Ever since I watched my first K-drama, Heartstrings, on Netflix in 2011 I’ve become fascinated with Korean Pop Culture. I created one of the largest K-drama discussion groups on Facebook (KDA: Kdrama Anonymous) and published seven K-pop and K-drama-related Novellas. I traveled to Korea with my family in 2017 and was a panelist at Kcon in 2018. My passion for Korean Pop Culture has ventured into Webtoons and I often spend my time there catching up on all my favorite stories. I truly love Korean Culture and I’m happy to have participated in even a small part of it.
Nerds are the new sexy in this adorable young adult rom-com. This story has an excellent character focus. Both Zoe and Zak have true character traits that don’t leave anything as fill-in-the-blank. It’s like reading about your two best friends getting together and giggling through the whole thing. Cassie Mae is a pro at comedy. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. Even if the characters aren’t Korean—they are true nerds—so the fangirl-like pop-culture references of the characters make it amazing. There’s nothing to dislike about this book, it’s an all-around good time.
Zoe has a great pair of legs, perky boobs, and wears exactly what she needs to show it all off. She works hard for the easy sleazy you only wish you were me reputation, burying who she really is---an all-out nerd. The only time Zoe gets to be herself is when she hides under her comforter to read X-Men comics, sending jealousy stabs at everyone who attends Comic-Con.
Zak's a geek to the core, shunned by everyone in school for playing Dungeons and Dragons at lunch and wearing "Use the Force" t-shirts. And Zoe's got it bad for the boy.…
I loved this SF spin on K-pop culture with aliens because it’s a gorgeous blend of hilarity and heart.
Carriger does fantastic found family and queer romance, and her characters tend to be the kind of engaging that promise to draw me back for countless re-reads because I want to nestle in with them again. There’s just enough pathos to give it an edge, but a pervading sense of love and optimism. Also, the fundamental concept is brilliant.
The aliens are coming for us and they want our voices.
New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger brings you a gloriously warm and unique scifi about the power of art, celebrity, and found family.
Phex is a barista on a forgotten moon. Which is fine – he likes being ignored and he’s good at making drinks. Until one day an alien hears him singing and recruits him to become a god. Now Phex is thrust headfirst into the galaxy’s most cutthroat entertainment industry, where music is visible, the price of fame can kill, and the only friends he has…
I've always been fascinated by the idea of the war in Heaven. As a storyteller, the eternal struggle between angels and demons fighting for the fate of creation has been a source of perpetual inspiration for me. But finding stories about angels that aren't YA or paranormal romance can be challenging. So, channeling my love of historical fiction and action-packed adventure, I set out to craft a thrilling, realistic tale that puts the reader right on the front lines beside a peaceful angel forced into becoming a warrior fighting against his former brothers. This list reflects my favorite books that paved the way and inspired my own work.
This is actually the second book of Zeigler's Tears of Heaven series, but I read this one first and it stands perfectly on its own. There's so much I love about it, from the concept of rebel dark angels working to overthrow Satan with the help and ingenuity of human scientists and soldiers they rescue from Hell's torments to Zeigler's masterful world-building based on scripture and classic depictions of Hell. He pulls no punches in vividly describing the agonies of damnation. But it's his clever use of scientific principles to explain Hell's supernatural rules as well as arm his protagonists that truly stands out for me. I strove to achieve that level of logic in my book, but Zeigler manages to weaponize it as only a trained scientist could.
Satan and his minions have declared war on the most beautiful planet in the universe his purpose is to depose Michael the archangel and become second only to God in command of all creation. Standing in Satan's way are a scattered and disorganized host of angels, a group of inexperienced saints, a small band of humans, and some angelic rebels in Hell. Armed with faith full power, Abaddon the Destroyer creates a formidable army to challenge the evil targeting Earth. Author of best selling Heaven and Hell, Kenneth Zeigler again draws from his research to create a realistic tale where…
I am an author who also penned a novel during the pandemic, with a timeline that stretched into the first six months of the pandemic–against the advice of my agent and the publishing industry at large. I know many authors choose not to write about intense political and social happenings, but that “life will never be the same again” feeling was something I couldn’t avoid. The pandemic threw people together and kept us apart at the same time. I was intensely interested in its incubator effect as well as the silo aspect quarantining had on all of our lives.
