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mydarlinginej · 2 years

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read my full review of once upon a k-prom by kat cho here.

What would you do if the world’s biggest K-pop star asked you to prom? Perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Sandhya Menon, this hilarious and heartfelt novel brings the glamour and drama of the K-pop world straight to high school.

Elena Soo has always felt overshadowed. Whether by her more successful older sisters, her more popular twin brother, or her more outgoing best friend, everyone except Elena seems to know exactly who they are and what they want. But she is certain about one thing – she has no interest in going to prom. While the rest of the school is giddy over corsages and dresses, Elena would rather spend her time working to save the local community center, the one place that’s always made her feel like she belonged.

So when international K-pop superstar Robbie Choi shows up at her house to ask her to prom, Elena is more confused than ever. Because the one person who always accepted Elena as she is? Her childhood best friend, Robbie Choi. And the one thing she maybe, possibly, secretly wants more than anything? For the two of them to keep the promise they made each other as kids: to go to prom together. But that was seven years ago, and with this new K-pop persona, pink hair, and stylish clothes, Robbie is nothing like the sweet, goofy boy she remembers. The boy she shared all her secrets with. The boy she used to love.

Besides, prom with a guy who comes with hordes of screaming fans, online haters, and relentless paparazzi is the last thing Elena wants – even if she can’t stop thinking about Robbie’s smile…right?

my review:

As soon as I heard about this book, I knew it was one that I had to read. The idea of your old best friend becoming a K-pop idol and then returning to fulfill a childhood promise to take you to prom? Such a wild ride, and I definitely had so much fun while reading this book. In Once Upon a K-Prom, a girl’s childhood best friend—and now a world-famous K-pop idol—comes back into her life, and she must decide if his spotlight is worth getting to know him again while also discovering her own passions.

Elena Soo is used to people leaving her: her sisters, her friends, her first crush. When her childhood best friend Robbie comes back into her life to fulfill their pact to go to prom together, she has a hard time connecting him as a member of the most famous K-pop group in the world and the boy she once knew. He really does want to reconnect with her, though, and she begrudgingly gets pulled into his world of cameras and fans. She can’t help but fall for him again, and vice versa, and their friendship eventually (and finally) turns into feelings neither of them can ignore anymore.

This book was so much fun! I read it all in one day because I couldn’t put it down. The premise sounds so wild, but the circumstances of the book felt very natural. It was also interesting how detailed the boy group Robbie is a part of, WDB, was, with profiles of each member throughout the novel as well as hints toward their backstory. While aspects of the K-pop industry are prevalent throughout the book, they’re explained well enough for people who might not know but not too detailed to be longwinded for people who do know, so I think this story will be enjoyable to K-pop fans and non-fans alike.

read my full review here.

#once upon a k-prom #kat cho #reviews #mine #link #book reviews #booklr #q

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richincolor · 2 years

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Review: Once Upon a K-Prom

Author: Kat Cho Publisher: Disney-Hyperion Pages: 336 Availability: On shelves May 17, 2022 Review copy: Digital ARC via Netgalley

Publisher summary: Elena Soo has always felt overshadowed. Whether by her more successful older sisters, her more popular twin brother, or her more outgoing best friend, everyone except Elena seems to know exactly who they are and what they want. But she is certain about one thing – she has no interest in going to prom. While the rest of the school is giddy over corsages and dresses, Elena would rather spend her time working to save the local community center, the one place that’s always made her feel like she belonged.

My thoughts: Kat Cho knows how to delight readers. This book has everything a K-drama and/or K-pop fan could want. Elena and her childhood friend have been out of touch for quite some time and don’t quite know how to read each other anymore. It’s a pleasure to see their story unfold. Of course there are many glitches as they dance around each other literally and figuratively.

With Robbie stepping back into her life, she is certainly getting attention from many people, but it’s not always the kind of attention Elena wants. Through it all, Elena just wants to be seen for herself. She isn’t entirely sure who she is becoming, but she wants people to see her and not her siblings or see her only in relation to who she knows. Even if readers have no interest in K-pop or K-dramas, that is something most people can relate to on some level.

The romance is a sweet one with childhood memories and getting to know each other again. The storyline has moments of tension as one would expect, but it always feels like a safe romcom. It’s not entirely predictable, but it’s comfortable like a cozy blanket. Elena has just enough to worry about to keep her on her toes, but nothing is incredibly overwhelming. It was a treat to read.

Recommendation: Get it as soon as you can especially if you are yearning for a romance with plenty of laughter and smiles.

Extras:

K-Pop 101 with Kat Cho

Unboxing Final Copies - see the surprise inside

If you are interested in this book, you may also want to check out some of the other K-Pop books that exist in YA. Here is our post with several more titles we’ve enjoyed.

