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.