Ryu Hyang writes a delightful story about a pediatric ER MD who travels to South Korea in search of his birth parents. Soohyuk is a brilliant doctor who lacks social skills. Raised int he US, he has taken an assignment at a Korean hospital and given himself two years to find his parents. He meets Yuna, also an orphan, who makes box lunches. They become friends and the story evolves from there. Soohyuk has trouble with Korean food and Tuna has difficulty with men and small spaces. Both clearly have some trauma in their pasts.

This book took me a bit to get into. I was not sure if the sometimes awkward phrasing was due to translation issues or was Hyang's showing how Soohyuk could sometimes mangle Korean. Sooyuk becomes immersed in the hospital staff especially with the chief, his estranged wife, and their MD son. This is clearly the first book of a series so many of the issues it raises don't get resolved. It also provides an eye opening take on Korean adoption. Once I became invested in the characters, I really enjoyed it.

I’m finding that the older I get, the less willing I am to waste time on books that are hard to read, poorly edited, or have some scene or character that I thoroughly dislike. In the case of Just the Two of Us, the issue for me was the translation.

The translation made the writing feel choppy and stilted. It was so difficult to read. And our main hero Matt/Soohyuk was very unlikable. Now, whether that was an intrinsic character flaw or a product of the translation, I’ll never know.

Because I quit.

DNF.

Sadly, I did not enjoy this romance. Right from the start the synopsis makes it out to be like such a cute opposites attract romance. However, the translation wasn't the best. The story read really clunky and didn't read like a fluent book but rather like you put a book into Google translate and hoped for the best.
I don't know if the translator writing made the romance lack so much chemistry or if it was like this from the beginning but I couldn't really enjoy a relationship that read so bland.

The whole secret plot of his origin was also not the best and didn't do much for me.

Book Review for Just the Two of Us by Ryu Hyang
Full review for this title can be found at: @fyebooks on Instagram!

I had high hopes for this book after seeing all the positive reviews, but I had to DNF this book. I'm hoping it was the translation, but the writing was so awkward and unnecessarily wordy. I just couldn't continue with it. On the very first page it says "His lips, hidden under stubble that looked like a patch of freshly cut grass," so was it stubble, or was it a few inches long, because stubble and cut grass are surely not the same length.

The plot was also very confusing. I didn't know what to make of the prologue. From the beginning, it sounded like the start of a Korean drama. As in, the male protagonist treated a woman having sex like a dirty bimbo. This woman who he apparently doesn't even remember the name of, had no romantic relationship with him but he allowed her to live with him, which is when she started making moves on him, but then when she's in bed with someone else after his continual rejections, he kicks her out for "cheating" on her? I tried to read a little further but the writing just really took me out of it.

Thank you Net Galley and Poppy Pub for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the premise of this book, and as I started reading I hard a really hard time getting into the cadence of the characters voices. I found the plot confusing and it jumped from place to place and time to time. This might be an issue from the ARC version but I felt confused pretty much the whole way through.

Just the Two of us Book One
By Rui Hyang
This book is a brilliant read you enjoy. I couldn’t put it down. This story is about a chef and a paediatric doctor. This is a beautiful romance you enjoy like friends two lovers. With a slow burn romance. You also just an insight of life from the hospital as he tell us his journey of hospital life. And you get un insight as a chef. This book makes you smile and feel happy and is full of emotion read you follow they journey this book is full of drama you enjoy

I read the first few pages then couldn't go any further. The story and characters make no sense, the writing is mediocre.

It opens on a woman who manipulated the main character into living in his house after he didn't respond to her previous advances. He admits because she just doesn't leave his house and she flirts with him, that they're dating? But he's never tried to sleep with her or anything? Then he comes home to her having sex with some random guy in her room, his guest room, and he tells her she cheated on him? What on earth? Then she goes on a tirade about how crazy he is for never responding to her advances and it's not her fault she "cheated." So dumb. DNF, zero stars though I have to put at least one for the website.

Thanks for the ecopy in exchange for my honest review, netgalley and publisher.

Can I get an amen for all the diversity and representation in the 2021 romance releases I'm seeing! Let's keep holding publishers accountable and asking for these stories to be written, heard, and supported!

Just the Two of Us by Ryu Hyang is the story of a pediatric emergency medicine specialist and Yuna, the chef in charge of making his lunches every day, who also is terrified of men due to drama from her past.

I got strong K-drama vibes from this story, and it was just as sweet and adorable as all K-dramas are, while also touching on deeper and sensitive subjects such as trauma. If K-dramas are your thing, I cannot recommend this book enough. Even if they aren't, I would still recommend this book if you're looking for a sweet, romantic read.