#once upon a k-prom #Kat Cho #young adult lit

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jezatrixreads · 2 years

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Once Upon A K-Prom was just released this week. And I promise, I WANT to do something cute like a book aesthetic for it. But my brain is still busy going 🥺🥺🥹🥰🥰😍 So please accept this small review of a book that reads like a k-drama story— complete with a k-pop idol and the return of a childhood friend. The addition of fun things like member profiles of the fictional k-pop group make it extra fun. And if you check Kat’s Twitter or site, she has fun things like a quiz to have your bias. Super fun read.

#once upon a kprom #Kat cho #kpop #reading #books #jezatrixreads

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book-buni · 17 days

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why is this so funny

#vicious spirits #kat cho #book #books and reading #book buni #book quotes

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owlisdoodles · 3 months

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So I happened to do some more birthday presents in 2020 and this one is my present for Sophia, one of my closest uni friends.

It‘s a bookmark to the book I got her [Gumiho (Wicked Fox) by Kat Cho]

Also one of the first paintings I did with my new colours and I instantly fell in love with how pigmented these are!

Date of origin: 20th of February 2021 | Find me here! 🧡

#Gumiho #Kat Cho #wicked fox #fanart #watercolor #bookmark #owlisdoodles #nine tailed fox

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bookcoversonly · 3 months

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Title: Once Upon a K-Prom | Author: Kat Cho | Publisher: Disney (2022)

#books #Once Upon a K-Prom #Kat Cho

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theteatreegirl · 7 months

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Kat Cho’s “Once Upon a K-Prom” was just the light-hearted, sweet kind of book I needed to help me try to get over my reading slump! And that cover is so lovely!!

#personal #booklover #booksbooksbooks #books and reading #booklr #kat cho #beautiful books #books & libraries #bookworm

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wedontburnbookshere · 7 months

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Here I go, pitting two bad bitched against each other, but I have a reason: so I can ramble.

Both Wicked Fox by Kat Cho and The Lost Girls by Sonia Hartl are modern fantasy YA books where the protagonist has to kill humans in order to survive. Both choose to ease their consciences by targeting men they deem dangerous.

In Wicked Fox, Miyoung is a gumiho or fox spirit, who needs to feed on men's gi in order to survive. If she goes too long between feedings, she dies, so Miyoung receives help from a psychic, who helps her find men to kill that have killed others. In the beginning of the book, we see Miyoung kill a man that the ghost of a teenage girl identifies as her killer. The psychic, Nara, says that the girl's death had been violent.

Miyoung still feels guilt over feeding on these men, and later in the book, this guilt only grows when she is forced to see the ghosts of the men she has killed. A major part of her arc is opening herself up enough to get close to others, learning to value lives other than her own, as she had been raised to put herself first by her mother, who has a deep hatred towards humans, particularly men.

In The Lost Girls, Holly is a vampire, who was changed by her boyfriend back in 1987. Vampires kill when they feed, and much to the amusement of the other vampires she meets, Holly's hunting strategy involves her pretending to be helpless or inebriated. If the man she's approached tries to take advantage, she kills him.

Holly feels little guilt about her kills. The times that she does, it's directly after killing, but the feeling doesn't linger. She needs to eat, and while her hunting style has a moralizing aspect to it, Holly says in her narration that it's more for her, to draw lines and give herself rules to follow.

Now, while the genres of these two books are the same, Wicked Fox is played straight, while The Lost Girls has more of a dark comedy edge to it. The dark comedy shows more clearly in scenes with the vampire named Ida, who had been the first girl Holly's boyfriend (now ex) turned into a vampire. Ida is often shown with a body part from her kill, which she uses for crafting, such as a leg that she turns into a lamp stand and a hand she turns into a bird feeder.

There's less emphasis on the girls needing to hide what they are despite the supernatural being secret from the human world, same as in Wicked Fox. But the dark comedy edge and Hartl pushing scenes into the ridiculous ensure that focus stays on the main themes, not the world-building or undead mechanics.

The Lost Girls follows Holly, who is forced to follow her ex-boyfriend, Elton, back to her hometown. In this world, vampires are forced to remain within a certain distance from the vampire that turned them. Vampires are also "stuck" physically in however they looked when they were turned, so Holly's hair is perpetually stuck in a bad crimping job she'd given it the day Elton changed her, and another vampire we meet later has to wear a scarf everywhere to cover a gaping wound in her neck that can never heal.

