A perfect homage to Jane Austen with a wonderful Korean twist. I loved the setting and how she's a reader and book transcriber, and he's an author who works under a very secretive pseudonym. This little bookish add-on, along with the danger of book banning, was a treat to my bookish heart.

But that's not the only good thing about this book. There's also how hard Haewon works to keep her family safe and her sisters happy, be it by helping her older sister find love or by keeping the youngest from ruining herself and the whole family's reputation. They live in a world where women are expected to pretty much be nothing more than pretty decorations who cook and bear children, so the fact that the three sisters have wants and the desire to achieve more makes them prone to finding themselves in difficult situations. To see them each get a chance to explore and have support as they do it was great.

Then there's Seojun and his need to make his father proud despite the fact that he doesn't want that life and doesn't agree with a lot of what his father's government position supports. He writes to escape that rigidity. It's also thanks to this that he finds Haewon through ever more intimate letters they write under their working pseudonyms. The fact that they know each other so intimately, despite not realizing and initially disliking each other, because they both make the mistake of judging a book by its cover, is a perfect Austen trope and just one of many examples of how deftly Hur weaves the classic with her very creative ideas.

Overall, it's a classic that pays tribute to the inspiration while making its own with a very original setting that the author obviously knows and loves. I got so pulled into the story that I ended up forgetting to look for similarities and loving it for itself.

Delighted thanks to NetGalley and Fierce Reads for the fantastic read!