Overall, So We Meet Again was a fun, light romance! But it was definitely heavy on the "light." While I loved the conversations about sexism in male-dominated worlds and white-washing, I did have some problems. My biggest issue is how Jess's business is just loved by everyone immediately. No one questions or challenges it, there aren't any mean/negative comments (how is that even possible???). I would have loved to see her dealing with more challenges because that's something I could relate to more, as someone who also had no choice but to move back home due to circumstances out of my control. Everything immediately falling in to place for her didn't exactly make me root for her. And I would have loved to see more Jess and Daniel together. I think I needed more alone time between them to fully get their relationship. Still, this is definitely an enjoyable read for sure!

I really appreciate the Asian-American rep in this novel. The culture of families trying to one-up each other with their kids' achievements and lives is so very relatable. I also think there was a realistic portrayal of a career woman in an industry that is often unfair and sexist: finance. Jess was a lovely character to read. I appreciate her self-confidence.

So We Meet Again by Suzanne Park feels like laying down on the warm sand after spending a year of 80-hour work-weeks in the office. When Jess Kim is fired over zoom due to a lack of leadership potential, she finds herself living back home in Nashville with her parents. After 7 years of being a financially independent adult working for a Wall Street investment bank, she is not sure what to do with her time or how to explain her situation to her Korean church. Of course, her one and only, high school rival, pastor's son, Daniel Choi is also back home for a sabbatical. He's now a lawyer who works with silicon valley startups, has a popular gaming stream, and appears to know someone in every industry. So, when Jess starts a Korean cooking channel and tech startup of her own, she would have to be crazy to refuse Daniel's help. Especially since she cannot seem to resist him. For much of her career, Jess learned how to endure uncomfortable situations. As she begins to learn to trust her friends, her family, and herself, opportunities open up to her that she could never have imagined.
Now, I enjoyed this book immensely. Park's newest novel tackles the infamous finance bros and the corporate structure that accompany them. It was satisfying to watch Jess leave a toxic work environment and discover her strengths. Her firing sounded believable and simultaneously infuriating. I did think it was a bit of a stretch that a dead youtube channel with a few thousand subscribers would still have a following when Jess returned. Perhaps there could be a gap in the market and the algorithm favored the content (and her mother's amazing appearances in the videos). The brand did sound cool and if it exists in any form, I would sign up. Deliciously described food is in almost every chapter (and I cannot recommend reading this book while hungry). It was nice to see things going inexplicably well for her and I am sure her research and existing talents went a long way to building her success.
The core of the novel centers on the childhood rivals to lovers relationship between Jess and Daniel. The animosity between Jess and Daniel was based more on competition than any ill-will. As a result, watching them slowly develop their feelings made sense. Daniel was incredibly competent and appeared to have no flaws. Even his joblessness was due to his unimpeachable morality. Small moments and gestures built the tension in this slow burn, but I was here for it. I was also happy to watch Jess and Daniel's friends and parents cheer them on from the sidelines when their many hints finally paid off.
As a whole, the book was a solid exploration of both self-confident entrepreneurship and a solidly built relationship. For those who have experienced finance bros in their natural habitat, the book may also be cathartic. If you were a fan of Suzanne Park's novel Loathe at First Sight, you will also love her newest novel So We Meet Again, due to release on August 3, 2021.
Thank you, Avon and Harper Voyager via NetGalley for providing the eARC of So We Meet Again by Suzanne Park in exchange for my honest review.

Jess Kim has been working as an investment banker on Wall Street hoping to climb her way up the corporate ladder to a leadership position... until she’s let go during a restructuring because she “lacks leadership skills.” Unsure what to do, Jess moves back home to her parents house in Nashville. As she settled back into the life she knew growing up, she has to choose what she wants her future to reflect: the hustle and bustle of Wall Street or her down home life in Nashville? Merging the two, she chooses entrepreneurship: starting her own Korean cooking company to teach people how to add a Korean flair to boring meal delivery kits. The one thing her meticulous spreadsheets didn’t account for was her mom walking in during one of Jess’ livestreams and stealing the spotlight with her unfiltered critique and commentary.