Any alterations vampires undergo "undo" soon after. Holly has tried shaving her head, but her hair grew back right into its bad crimping job seconds later, and Elton gets his head torn off in a fight scene, it grows back. When Holly goes back to her old high school to warn Elton's newest target, she feels uneasy being there, like the building itself is trying to push her out.

Rose, Elton's second ex-girlfriend, explains that Time itself doesn't want them there. Vampires stand still against the flow of time, and Time doesn't like that.

All this fits well into the book's theme of being trapped in a cycle, caused by a toxic relationship -- multiple, in Holly's case, who had grown up in an unstable home and was bullied and shunned at school. Holly, Ida, and Rose are even trapped to the point of being forced to follow Elton around, and the only way to move on is to sever their ties to Elton completely, and then kill him.

However, doing that comes with a hefty sacrifice: Forgetting everything from their lives when they were human. It's not a decision that they take likely, and it will only work if all of them work together. Only when they do can they expect to kill Elton and move on.

Back to Wicked Fox, Miyoung and the other protagonist, Jihoon, both need to learn to let others in, though both start off closed off in very different ways. Miyoung is an ice queen that keeps everyone at arm's length, while Jihoon uses charm and an easy-going facade, making him seem like an open book, so people don't think to read too closely.

The two are brought together when Miyoung saves Jihoon from a troll, the fight causing Miyoung to lose her fox bead -- her soul. She needs to find a way to get it back inside her, or else she'll die, and now Jihoon has seen that she's not human.

Similarly to The Lost Girls, Wicked Fox deals with pain and healing. Miyoung's mother is controlling and often insults her, mainly for Miyoung's insistence to only feed once a month, on the full moon -- otherwise, she would have to feed on men by eating their livers. Miyoung decides that her way of sucking out gi without maiming men is more humane, which her mother sees no point of.

With Jihoon, his mother abandoned him, and we meet her for the first time when he delivers food to her, seeing that she has another child now and that her new mother-in-law has no idea that Jihoon is her son. This cuts Jihoon deeply, and we see that his blase attitude is a shield. He interacts with most people only casually, unable to handle the thought of someone else abandoning him.

Things fail a bit when Yena's -- Miyoung's mother -- past gets revealed more, primarily around what had happened with Miyoung's father. The reveal happens pretty late into the book, with hardly anything else shown about Yena despite that she wants to keep Miyoung safe.

It was that scene that made me start to compare Wicked Fox to The Lost Girls. In the latter, when Holly faces her mother again, while we see more of Holly's mother's reasons that led her to acting how she had, it doesn't excuse any of the neglect. By contrast, Yena's arc feels like when the villain gets "redeemed" by sacrificing themself for the hero, so they can defeat the bigger, badder villain.

I do like how complicated the main antagonist of Wicked Fox is and how it ties into Yena's choices, leaving Miyoung to essentially answer for her mother's crimes. I like messy stories, where the threads of multiple stories are overlapping. I just don't feel like Cho did it well in Wicked Fox. The ending tries to be too clean for all that mess that had just happened. (And that last chapter felt like sequel bait, which always makes me groan and does not make me want to read Vicious Spirits at all.)

The Lost Girls also ends cleanly, but the story is much more straight-forward, so the clean and cliche ending works pretty well. The themes are also clearer, but to the point of it feeling like I'm being beaten over the head with it at times. (However, like in my The Black Witch Chronicles ramble, I don't personally count it as a point against the book when the message is made so bluntly and plainly.)

Honestly, I thought that I would enjoy Wicked Fox more. Partway through The Lost Girls, I worried that it would be a mean-spirited "deconstruction" of YA paranormal romance, and I was (and still am) so tired of the disk horse surrounding immortal characters dating high schoolers in YA-aka-teen romances.

Instead, The Lost Girls feels more like... not a love letter to the genre, but a fondness for it. It feels like Hartl knows and enjoys the genre, rather than only wanting to tear it apart. The Lost Girls uses tropes from the genre to sell its message, and it does it well.

Wicked Fox falls more in line with the genre, though with the switch of the boy character being human while it's the girl who is the immortal supernatural creature. It doesn't feel like Cho is trying to deconstruct or subvert the genre but rather tell a story within the genre in a way she wanted, which I enjoyed, setting aside what I already mentioned about Yena's arc. There were a few parts where it lulled, but it was overall a fun book that kept me engaged and reading when I should have been packing for my move.

Back to the protagonists' killing natures, maybe if I did read Vicious Spirits, I would change my mind, but I preferred the depiction in The Lost Girls over Wicked Fox. While both only want to go over dangerous men (and it can be argued that Holly's victims are being killed for what they might do, not what they've actually done), it reads better in The Lost Girls.

