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Member Reviews
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A delightful book that fun to read, with engrossing world building, and great character development.It's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. Would recommend.
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love this author and this romance when she creates an app that sends word that you have died and your last thoughts. she ends up sending it to her crush and friend and deals with family members. love that romance and that she was able to find love and figure out her app too. Loved henry and her chemistry and also started by being friends.
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book! Below is my honest review.
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 stars
This book is basically like 'To All the Boys I've Ever Loved' except make it adult and more tech-y, less high school drama. We follow Sara who is trying to launch her own app called "One Last Word"--designed to send a message to your targeted recipient when you die. One day, all of Sara's draft messages get sent out, including to her parents and former crush, Harry. Harry also turns out to be her mentor for a program, so she's forced to be in contact with him as she competes for funding on a TV show sort of like Shark Tank.
Some things I appreciated about the book: how Sara calls out racism and sexism in the tech world, addressing mental health issues, having a diverse cast of characters, bringing awareness to Asian culture and how Asian people (especially elders) perceive situations, how the author explained how the app works, etc. The conversations between Sara and her Korean parents with "more traditional" values are very realistic and accurate.
Things I didn't quite enjoy but didn't hate: the romance between Harry and Sara (felt a little too insta-lovey to me), the rekindling of Sara's friendship with Naomi (could have used more page time), the reasoning for why Sara's messages got sent out in the first place. Something that confused me (and maybe this is just me who missed this part), but I couldn't understand why and how people could reply to Sara's messages--the ones that would have sent out if she died. How would people reply to that message? Is it attached to Sara's phone number? Why would someone even reply? If I got a message that someone was dead and decided to send me a last message, I would try to confirm if they're dead first and not reply yet.
Anyways, this book was easy to read. It's relatively short (less than 300 pages), so some readers can probably finish this within a couple of days. I would say it's worth picking up to see if you like it.
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Another great read by Suzanne Park! The story is interesting and the characters compelling. I loved the exploration of Sara’s various [types of] relationships and the the way Park addressed mental health issues in the Korean/Asian American community.
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I thought this was a good book, but it felt like it has been written before. It gave off a lot of familiar vibes to books that I've read before. I liked it, I just wish it had a little more originality to it.
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Sara Chae's idea for an app that will let users get closure with others by sending messages upon their deaths is something her bosses want to pass on -- so she quits her job and focuses on developing the app herself and applying for a chance to pitch it to area venture capitalists. But after a drunken night of writing messages with her sister Jia, as well as a glitch in the system that sent out her messages when another Sara Chae dies, Sara has other problems to deal with: upset parents as well as the return of her high school crush, Harry Shim. And when Harry turns out to be Sara's co-mentor for app development, their mutual attraction has to be placed on hold... temporarily.
The premise behind this romance is an interesting one -- an app that gives Sara a chance to start standing up for herself but also opens the way for a rekindling of a valued friendship as well as a crush. Sara's frustration is palpable from the beginning, as she starts standing up to the racism and sexism running rampant in the tech industry, and she uses that empowerment to speak up for herself with her parents, too. While she has her flaws, her determination makes the reader want to cheer her on. Harry seems like a wonderful guy, supportive of Sara, but there were a couple of things about his character arc that were red flags for me, so I didn't enjoy this romance as much as I have Park's other books. Not her strongest outing -- 3 stars.
Thank you, HarperCollins and NetGalley, for providing an eARC of this book. Opinions expressed here are solely my own.