There is seriously so much to love about this book. It’s more than just a romance, and if anything, the romance component is more of a comforting backdrop that propels the story forward when needed but doesn’t steal the show (unlike Jess’s mom!). Listen, you can’t have Nashville without Dolly Parton and Park incorporated the perfect amount of Dolly references to keep it real. The primary focus of this book is self-discovery and finding your own truths rather than relying on what other people say you are. The development of the mother-daughter relationship was about as real as you can get, and I appreciated Park’s ability to write about such a dynamic, complex relationship in such a believable, honest way.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and I am so grateful to NetGalley and Avon Books for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy! Also, can we just give Suzanne Park an extra round of applause for writing this entire book in quarantine and absolute slaying it?!

My Instagram post can be seen here; https://www.instagram.com/p/CNomD4ArNqx/?igshid=1dgqq3q90plky

A light enemies-to-lovers romance where Jess and Daniel fall back into their high school habit of competing against each other. I've been watching a lot of chefs stream cooking how-to's during the pandemic, so Jess's cooking show idea felt very of the moment which was cool. The tension and romance between Jess and Daniel could have used some more heat, but I had a good time reading this story and would read more from this author in the future.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

So We Meet Again by Suzanne Park is an #ownvoices romance featuring two Korean-American leads. I think it's so important to support Asian-American authors, especially considering the racial climate of the country right now. As an Asian-American reader, I am so excited to see myself represented in the book, and I was so excited to get approved to read this book ahead of its release date.

The main character is Jessie Kim, a Korean-American woman who has been laid off from her job despite putting in years of blood, sweat, and tears. Here's an excerpt about Jessie's view of her life from Chapter Two:

"I’d had a job since I was old enough to drive and took pride in being a hard worker: I had summer employment and internships all throughout high school and college when my friends took it easy. I was an absolute nobody without a job. And this absolute nobody had zero clue as to what she wanted to do about her career. Finance and banking were all I knew, and I’d been at Hamilton Cooper since college graduation."

She decides to move back home with her family in Tennessee, and soon encounters an old rival: Daniel Choi, the wunderkind Silicon Valley tech genius that her parents would never stop comparing her to. Here's a quote describing Daniel from Jessie's point of view:

"My heart was surrounded by wooden spikes and a moat of lava. Because every single miserable day of middle school, my parents compared me to him. After all, we were at the same school and in the same grade, so that made it easy for them. "

Daniel starts to help her out with her business idea: live-streaming a Korean food cooking show. Soon, they're seeing more of each other, and their relationship starts to develop.

First off, I enjoyed all of the references to Korean culture, K-Pop and H-Mart. It felt so validating to see references that I understood and reminded me of my childhood. The book was pretty slow in the beginning. Once the Korean cooking show starts, near the middle of the book, it became interesting and I had to keep reading to find out what happened next. I did take off one star because I felt the romance came out of nowhere. I'm not sure how you can go from enemies to lovers so quickly, and I felt like there were more cooking scenes than romance scenes between Jessie and Daniel.

Overall, So We Meet Again is a cute love story that will satisfy romance readers. If you're interested in Korean-American culture or if you're just looking for a fluffy romance, check out this book when it comes in August!

This book was a great rainy day read -- it was easy, felt good, and kept moving. I suppose the book was about the relationship between Jessie and Daniel, really, but for a "romance" the romance felt really secondary to the more dynamic plotlines: the mouth-watering Korean food and a young, Asian-American woman building a business from the ground up. The book felt very current and familiar -- these were characters I could be friends with and were people I know and I loved Jessie's relationship with her parents. My critiques would be that I felt like we were told about Jessie and Daniel's chemistry, more than we were shown (also, this is a closed-door, low-steam romance, which is fine -- just a heads up for readers and maybe a good entree for young readers) and Jessie's brand explosion was totally unbelievable. I kept saying, how much time has passed? She has a line coming at Target in a matter of weeks? Chrissy Teigen's brand took longer to develop than that! Even the roadblocks weren't roadblocks. That said, it was fun and I understand only so much time can pass, just that perhaps the book could have been structured a bit differently to illustrate a more realistic timeline. Overall, very sweet, I was rooting for Jessie and enjoyed snuggling up with this book on an otherwise gloomy weekend. 3.8 stars, rounded up.

Publish date: August 3, 2021

This is my first Suzanne Park book, but it won't be my last. I enjoyed the story and found I could especially relate to Jessie moving home in her late 20s, contemplating a massive career change (although her outcome has so far been more successful than mine). I also felt the chemistry between her and Daniel, although I would have liked to see that relationship fleshed out a little bit more - I would have liked to see them on the page together more to get a better sense of who they were together. Overall, this was a fun and easy read, one I would definitely recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the advanced copy of this book.