Miyoung is half-human. She feels tremendous gilt for killing men to live, and she chooses a less bloody way of feeding. She also keeps everyone at arm's length at the closest. She has to move around often with her mother, which is often said by Yena to be Miyoung's fault for not controlling herself better.

We only see Miyoung feed once before she loses her fox bead, starting the countdown before she needs to feed again (and needs her bead back inside her body). We're told she feels all this guilt, but we don't see much of it, until later when she starts seeing the ghosts of the men she's killed. The book focuses more on her tenuous relationship with Yena and the growing relationship between her and Jihoon.

It would have helped to see more of that guilt, more of the (metaphorical, considering how she kills) blood on her hands. It could have made the villain (and their motive) reveal hit much harder, especially when we learn more about what happened with Miyoung's father.

It does have many more moving parts compared to The Lost Girls, which is probably why things fall flat more. I'd be interested to see Cho write modern fantasy again when she's gotten more storytelling experience, and I'd be interested to see how Hartl writes other monsters, since in The Lost Girls, the mechanics behind how vampires work is tied so closely to the book's theme. I'd like to see how she's written vampires or other monsters in different stories, if she has any out or planned.

#book review tag #i should change that tag to book rambling lol #ya books #ya fantasy #wicked fox #kat cho #the lost girls #sonia hartl

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passionforfic · 8 months

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Once Upon a K-Prom by Kat Cho

I like Kat Cho's books. I read Gumiho and Vicious Spirits when they came out. So when I saw that she published another book, I bought it. This is a nice story about old friends who get to reunite after years of separation. I liked the relationship between characters. It shows the hardships of these young artists and how they are managed as puppets of the companies that sign them. It also shows how crazy fans can. It has its cliches but that part of the rom com genre, so I didn't mind them.

Maybe I would have liked it more if I hadn't read it right after Soulmates because the concept is similar even if the plots are not exactly the same. Still Iiked them both.

Elena feels so invisible and left behind, and she doesn't realize that she also makes others feel the same. Her journey is one we can relate to. I liked the story.

I recommend it.

#realistic fiction #romantic fiction #friendship #ya fiction #once upon a k-prom #kat cho

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tiktok-was-a-kesha-song-first · 1 year

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Book Review:”Once Upon a K-Prom” by Kat Cho

Genre: YA fiction

Premise: Best friends separated in childhood, one becomes a K-Pop star and one is an unpopular high school girl.

Review: This book is the book your mother warned you about. She’s all about appearances (VERY pretty cover art that tricked me into coming back multiple times) and no substance (I couldn’t stomach finishing this book.) Was it an interesting premise? Sure! But the author writes like she does NOT trust the audience.

You’ve heard of ‘show not tell’? Cho repeatedly shows AND tells AND shows again in the span of one paragraph. She’ll have the author give us great details like “my twin brother got a brand new car for his birthday but they make me use a double-hand-me-down with over 150,000 miles” and then fuck it up by having the character state the obvious “my parents prefer my twin brother.” (except it always gets drawn out to three sentences). Every single emotion these characters have are expressed through their actions, yes, but then they’re ALSO explained to the audience immediately afterwards in great depth. This slows the pace of the book down to a crawl as every character states their every emotion in the most bland voice you’ve ever heard (even 12 year old fanfic writers in all their absurdity can have a more fun voice.)

The love interest, Robbie, especially suffered from this. While the majority of the book is narrated by Elena, Robbie gets to narrate his own (very short) chapters on occasion FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF MORE EXPLANATION. Robbie’s chapters are JUST direct explanations of his feelings from his point of view. They’re only meant to prove to the audience “yeah so he messed up but he feels bad so you should still ship them.” He has no character whatsoever - “teen star who rose to fame too young and was forced by his publicity team to have a persona that he struggles against” is INTERESTING. It’s INTERNAL CONFLICT. But we’re shovel-fed his thoughts and this internal conflict is fucking drab. I’d rather read that ‘get adopted by 1D’ fic because at least I could laugh at how bad it is. This is bad but boring.

Not to mention, Robbie doesn’t exist outside of Elena (the MC). His only goal is to take a girl to prom that he hasn’t talked to in a decade. Elena says no. He keeps trying, (but because of his chapters, we know he is Confused and Not Creepy.) I honestly don’t even know if he likes music... or ANYTHING. The only times we see him are when he’s chasing Elena or monologuing. I don’t root for him. I don’t want him to succeed. I honestly don’t know why he’s doing this, his motivations are that weak.

The puzzle pieces for this book are all there. The set-up is very interesting and Elena is serviceable as a YA MC (in theory). This book fails because the author cannot write.

#once upon a kpop #book review #bookblr #reading #kat cho

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