My one complaint with this book was with the ending...and it was significant issue that I took with it. The ending was rather vague and muddled, leaving the reading with an empty and incomplete feeling, which is now how you want a romance to end. If she was positioning the book to be the first in a series then the ending is understandable, however I've yet to see many two-part romances of this nature (sweet, light, and fun) succeed. It will be interesting to see what the romance book community thinks of this one, especially the ending.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

It is a romantic novel full of emotions that will make you sigh on every page.
On the one hand we have she protagonist who has a very hard past and does not give up in the face of adversity and on the other we have a pediatrician who is a curmudgeon but it is the opposite.
If you are looking for a novel that transmits you the emotions and live a romance that grows little by little, this is the ideal one.
Sweet, fun and full of emotions, you will not be able to stop reading it

I DON'T KNOW. I just... don't know. Perhaps many of my issues with this book land squarely on the translation, but it just seemed choppy and outdated?

The main male romantic lead, Soohyuk, was both underdeveloped and also random huge revelations were just thrown out in such a jarring way. Also, Soohyuk is a huge jerk and I wasn't here for it. Yuna, the female lead and a chef, was much easier to tolerate and the descriptions of food are worth their own star alone. The romance didn't work and there were a lot of cringey moments throughout. I wanted to like it but it's very unlikely I'll be reading the second installment.

This cute story gives me all the K-Drama vibes. It follows the hero Soo hyuk, who is an American doctor who was adopted from Korea to his birth country to find his roots. He has a chance meeting with Yuna who. then begins to cook food for him and slowly warms his heart.

Now this book is truly a K-drama in the sense of it being a slow burn. I've finished this first book and they have barely had any physical contact.


I'm waiting on abeted breath to read book two.

I really enjoyed the premise of this one, but I think the writing came off as too formal, a bit stilted. This is likely, as others said, due to the translation, but it made it difficult for me to really get into.

This is the story of Matt (Soohyuk), who is a specialist in pediatric emergency medicine. He also suffers from OCD and has a childhood that he can’t remember. We follow his story as he leaves his adopted mother to go to his birth country of Korea. His total focus is on his patients and not anything else in his life. He finds a woman who is starting a catering business, who also has issues with panic attacks and difficulty in social situations. They become friends even though Soohyuk is only to be in Korea for 2 years, they fall in love. This book is an easy read, with some funny parts where Soohyuk’s Korean translating causes some trouble with Yuna. The characters the author develops are interesting and make you keep reading and looking forward to book 2.

As a fan of Korean dramas I can't be more than happy with the book.
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From the first chapters I knew where the story was going but I was surprised by the development of each character, the beauty in the structure of the plot and the complexity of feelings expressed in simple actions. Just like the best kdrama, you have to wait until the chapter five to get entangled in the story
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With a melodic prose that slowly fills the story and leads the reader to the long-awaited ending, pleasantly surprising them, making you laugh and smile.
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I really enjoyed this book very much and was hopeful to get to the end of the story but it's not a standalone and I'm going to have to wait for part two.I love both protagonists and I feel that any reader can feel related to any of them.
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Thanks to #NetGalley and POPPYPUB letting me read #JustTheTwoOfUs in exchange for my honest review, i'll be looking forward to the next book

This one is a DNF for me. I saw all the positive reviews but I just could not get into it. Perhaps it is because it was translated from Korean that the writing seemed formal. Also, there was something about the formatting of the book that was off.

This book is perfect for anyone who likes K-Dramas or Grey's Anatomy, but I must warn, it's not a stand alone even though it doesn't quite end on a cliff hanger. The leading man was a sensitive young boy who suffered in this world till he became a rigid doctor but a strong sense of duty to the children he treated, but no cares for anything else, including his own emotions. The leading lady has had some hard knocks in life as well and still managed to make some of her goals and dreams come through with hardwork and a loving brother.
The medical drama is really engrossing, so is the description of food that feeds the soul.
The prologue was a little confusing and hard to follow, but that also reflects how confusing Matt is to the people around him and is probably due to being a translation. The rest of the book more than makes up for the prologue and I found myself sad when it ended. I feel extremely invested in the lives, trials and tribulations of the characters who are so multifaceted. The blossoming romance is what I'm look it forward to the most in the sequel as well as certain revelations hinted at in this book.
I received a copy of this book from #netgalley.

I really tried with this one. The storyline sounded right up my alley, but I just couldn’t get into it. I was so confused in translation. I literally had to google a few things and realized I was trying too hard to enjoy a book.

This book reminded me of a Kdrama. In fact, I kept picturing kdrama actors as the parts, Bae Suzy for Yuna and So Ji-sub for Soohyuk. This would be a great live action. I can’t wait for book two!

Thank you to Net Galley for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like this book got lost in translation in some places. There were times that the writing seemed immature & had this book been written in English, there would have been no way that it would have been published.

Story wise, it read like a mediocre Kdrama. (And I'm a huge Kdrama fan). It was quite predictable in parts. I actually found the whole stereotypical evil Kdrama mother in law quite amusing.

The book ended on a cliffhanger, so as predictable as the story is, (Hello lost son), I'm actually looking forward to the next part.