I really love a lot of elements of this book…rivals, turned friends, turned romantic, entrepreneurship, girl power, and a frank discussion of sexism and racism in male-dominated workplaces. I think the author did a great job tackling these topics through her character while not making the book try too hard to make a statement. It stands well on its own in these areas and Jess Kim is a very strong female lead. I loved the journey of her discovering her voice and self-confidence. She is familiar with doubting herself and the inner monologue the book makes us privy to was incredibly relatable.

Daniel was a very supportive ally and friend. I wish we would have gotten a bit more dimension from him, he felt flat next to Jess and her dynamic family and friends. I wanted more from their romance too, it felt like the romance disappeared for 20% of the book and then popped back up like it had been there all along. Overall, I love the themes in this book and the sweet love story!

Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher through Net Galley. All opinions are my own.

✍️ One Sentence Synopsis: There’s no life hack for success— what you need is a good set of ingredients, determination, and some trial and error.

💭 Overall Thoughts: First of all— this book made me so hungry with all the amazingly mouth watering food imagery! I loved Jess’s character— how driven she was despite her insecurities to push herself ahead and make her dream happen. I also loved her integrity, for herself, for her brand, for her relationships. This book gave me awesome “girl power” vibes of overcoming a misogynistic corporate America working environment. It was overall a light, fun, humorous read.

What I Liked:
👍 As mentioned, I loved the strong female character and how that strong female character isn’t strong because she has no insecurities but is strong because she works hard to overcome or circumvent them.
👍 The adorable and often hilarious family dynamics between Jess and her parents.
👍 The Korean culture representation and the way whitewashing of culture was brought up in a way that was poignant without overly preachy.

What I Didn’t Like:
👎 Why I can’t give this 5 stars—- Daniel and Jess end up together because he decided to completely disregard personal boundaries. I also wish there was more overall chemistry.

💞 Read this if you liked: The Dating Plan, Pride and Prejudice and Other Flavors, the Kiss Quotient

⚠️ Content Warnings: misogyny

I almost didn’t want to finish this book, I was enjoying it so much. Thank you Suzanne Park for writing it.

This is going to spoil me from reading any other romances, mainly because it wasn’t all about drooling over the main squeeze. It was an enemy to friends, to be sure, but it wasn’t the point of the story, which is what I loved about it. The story was about rebuilding your life after being fired from what you thought was your dream job, and having to move back home, to your Korean parents in Nashville, and living in your old bedroom.

And not so much reinventing yourself, but realizing that perhaps what your passion was about cooking hacks, and giving a little bit of Korean taste to otherwise white and bland food.

Great story. Now to seek out everything else Suzanne has written, so I can enjoy more of her writing.

Will be coming out August of 2021.

<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

This had me constantly snorting and laughing out loud! Jess drove me slightly insane with her thought process and jumping to conclusions, but I could also totally relate. I'm gonna be honest, I finished this book a few hours ago and I'm still chuckling over it. So, if you're looking for a fun and easy read (that has Asian American protagonists), this is for you; I love seeing representation!

I feel like I was in a reading slump for a while. Book after book seemed just blah and unimaginative. "So We Meet Again" by Suzanne Park was just what I needed to spice up my reading! I loved reading about Jess Kim and her Korean family, friends, and business. I loved learning about the Korean culture. I was rooting for Jess the whole time - from her newly formed business to her potential love life. Every aspect of this book was fun - I laughed out loud throughout the book. I would definitely read other books by Suzanne Park. This was a 5-star book!

The highlight of this novel is Jessica Kim's rise as an Korean-American entrepreneur, and learning to believe in herself and the ability to make things happen. I also really enjoyed the relationship between Jess and her parents, how there were growing pains but at the end of the day, they truly did love and respect each other. I also really loved the talk about food, and I kind of wish there were recipes at the end of the book for those of us not particularly well versed in Korean food could follow along. I'm hoping that perhaps those are included when this goes to print.

I have two big gripes about this novel. One is how fast Jessica's business boomed. There was no growing pains (except for that one thing that happened which miraculously worked itself out), no stumbling blocks for the most part, just instant love by the people and she was set. Even the Youtube comments were all nice and wholesome, which we know in real life never freaking happens. I wanted to see Jessica tackle these obstacles and find her inner leader, because it was there. I'm all for success stories for anyone not white and male, but the success in this story toed the line between believable and fantasy. I guess if we're going to go for wish fulfillment stories, this one was a better one.

