Skip to main content

Go to Your Room

I bought a print copy of one of the K-Pop romances on the market that seemed to have mostly favorable reviews; this so I could see what my potential competition is writing. I really don't like doing this, as I think you can pick up too many influences on your own work. On the other hand I'd never read any K-pop romances, so I thought it might be prudent to at least take a look (and since this is not reading for pleasure, I didn't count it last week.)

Since this was so obviously the author's first novel, let me say some positive things about the book:

It has nice cover art.

It was professionally proofed (this was spelled out in the front pages.)

The core concept is pretty good: American-raised Korean girl is forced to manage failing K-pop group to prove herself to her indifferent father and evil half-brother.

Some of the character names were interesting choices.

The writing is enthusiastic.

Yep, that's about it for the positives.

The story is basically a reverse harem BTS fanfic sex fantasy that the author decided to call a romance. For those who might be puzzled, reverse harem is a genre in which one female protag has sex with multiple male protags, or basically every guy in the book, first popularized by Laurell K. Hamilton in paranormal romance after she went through that very bad divorce. Now it's a legit genre.

I seriously doubt it was professionally edited. There were so many exclamation points, echoed words and repeated dialogue lines that my retinas are still reeling a little. I haven't seen a writer totally ignore the senses and descriptions this much since second grade when they made us read those Dick and Jane books (uh, no pun intended there.) It's all what is seen (minus sensory descriptions) and what is said or heard with grossly exaggerated emotional outburts. Kind of like reading Twitter posts, and about the same level of intelligence. Maybe the author wrote it on her phone.

Anyway, onto the romance. There is zero. There is a lot of emotional window-dressing, but it's not related to romance. I'm not sure you can even call this a romance. The male protagonist characters are indistinguishable from each other, and since there are six of them that's actually quite a feat. The female protag, who vacillates between annoyingly shrill, completely clueless and super slutty is apparently going to sleep with all of the group she is supposedly managing (now there's an interesting business model) by the end of the series; she had sex with three or four in this edition. Not good sex, either. Bad sex. Go to your room and stay there sex.

You know it's bad when you lose count of the sex scenes. There were six, I think? Or maybe seven. I can't remember who she had sex with, either. Or the sex itself. There was a pool involved in one. I'm pretty sure.

On the plus side, really not worried about my NA series now.

Comments

nightsmusic said…
There's so much bad writing out there anymore that it's refreshing when one finds a book that's actually well written. Almost shocking really, which is why I haven't really strayed too far from my go to authors. I have my romance handful and my brit police procedural/thriller and a few others, but those authors I do stick with deliver almost every time. I don't think you'll have much to worry about :)

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Goodwill Gamble #2 Arrives

My second Goodwill gamble arrived; this is one I paid ten bucks for last month. Just inside the lid was a big roll of plastic mesh that I think is for latchhook work. In the auction listing it looked like fabric to me, so that was unexpected. Someone at the seller's end was nice enough to put a note on this pinned fabric. I'll put on my gloves before I take it out to inspect it. The embroidered green fabric turned out to be 1-1/2 yards of sequinned and three-dimensional designer fabric. I'll guess this cost somewhere between $20.00 to $30.00 a yard, and it's in pristine condition. But here's a shot of everything in the lot, which is mostly crafty odds and ends with a small amount of cotton fabrics, a large amount of synethetic fabrics, and some other surprises. The original owner of these was probably a Catholic school teacher; these beads, crosses and medallions are the kind of rosary kits for kids to make at Sunday school or Bible camp (and s...

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...