This YA novel was the first I read set during COVID times, and it hit me with the urgency of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
I loved the author’s unwavering courage in tackling the racial subject matter head-on. Heartbreaking and whip-smart, it taught me what teens were going through with regard to virtual friendship, classrooms, and pop stardom. Farley’s novel captures a moment in time during the pandemic while others were still processing it.
Like a photo album, I wasn’t quite ready to revisit, it portrays the importance of a difficult time in our nation’s history coupled with that uneasy age of adolescence. Entertaining, yes, but a historical artifact, definitely.
For sixteen-year-old Geth Montego, zero o’clock begins on March 11, 2020. By June, she wonders if it will ever end.
“An insightful, eye-opening, and inventive story. C.J. Farley has penned a novel that sheds an important light on real issues facing young people today.” ―Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give
In early March 2020 in New Rochelle, New York, teenager Geth Montego is fumbling with the present and uncertain about her future. She only has three friends: her best friend Tovah, who’s been acting weird ever since they started applying to college; Diego, who she wants to ask…
Ever since I watched my first K-drama, Heartstrings, on Netflix in 2011 I’ve become fascinated with Korean Pop Culture. I created one of the largest K-drama discussion groups on Facebook (KDA: Kdrama Anonymous) and published seven K-pop and K-drama-related Novellas. I traveled to Korea with my family in 2017 and was a panelist at Kcon in 2018. My passion for Korean Pop Culture has ventured into Webtoons and I often spend my time there catching up on all my favorite stories. I truly love Korean Culture and I’m happy to have participated in even a small part of it.
This book is almost better than watching a K-drama. Hasn’t every K-drama fan wished to be toured around the country by a hunky Korean man? Maybe the fan hasn’t pictured doing it alongside a bunch of old ladies, but she’ll take what she can get, won’t she? This super-funny, extra-flirty, good-times book is exactly the type of read I like to escape into. It truly took me on my own Korea tour right from my living room, with all romance included.
Flower Boy: noun 1. slang for a really hot guy Hannah Reynolds travels to Korea in search of her own drama hero come to life. What she gets instead is gorgeous, but surly tour guide, Jae Lee. He seems determined to ruin every romantic location they visit with his snarky comments, but Hannah can’t deny the crackling tension between them. As they travel around the country with a busload of wacky K-drama and K-pop fans, their chemistry keeps drawing the two together. Hannah sees the mountain of problems standing between her and a relationship with Jae. They live in different…
I’m only a writer because I was a musician first. I worshiped music—as a performer, listener, and later a critic—for its ability to enshrine me in a purely emotional world. My favorite lyrics were poetry in motion; my favorite melodies escaped description. And through sharing my feverish acclamations of particular albums and songs, I found community with others who also pledged themselves to art that’d definitively split their lives into “before” and “after.” My writing career was born from cathartic devotion and remains devoted to recounting the rapture of self-formation, of being reflected in the mirror of something that saw you before you even knew to see yourself.
Based on the title alone, I knew Yi’s debut novel would hit me like a crossbow to the heart. “Y/N” Is a prevalent shorthand for a particular kind of self-insert fan fiction, and having grown up in online fandom spaces, I have a lot of nostalgia for (and now plenty of necessary distance from) the passion that often explodes within and beyond those communities.
And still, I wasn’t prepared for the journey that Yi took me on. Nominally about one woman's spiraling obsession with a Korean pop idol, Y/N charts the inexplicable journey between a “regular person” and a “fan" before morphing into something sinisterly, beautifully, and singularly unhinged.
