Hart & Seoul is clearly written with the best intentions, and Merri's growing love of k-drama and Korean food is infectious. I also liked the exploration of the dark side of k-pop, and how emotionally exhausting the industry can be. But despite some promising fluffy moments, this wasn't the k-pop romance I hoped it'd be.

My goodness, this book! Perfect mix of cutesy romance while also dealing with a serious topic. Thanks to Samm, a friend and fellow mod in TBR and Beyond, I've become obsessed with all things k-pop. This book is no exception.

I absolutely adored the characters and the storyline. It also deals with some heavy topics that I wasn't really expecting it to, but am so glad it did. Trigger warnings for parental abandonment, self-harm, and mental illness

Copied from my Goodreads review:
I was really excited to read this book once I saw in on NetGalley, and I was so happy when this was the first ever ARC that I was approved of by the publisher. I really wanted to love this book because I love Korean culture, I'm learning Korean and my boyfriend is Korean. However, there are so many inaccuracies in the representation of Korean culture in this book. It varies from inaccurate to insulting to racist. Now I'm not saying that the entire book is racist, there was just one scene (at least in the 53% that I pushed myself to read), that was. It's a scene when the main characters are in a Korean restaurant. Merri tries Kimchi for the first time and doesn't like it, however Lee loves it. Merri then proceeds to call Lee 'Mr. Kimchi' three times in that scene. I didn't feel comfortable when I read that scene. My Asian senses were tingling and it didn't feel right. I explained the scene to my Korean boyfriend and sent him screenshots, and he literally said that it was racist. In addition, in Korea if you were to refer to a person as a 'Kimchi girl,' it's an misogynistic insult. In my head, I thought about it like this. If the roles were reversed and Merri was in Korea, would Lee have called Merri 'Miss Mac and Cheese,' or 'Miss Cheeseburger'? My answer was no because it feels insulting to refer to someone as a food, unless it was a bullying scene. If Lee was a black character, I’m 100% sure the author would not make Merri call him ‘Mr. Fried Chicken’, ‘Mr. Curried Goat’, ‘Mr. Jollof Rice.’ That would be racist, just as calling Lee ‘Mr. Kimchi’ is. You could argue that it was just a joke, or they were teasing, but I think this is a time where people would use that as an excuse to be racist. I would be angry if anyone called me Pad Thai. Teasing or not.

Let me talk about a few other inaccuracies of Korean culture presented in this book.

1. Romanization of Korean
Unfortunately for this book, I can read Hangul, so I know how things should be pronounced (even if I pronounce them incorrectly myself). The word that is most frequently used in this book is 네. It is pronounced like "Ne" with the 'e' sound being a sharp ending. It doesn't sound like knee essentially, but more like neck. In this book, it's romanizised to "Deh." It irritated me a lot because I know that it's not pronounced like that, and even the recognised romanization systems of Korea do not use this (at least in my quick google search). In addition to 네 being written not like it's pronounced, Lee would not say it towards Merri at all. For one, he is in America and an undercover K-Pop idol. You would probably only speak English to improve it and try to hide the fact that you are Korean because you are in hiding. Two, Lee keeps on going in and out between English and Korean in conversation with Merri. Regardless of what stage you are in at learning a different language, you would not revert to your native language in conversation. I know this as someone who is learning two additional languages from English. You stick to the language you are attempting to speak. You'd only revert back if you didn't know how to say things. Lee seems very much fluent in English in this book in order to have many conversations with Merri, and I think it's suggested that he speaks Korean to Merri to annoy her.Three, Lee would not say 네 to Merri. The main reason for this is the fact that Merri is younger than Lee. Korean contains honorifics so you would be respectful to people who are older than you, and to people in a higher social position. As Lee is older, and a famous K-Pop idol, he would not be that respectful towards Merri. Even himself as a character, especially when he firsts meets Merri, is not respectful towards her and is downright rude, so in Korean he would not be that respectful towards her. Now, 네 is not the only romanization mistake, but it the word that is used the most in this book, and perfectly illustrates the inaccuracies in the author choosing to use this word to illustrate that Lee is Korean and different and not American.

