[Marcia’s Review] : Frankly in Love by David Yoon

Frankly in Love
Pages: 432
Release Date: September 10 2019

High school senior Frank Li is a Limbo–his term for Korean-American kids who find themselves caught between their parents’ traditional expectations and their own Southern California upbringing. His parents have one rule when it comes to romance–“Date Korean”–which proves complicated when Frank falls for Brit Means, who is smart, beautiful–and white. Fellow Limbo Joy Song is in a similar predicament, and so they make a pact: they’ll pretend to date each other in order to gain their freedom. Frank thinks it’s the perfect plan, but in the end, Frank and Joy’s fake-dating maneuver leaves him wondering if he ever really understood love–or himself–at all.

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

OMG, you guys, Frankly in Love was a HIGHLY anticipated YA novel and I couldn’t wait to read it!

I was not disappointed!

I fell in love with it.
I laughed out loud with it.
This book deserves a place on my TOP 10 YA books of all time shelf!!!

Yes, it deals with high school seniors, first love, college choices, family pressure and all that drama you normally expect from YA books, BUT (yes, there’s a but) it somehow talked about some heavy issues too, without being a total emotional meltdown. The sense of humor sprinkled throughout the book, was just the right amount and the main characters were so LOVABLE!

Frank Li is a first generation Korean-American and his parents immigrated from Korea in search of the “American Dream”. Frank often feels like he lives a double-life. One, where he can be himself with his friends, and a different one, with his parents, where he’s expected to follow Korean traditions and find a nice Korean girl to date.

But, like Selena Gomez once sang “The heart wants what it wants” ❤️

Of course things get romantic complicated and a turn of events seem to spiral out of control, which is when the author brilliantly brought it all together in the end, by showing how there are more important things in life than traditions and expectations…

It’s truly impressive to think that this book is a debut for David Yoon and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!