"Shine" is the debut novel from former Girls Generation member, and
international K-Pop star, Jessica Jung, and I was honoured to receive
an e-ARC copy from Simon & Schuster Canada via NetGalley to read and
review, as I am a longtime fan of both J-Pop and K-Pop, and this was
one of my most anticipated releases of 2020.

In this novel, we're following the character of Rachel Kim, a
17-year-old Korean-American girl from New York, who was recruited by
one of Seoul's biggest K-Pop labels--DB Entertainment-- as a trainee 6
years prior to the events of the book. Her vocal and dance abilities
have helped to set her apart, and have earned her the favour of label
executives, but she struggles with some of the other aspects of the
industry (media training etc...) and she's mockingly referred to as
"Princess Rachel" by most of her fellow trainees.

Like all of her fellow trainees, Rachel dreams of officially debuting.
She and her family left their entire lives behind to move to Seoul so
that she could train, and she desperately wants to ensure that the
sacrifices her family made for her were not made in vain. She plans to
work as hard as she can, so that she will be selected for DB
Entertainment's next girl group.

That's easier said than done in an industry that's well-known for
being hyper-competitive, and strictly regimented, but when Rachel
meets K-Pop megastar and DB Entertainment golden boy, Jason Lee,
things grow even more complicated. Can she still find a way to shine
when the glamourous K-Pop life she dreamed of turns out to be far more
dark and sinister than she ever could've realized?

As always with my reviews, I like to discuss the positive aspects of
the novel first.

This book perfectly captured the regimented lifestyle and rigorous
demands of being in the K-Pop star. As I said, I'm a long-time fan of
the genre and it was really interesting and refreshing to read about
the darker side of the industry. I also felt like Rachel was a great
main character. It was incredibly easy to root for her to achieve her
dreams, and also to sympathize or empathize with her when things were
bleak. She's a character I think many readers will be able to relate
to. I also felt that Jessica Jung's writing was wonderfully
descriptive and fully immersive.

My only real criticism about this book is that there was no real
surprise to it. I was able to predict most of the things that ended up
happening before they actually did happen, which did impact the
overall reading experience.

Overall, this is a very promising debut novel! I definitely enjoyed it
and would recommend it to others! If you're a fan of Jenny Han or
Maurene Goo, you won't want to miss this one! "Shine" is scheduled to
be released on September 29, 2020. Many thanks to Simon & Schuster
Canada and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read it early!

An ARC of this novel was sent to me by NetGalley for reviewing purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Let me get this out first- I am not a K-pop person, and I was surprised at how much I liked this! It's extremely well written for a debut.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster Canada for providing a digital ARC of Shine in exchange for an honest review.

So I'm not a Kpop fan (stan?). I firmly believe all YA book lovers are either into showtunes or Kpop and I fall firmly into the first catagory. Truthfully, I had no idea who Jessica Jung was until researching her and asking around after finishing Shine so this is my unbiased opinion as neither a fan of KPop, or this book's author.

So I don't claim to know whether or not Jessica Jung wrote every word of this herself or went the whole ghost-writer route, but if she did write this I'm not entirely convinced she's a human being. Celeb books tend to be a little off because if you dedicate your life to one difficult career it's near impossible to also be good at writing but Shine doesn't read at all like a debut.

This book was fun, sweet, and way more than it had to be and I love it for that. What could have easily been a cutesy, basic romance (and I won't deny that this is, these are definitely some incredibly cheesy scenes) turned into a really interesting look into a toxic industry and the sexism hidden beneath it.

Shine's a good read whether or not you like KPop and the weird amount of 1 star goodreads reviews it got upon announce will hopefully be counteracted by actual readers loving it when it's officially released.