There are multiple moments in this book where Merri mocks Lee for his Korean beliefs. An example of this would be when she is telling the reader that she hasn’t quite grasped Lee’s sense of humour, ‘Just a week earlier, he’d refused to walk down a street because it only had four houses on it, and had stared at me in horror as I laughed. “Four is an unlucky number!” he’s insisted, eyes huge, and my laughter had sputtered to a halt when I realized that, in this case, Lee was absolutely serious.’ Merri initially laughs at Lee and stops when she realises that he’s being serious. But the way that the author has written it, mocks Korean culture as whilst the number four is seen as an unlucky number, it would completely depend on how superstitious a person is. Four is not a forbidden number in Korea. It doesn’t jump from three to five. I am sure that most Korean people would not see four houses and see it as unlucky. Whilst the West might not have a 13th floor to a building or a 13th row in a plane, we as individuals would not notice if there were only 13 houses on a street.

Another inaccuracy is after Merri found out that Lee is in fact a K-pop star and confronts with the fact that she’s been calling him by his surname the entire time because his name is Lee Hyung-kim. (For one, I personally don’t think it’s a common Korean name. The are made up of common Korean characters but not in combination, and in discussion with my Korean boyfriend it would be an awkward sounding name). Lee says something along the lines of, ‘I wondered how long it would take you to catch on,’ but honestly it would be normal for him to be called to by his surname.

This book feels like a first draft. It doesn't feel like this book had any sensitivity or beta readers that were Korean, or even East Asian. If me, a person who is not Korean but Asian, can find all the flaws in this book, I dread to think what a Korean or someone of Korean descent would think of this book. This book feels like it's for white people, or people who know nothing of Korean culture. It makes me worry of the people who would come across this book and learning about Korean culture for the first time.

On top of all of the Korean inaccuracies that this book contains, the plot itself is not entertaining. So much of it is based on Korean culture that it takes away from the overall plot. I didn’t really even see an overall plot other than Lee and Merri maybe getting together (I can’t say if they did because I stopped reading). In addition, with Lee being a K-pop idol, they have such strict lives that I personally don’t think that he would get into a romance with anyone unless he would be willing to personally sacrifice his fame and money. K-pop idols and actors have to secretly date anyone and would only reveal their relationship if they are about to have a child, get married, or not even then, as it is considered that idols are for the fans. It’s an unhealthy system, but that is the system that K-pop idols live in.

Some of the plot conflicts make no sense. One of them is the fact that Merri’s mother left Merri and her father to pursue her art because she felt like her family was holding her back. Merri also wants to get into art and wants to study it in college, but her father refuses for her to follow the path of her mother. It makes no sense because the daughter is not like the mother. In addition, the father must be blind to teenagers because if you prohibit them from doing things that they want to do in the future, they will do it anyway and you will lose them in the process.

I honestly felt no chemistry between Lee and Merri. If anything, I felt like it was a slight fetishization of Lee being Korean. I could maybe see them as friends, but I didn’t see the appeal in either character. Because Lee is meant to be a K-pop star, I think it’s meant to be seen as he is hot and perfect, and why would anyone not find him attractive? Except from the fact he doesn’t really have a good personality. However, Merri is far more irritating than Lee, but I think it’s because we are reading from her perspective. She seemed very immature, and I didn’t see any appeal in her character. I did not relate to any of the characters at all.

This book would have been far better if Lee was Korean-American. There would have been far less focus on Lee being Korean, and the story could have just been about Merri and Lee getting together. It wouldn't haven taken away from the fact that Lee was a K-pop star because there are Korean-Americans who are K-Pop stars (E.G. Eric Nam, Wendy from Red Velvet). There would have just been a far less focus on the Korean culture aspect, which is what would be needed for this story to have been a good one. The white author, who is a fan of Korean dramas, probably didn’t want the book to be as problematic as it is, but she should have either further researched Korean culture to make this book as accurate as possible to avoid offense, or have a Korean beta reader, or avoid representing Korean culture. As much as I want East-Asian representation, I want it done right or not at all. Fantasy stories have greater flexibility because something can be Asian-influence but still be a complete fictional world. However, contemporary stories are held to a higher regard as much as a book can be labelled as fiction, it’s based on reality, and that representation needs to be accurate.

