Frankly in Love (vuoden 2020 painos)

Yoon says so much with Frankly in Love. It is a story about family, friendship, love, culture, defining yourself on your own terms, loss, and hope. It is funny and sad and sweet.

"If you are so unfortunate as to have no one in your life who can make you laugh, drop everything and find someone. Cross the dessert if you must. Because laughter isn't just about the funny. Laughter is the music of the deep cosmos connecting all human beings that says all the things mere words cannot."(p. 88)

"[L]ove is a belief mutually held. As soon as that belief fades on either end, then poof, the whole thing falls face-flat like a tug-of-war suddenly gone one-sided."(p. 377) ( )

A great read

This book was definitely more than I expected it to be, and I am gladly surprised. At first I though this YA book was just another love triangle story; but it deals with loss, teenage confusion, high school stress, cultural differences, family traditions, friends, and of course LOVE. All this other unexpected elements made it of course not just another teenage love story.
Even when I couldn’t personally relate to most characters they still felt real and compatible to one’s self. I’m pretty sure that some people can relate more to the events and reactions of this carters more than me, and would defiantly enjoy the details the author displays on his writing.
At the beginning the plot was predictable, but as the story continues it becomes less predictable, with tiny twists that make the plot more tense and exiting.
All the characters are simply charming, I have to admit that I had a great laugh reading unexpected interactions and reactions. Also the author’s voice is light an easy to follow.
Even though I didn’t like the end if felt like a real one, surely and ending that takes a few minutes of silence to sink in.
I really enjoyed this book and it’s a certified YA read! Perfect for teens. ( )

Frank, Q, Joy, and Brit are like my High School Friend group, except with parents who have such higher expectation levels. I appreciated the modern setting mixing with new-to-me Korean American culture. This book was really hyped up for me, due to the appealing cover art and the clever book trailer, and I ended up liking it when I thought I was going to love it. I appreciate the unexpected parts, the cute date parts, the sad parts, and the nerdy parts. If this gets made into a movie, I will 100% watch it. ( )

When Frank Li, the son of Korean immigrants working and living in California, starts going out with a white girl at school, he and his friends cook up a plan to pretend that he's actually dating Joy Song. Joy is the daughter of his parents' Korean friends, and he knows that his parents would rather see them together. It's a win-win, because Joy is also going out with a boy that her parents would never approve of. What could go wrong?

This is just the beginning of a story that had me sometimes scratching my head at the characters' choices, cringing at all the f-bombs, and wondering where on earth the story is going. But as a coming-of-age story, it won me over in the end. After all, teenagers really do act like that and talk like that, and real life isn't a neat story that you can wrap up in a neat bow. In the end, it was about not just "Frank Li in love," but navigating all sorts of relationships, including friendship, accepting himself, and growing to understand his parents during his senior year. ( )

I just couldn't get past the fact that I was reading it during a pandemic, and the timeline was the same, but no pandemic. Not Yoon's fault, but I hope in a reprint he pushes the story back to 2019. It was jarring. There were one or two other factual mistakes too that the editor should have picked up on. ( )