"Wondrous and weird." -New York Times "Gorgeous." -New Yorker "High Brow x Brilliant." -NY Mag (Approval Matrix) "So good it's hard to believe." -New York Times Book Review Podcast "Rare." -n+1 "A true novel of the era." -Elle "Piercing, feverish, and frequently astonishing." -Entertainment Weekly "Utterly brilliant, shining, and mesmerizing." -Cosmopolitan "Freakish and hallucinatory." -Vulture "Absurdly funny." -Ms. Magazine "Savage." -Vanity Fair "Playful, immersive yet unreal." -Esquire "Riveting and innovative." -TIME "Curious, cerebral . . . with moments of tender poetry." -Times Literary Supplement "It."-SSENSE "Sophisticated." -Chicago Review of Books "Strange, haunting, and undeniably beautiful." -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "One…
Ever since I watched my first K-drama, Heartstrings, on Netflix in 2011 I’ve become fascinated with Korean Pop Culture. I created one of the largest K-drama discussion groups on Facebook (KDA: Kdrama Anonymous) and published seven K-pop and K-drama-related Novellas. I traveled to Korea with my family in 2017 and was a panelist at Kcon in 2018. My passion for Korean Pop Culture has ventured into Webtoons and I often spend my time there catching up on all my favorite stories. I truly love Korean Culture and I’m happy to have participated in even a small part of it.
What if you were secretly sketching the cutest boy in school and he accidentally found your notebook? First: Get Caught, A Stalkers Guide to Love tackles this very question. Abigail doesn’t mean to be a stalker, but the whole situation places her in an adorably hilarious situation. I loved that when it came to the true romance of this book, Ben fell for her first. He wasn’t just attracted to her, he fell for her—as she was. I loved that Ben was Korean and we really got to see inside his head just as much as we got to see Abigail. Truly one of my favorite all-time reads.
Abigail Bean’s leather-bound journal is quickly filling up with all things Ben Song, but she has no intention of doing anything about her feelings. She knows there’s no chance the most sought-after boy in her grade would be into her, but the doodles and daydreams serve as a mindless distraction from her parent's recent divorce.Though Pruitt Preparatory Academy is a small boarding school, valedictorian Ben Song doesn't know Abigail exists—until he stumbles upon her journal. Sure, he's a little creeped out. But he's also curious about this girl who draws so beautifully. He becomes more intrigued when she stands up…
My debut novel was geared toward Young Adults because I’m fascinated by young people discovering themselves in different environments. Although I enjoy reading and writing other genres, I'm arguably more interested in YA. This is a genre that is in need of good writers because it is like an introduction to youngsters who pick up novels that they deem safe for their ages and consumption. It is a fun and exciting genre. I’m trying to contribute to it and hopefully lessen the bad reviews out there for YA books.
In just a matter of a few years the world has been overtaken by Kpop sensations. Their pretty, quirky, and incredible artistic styles have made them garner massive fans all over the world. Behind the scenes of the boy band culture is whereMy Summer in Seoulshines to show us what it’s like for someone who is new to the country and its culture. It is difficult, funny, sad and the romance is a breath of fresh air.
My recommendation shares a theme with my book about young Kpop/ boy band romance. However, as someone who relates personally to moving to a new country at a young age, I’m fascinated by how people with different backgrounds adjust to new environments. There are challenges with food, weather, and sometimes language, which can be daunting. The worst part is not understanding what is being said to you or about you. This…
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken comes a standalone new adult romance set in the competitive world of K-pop.
It’s not all K-dramas and happily ever afters.
Intern with Korea’s number one record label? Yes, please. Find out there’s a huge scandal I need to help “manage”… not so much. Add in the fact that I don’t recognize the “superstars” of the label and think they’re interns… And my dream job quickly becomes more of a nightmare.
But I’m in Seoul, the one place that is beginning to feel more and more like home... Except it…