This book made me not want to read and put me into a reading slump. I hope that I get out of it soon. I would not recommend this book. It portrays an inaccurate portrayal of Korean culture which is the foundation and selling point of this book. You would only enjoy this book if you knew nothing about Korean culture, which makes it dangerous. Not only that, but the story itself is lacking, and the characters are not appealing to read.

A promising debut with lots of heart, no pun intended, honest ! Lovely relatable real characters who have flaws and issues, which I loved. A lovely YA contemporary romance, a really quick nice read, very addictive reading. Really fun and I think will be a big hit.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Merrilee's great summer comes to a crashing burn of an end when she finds out her boyfriend and best friend have been dating behind her back while she's been abroad with her dad. Oh, and now her next door neighbor's rude nephew has just arrived from Korea and it doesn't matter how handsome he is, he's a jerk. Or is he? Is there something more to Lee that meets the eye?

Oh, yeah, like the fact that he's a super famous, super popular K-Pop star with hoards of rabid fangirls.

There's that.

The positive: This is a debut with an interesting and promising plot, with a good set-up for a lot of drama to mix in with fluff. Merri is by no stretch a perfect heroine, nor is Lee the perfect hero, which makes them both more realistic. The fluffy parts are pretty good.

That being said, there's the negative: I struggled quite a bit with Merri's voice and liking her entirely as a character. And I would also like to see some thoughts from Korean readers, because there were a few things that my white American brain raised some warning flags while reading. I read another review that implied that the author did a great deal of research when writing this novel, but I didn't see anything in the acknowledgements that indicated that at any point someone who is actually Korean was consulted. Another reviewer pointed out several places where Korean words were spelled incorrectly; I'm aware that this is an ARC and uncorrected, and so I would highly recommend that the author and editors look into that particular point.

*Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for supplying me with an ARC*

Girl meets boy.
Boy falls for girl.
Girl discovers boy is a runaway K-pop star.

This was such a cute contemporary. It was such a quick read too, maybe a tad predictable but I felt that it read like a kdrama with the twists and turns. It was interesting to see how the book also showed what kpop stars deal with and can internally struggle with, especially with the amount of stress that they can deal with working and showing the world an essentially perfect version of themselves.
I found this to be a very nice read from this debut author and will be looking forward to anything else that they bring out.

A lot of Korean references - be it the little words we know from watching a lot of K-Drama, the Korean food, K-Pop fandom - were all so good and made the book enjoyable. The story was cheesy and super cute. The romance was adorable though the hate-to-Love trope is sort of overdone these days. Loved how Lee was unable to ‘get’ the phrases used by Merri and it was very authentic and real because it is difficult for a non-English speaking person to get them. Overall a very cute romance book perfect for summers and fans of K-Drama

Much thanks to NetGalley and Mascot Books for this complimentary copy. This review is voluntary and opinions are fully my own.

📚 Series: No.
📚 Genre: Young Adult: Romance
📚 POV: First.
📚 Cliffhanger: No.

⚠ Content Warnings: Mental Health Concerns: Anxiety. Family Drama. Betrayal.
⚠ Read if: you are a fan of: 1. K-Drama, 2. K-pop, or 3. Famous/Non-famous trope.

Oh my, what can I say? This was such a great read. I am normally a person who gets easily distracted and have concentration problems but I got through reading this in a breeze. 60% in one sitting, the rest in another.

Hart & Seoul is the debut novel of Kristen Burnham. And oh, what a fun debut it was. Merilee Grace Hart, aka Merri, is a highschool senior/artist whose world changed when her neighbor's nephew arrives fresh from South Korea. Merri and Lee had an amusing first encounter where they definitely pissed each other off. But when Merri gets broken hearted from a cheater ex and friend, Lee went in for her rescue. But thunder rocks her world when she discovers Lee's secret: he's a Korean superstar and a member of Kpop group Thunder.

Again, I looooved this so much. This book was reminiscent of my favorite fan fics (the better written ones) and the few Kdramas I have watched.

At times, Merri may be found a bit annoying and insensitive in dealing with Korean culture. I cannot react on how bad it was since I am not sure how a Korean would feel about those things and how true some representations of the culture were.

My rating is a lot on how the romance made me feel and it was really giddy and cute and made me feel butterflies.

Looking forward to more of the author's work!

