Made in Korea

Sarah Suk

2021 • 336 pages

Ratings4

Average rating3.6

Frankly in Love meets Shark Tank in this feel-good romantic comedy about two entrepreneurial Korean American teens who butt heads—and maybe fall in love—while running competing Korean beauty businesses at their high school. There’s nothing Valerie Kwon loves more than making a good sale. Together with her cousin Charlie, they run V&C K-BEAUTY, their school’s most successful student-run enterprise. With each sale, Valerie gets closer to taking her beloved and adventurous halmeoni to her dream city, Paris. Enter the new kid in class, Wes Jung, who is determined to pursue music after graduation despite his parents’ major disapproval. When his classmates clamor to buy the K-pop branded beauty products his mom gave him to “make new friends,” he sees an opportunity—one that may be the key to help him pay for the music school tuition he knows his parents won’t cover… What he doesn’t realize, though, is that he is now V&C K-BEAUTY’s biggest competitor. Stakes are high as Valerie and Wes try to outsell each other, make the most money, and take the throne for the best business in school—all while trying to resist the undeniable spark that’s crackling between them. From hiring spies to all-or-nothing bets, the competition is much more than either of them bargained for. But one thing is clear: only one Korean business can come out on top.

Genres

Moods

Content Warning

bullying

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Forsythia Phlox

DNF @ 17%

It hurts me to DNF this one, but I just can't do it. I honestly wanted to enjoy this. I liked the blurb, loved the first chapter, and enjoyed the first half of the second chapter. Hell, I even enjoyed everything that didn't surround the one aspect I can't handle. But despite my attempts to power through I just can't tolerate it.

At first, I liked Val because she seemed selfless in her quest to put the money made from her small business toward a dream vacation for her halmeoni (grandma). I liked the family dynamic - overbearing yet well-meaning Umma (Mom), sweet and loving Halmeoni, and overachieving big sister Samantha. And when Wes, the new kid, started making waves by selling products himself? I found it interesting. I was ready for the rivalry romance! It had so much potential, and Wes had an interesting family dynamic as well.

Then Val and her business partner, her cousin Charlie, showed up the next day at school, postured at Wes, and threatened him that he better not anger Val by continuing his business because he was ‘stealing' their customers and he wouldn't like to see Val angry. I couldn't believe my eyes. How the heck did we get from a sweet girl who wants to give her grandmother the world to a spiteful, cruel, entitled brat of a bully?! But I tried to keep going. I thought maybe that was a one-time thing and the rivalry would be less gross later.

Nope. Soon enough, I found myself gritting my teeth through a chapter where Val whined about how Wes was “stealing her customers” as if she were somehow entitled to all the spare money of her classmates - who she dehumanized into commodities. It pissed me off. I was no longer enjoying the book. Then Charlie sincerely called Wes a dick simply for starting his own small business (while following all the applicable school rules, which Val had hoped to use against him). And that's where I stopped, before even finishing the chapter.

I can't do this. I cannot become invested in such a nasty character when she and the narrative seem to think it's justified by her noble intentions for the profits. I can't deal with such a shitty mindset from a main character. And I absolutely refuse to give a crap about a relationship (or friendship, or anything else) which might form between a bully and her target.