My second gripe was the romance. It didn't have to front and center like a lot of romance novels are, but I wanted more. I wanted more of Daniel, not just this character that flits in and out of the novel when it is convenient to Jessica's storyline. I didn't feel nor see the chemistry between them. It was non-entity, and honestly, if it wasn't there at all it wouldn't have really made a difference. They literally could have been friends at the end, and I wouldn't have been mad. I felt more sparks between Park's YA characters that I did in this.

Overall, this is a cute and fun novel, and I think anyone would enjoy this. Just if you're expecting romance, this is not the book for you.

Very cute rom/com which left me hungry for some Asian food haha. The description of all the food mentioned in this book was on point and sounded so delicious!

The characters were well developed and could kind of see the whole “rivals/enemies turn into a romantic relationship” bit coming right away but it was cute. Loved the banter between Jess and Daniel. I’d say the best relationship in the book was between Jessie and her mom.

There was a ton of Asian culture in this book which I thought was maybe a bit much and almost seemed forced at times.

Over all very cute and easy read! Thanks #Netgalley for the eARC of So We Meet Again.

I initially came into So We Meet Again, thinking the romance plot would be front and center, but instead the central story was about a woman in her late twenties trying to figure out what her next path in life was going to be. It felt like a very of-the-now story, where you could open the New York Times and read about this having happened to somebody in the last five years. It explores pressing issues such as the stereotypes faced by second generation Asian American women as well as the familial pressure that many children of first generation immigrants are raised under to succeed. Also it has Korean food, which is a huge plus in my book.

The book was a fun read with the interactions between Jessie and her parents being my favorite scenes. My only criticism is that the romance plot felt a bit flat. The leading man was one-dimensional and at times came off as merely set dressing. I really wish more attention had been given to building his character and exploring their childhood relationship growing up together. In the beginning it felt like there was being built up a big plot point about Daniel and Jessie's childhood. But it didn't really pay off in the end.

However, if I had to choose between a self-growth plot and a romance plot, I'd definitely pick a story of woman growing into herself and discovering she's stronger than she thought possible. I really enjoyed reading this book and give it a four out of five stars.

Disclaimer: I got this Arc in exchange for an honest review.

I read one of Suzanne’s other books so I was very excited for this one!! This is a rivals or enemies to lovers book which I’m already a huge fan of. I loved how Daniel and Jes have such different personalities. They knew each other when they were kids, but they meet again as adults. Daniel is the pastor’s son and a lawyer. Jes creates a YouTube channel to teach her viewers how to make Korean food. Even though she hates being scolded on camera (and off-camera) one of their videos ends up going viral!! A client is interested in buying Jes out and that’s when the trouble really begins. This is a fun read and I believe it’s perfect for fans of Maurene Goo’s books.

Thanks you Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a fun read. I totally recommend it.

Funny, real, and utterly relatable as a driven businesswoman myself. Suzanne Park nails the relationship between Jess and Daniel, although, it felt a little far-fetched at times the length she went to keep them apart until the end but maybe that's just me because I ship them so hard. XDD

It's for sure a feel-good comfort read that you want to escape into after a long day at work or taking care of the kids.

For those sensitive to the content they consume, please note there is some language and suggestive content but nothing too over the top.

I was hooked from the very first page by a character, Jess Kim, that I could tell right away was going to be inspiring. I loved how relevant this storyline was to our current culture. Of course we know there are still so many corporate cultures who aren’t encouraging women and people of color to succeed in their businesses, but we get to experience the rise of a strong women who builds a brand from the ground up and uses her own culture as a base. I kept reading page after page because I was encouraged by her confidence in herself, her family, and what she stands for and how she uses that to drive all decisions. It’s *possible* her mom, Mrs. Kim is the true winner in this book. Every time she shows up in the book I found myself cracking up! Such an important part of Jess’ story and I appreciated every word she shared. I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about how swoony Daniel Choi is incredible entrepreneur and someone who helps everyone he knows to succeed. The last main character worth mentioning is all of the Korean food! I will let you know, do NOT read this book while hungry, you will regret all of your life choices. Also, I need Jess’ business to be real because I need these meal hacks in my life! Thank you Suzanne Park for this novel that we all need, especially those trying to create their own business.