I went into this book expecting a descent contemporary romance plot, with the added twist of the male lead being a K-pop star. I expected a fair amount of Korean cultural explanation to pop up because of this. I was a bit nervous, since it appears this is all coming from a white author who is probably super into K-pop/K-drama (heck, I am, too!), so my expectations for accuracy were set pretty low. Still, I managed to feel uncomfortable reading this despite all my fore-knowledge in this.

For one thing, I just didn't believe in the characters or the plot of this story. The book starts out with an immediate plot twist (cheating!) that ends up helping form a bond between the main character, Meri and the K-pop idol, Lee (yes, he's called Lee throughout the story, even after Meri learns his whole name, which I found to be extremely awkward, especially since "Lee" is very fluent in English and probably would have been accustomed to how English people address one-another). When Meri finds out her best friend is cheating with her boyfriend (which I saw coming immediately, I don't know why she didn't), she and Lee form a bond over the fact that both of them have suffered from cheating.

But the chemistry is just not there. Meri, for one, is a rather difficult MC to like. She's very brash, despite being put off by Lee's brashness throughout the story, and she definitely doesn't come across as very likable. For some reason, she really just rubbed me the wrong way, mostly because she seemed incapable of politely learning about Lee's culture. She turned many of his likes/dislikes into an issue (she even calls him Mr. Kimchi!!!) and makes a point of being blown away by almost every single thing she learns about Korean culture. I mean, I feel like at a certain point, especially if you are dating a person from another culture, you should be open and interested in learning about their culture, and be respectful of differences. Meri did none of this and almost every thing she learned about Lee became a point to mock or make fun of. I just didn't get why he ever became interested in her. Or she him - but actually, I do know why she fell for him.

This story suffers from a lot of cliches. For one thing, the book sets up the whole hat-to-love aspect. But further than that, Meri's reasons for falling for Lee seem to mostly stem from his "attractiveness" which she brings up a point of commenting on in every instant they're with each other. He almost takes on an Edward-Cullen-from-Twilight hotness, you know, the kind where literally everyone finds him attractive, which is super unrealistic because everyone has different tastes. Anywhere she and Lee go, Meri always makes sure to note how <em>women</em> around Lee are smitten with him. It happens almost constantly and it was so annoying.

This book also suffers from lack of plot. It's a very ambling book with a lot of time given to Meri waxing poetic on why her life is so crazy because her mom just left her family. This is a genuinely difficult topic, but Burnham doesn't handle it with much skill. It becomes a tell instead of show element that takes up far too much of the book's time. Most of the book ends up being Meri thinking through each problem that comes her way: her dad not wanting her to apply to art colleges because he think's she'll turn out like her mother, Meri going back and forth over weather she should upload art she's made of her and Lee's interactions, Meri ranting to herself about her cheating boyfriend and best friend - I have a particular issue with this one, since it's an important plot development. Bree, Meri's best friend from childhood, cheats with Meri's boyfriend while Meri is away on vacation. And even though they're childhood friends, Bree has absolutely no guilt for doing this. It's kind of unbelievable.

I've gone on enough, I think, but I will say one thing more: the Korean phrases added to this book annoyed me for a few reasons: <strong>one</strong>: the Romanization of some of the phrases did not seem accurate to me (as I've had a passing interest in learning Korean and have a few textbooks to back me up here). It seemed the author was trying to write out how the word or phrase sounds when heard, but this, I think, was the wrong track to take and it was irritating. <strong>Two</strong>: it didn't make sense for Lee to use random Korean phrases when talking to Meri as it's well established that Lee is super-fluent in English. From what I hear, it's pretty weird for someone who is fluent in another language to pepper their speech with their mother language for words they already know. <strong>Three</strong>: Lee's choppy language didn't seem accurate either, when he was speaking English, because, since he's fluent (again, it's mentioned multiple times that Lee got the best tutor and is very good at speaking English) that he wouldn't know how to put together English sentence. Instead, this felt, to me, like Burnham was falling back on a stereotypical speech pattern used for Asian characters. If you look at other K-pop idols who are fluent in English (I'm thinking of Taecyeon), they don't talk like that. It didn't fit and instead came off as a bit racist to me.

Cute and quick. I'm significantly older than the target demographic but I enjoy reading YA. I found it predictable, but maybe a younger audience wouldn't. Besides, the characters were cute and funny, and I liked the KPop angle. Overall an entertaining read