Frankly in Love
Books | Young Adult Fiction / People & Places / United States / Asian American & Pacific Islander
5
(5.1K)
David Yoon
An Instant New York Times Bestseller • A William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist • An Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Honor Book“Extraordinary . . . a beautifully layered novel about first love, tribalism and that brief, magical period when kids have one foot in high school, one foot out the door. . . Yoon explores themes of racism, forgiveness and acceptance without getting earnest or preachy or letting anyone off the hook.” —New York TimesTwo friends. One fake dating scheme. What could possibly go wrong?Frank Li has two names. There's Frank Li, his American name. Then there's Sung-Min Li, his Korean name. No one uses his Korean name, not even his parents. Frank barely speaks any Korean. He was born and raised in Southern California.Even so, his parents still expect him to end up with a nice Korean girl--which is a problem, since Frank is finally dating the girl of his dreams: Brit Means. Brit, who is funny and nerdy just like him. Brit, who makes him laugh like no one else. Brit . . . who is white.As Frank falls in love for the very first time, he's forced to confront the fact that while his parents sacrificed everything to raise him in the land of opportunity, their traditional expectations don't leave a lot of room for him to be a regular American teen. Desperate to be with Brit without his parents finding out, Frank turns to family friend Joy Song, who is in a similar bind. Together, they come up with a plan to help each other and keep their parents off their backs. Frank thinks he's found the solution to all his problems, but when life throws him a curveball, he's left wondering whether he ever really knew anything about love—or himself—at all.In this moving debut novel David Yoon takes on the question of who am I? with a result that is humorous, heartfelt, and ultimately unforgettable.
Romance
Teen Romance
AD
Buy now:
More Details:
Author
David Yoon
Pages
432
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2019-09-10
ISBN
1984812211 9781984812216
Ratings
Google: 4
Community ReviewsSee all
"Couldn’t stand the main character (f-boy vibes) or the love interest (“not like other girls”). What saved this book was how common it is for children of immigrants to navigate things like dating with such harsh and scrutinizing expectations from their parents. There’s an expectation that a lot of parents have because of their pre-conceived notions, and I felt like this was accurately portrayed. Otherwise, nope. I wanted to like this so bad, but it just didn’t hit for me like I thought it would. Also, I felt like the book was too long for what the plot ended up being."
"This had amazing character voice, and gave us a glimpse into Frank's life. I, however, struggled to get myself into it. I'll probably try to read it again."
N W
Natilee Wooten
"Thanks to Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio for letting me listen and review this book. I was curious about this book since everyone was talking about it so I decided to check it out and I'm glad I listened to the audio because I don't think I would have done as well reading it. It was a little challenging for me to finish it even with the audio as it was.<br/>I liked the story idea and premise to the story with the fake dating trope and the insight into Korean culture and family and culture issues and differences. It was a good portrayal of YA/teen years and crushes and romances and other things. There were a few things that caught me off guard, but for the most part, it seemed to be pretty straight forward.<br/>This isn't my usual reading genre, but I thought it was alright although my biggest things were 1-it seemed a bit long, which is one of the reasons why audio helped and 2 - the language - there was so much profanity and language that I didn't enjoy, so that's my two cents on that.<br/>If you like romance, fake dating tropes and such then you'll probably like this."