Book Review: "Frankly in Love" by David Yoon
“Frankly in Love” by David Yoon
Synopsis: Two friends. One fake dating scheme. What could possibly go wrong?
Frank Li has two names. There's Frank Li, his American name. Then there's Sung-Min Li, his Korean name. No one uses his Korean name, not even his parents. Frank barely speaks any Korean. He was born and raised in Southern California.
Even so, his parents still expect him to end up with a nice Korean girl--which is a problem, since Frank is finally dating the girl of his dreams: Brit Means. Brit, who is funny and nerdy just like him. Brit, who makes him laugh like no one else. Brit . . . who is white.
As Frank falls in love for the very first time, he's forced to confront the fact that while his parents sacrificed everything to raise him in the land of opportunity, their traditional expectations don't leave a lot of room for him to be a regular American teen. Desperate to be with Brit without his parents finding out, Frank turns to family friend Joy Song, who is in a similar bind. Together, they come up with a plan to help each other and keep their parents off their backs. Frank thinks he's found the solution to all his problems, but when life throws him a curveball, he's left wondering whether he ever really knew anything about love—or himself—at all.
In this moving debut novel—featuring striking blue stained edges and beautiful original endpaper art by the author—David Yoon takes on the question of who am I? with a result that is humorous, heartfelt, and ultimately unforgettable. - Penguin Random House
Rating (out of 5): 3.75
Review: You know I’m a big fan of Book of the Month Club, and I got this one through my new YA membership (hi, I’m Elizabeth, and I have a book problem). This was a case of #bookstagrammademedoit (I was inundated with photos of this one on its release day last week), and while I liked this one, I didn’t love it.
This is the story of Frank Li, and his senior year in high school — applying to college, falling in love for the first time, dealing with family drama and relationships — and how that is complicated by being the first-generation son of Korean immigrants to the United States. David Yoon borrowed from his life story for some of these elements, and you can tell — they are the strongest part of the novel.
Basically, Frank’s Korean parents tell him he has to date someone within their “Bubble” and so starts what I thought would be the central conflict of the book: Frank starts fake-dating his fellow Korean-American friend, Joy, so that he can actually date Brit Means, a cute girl in his calculus class. Naturally, things go awry, and senior year gets more complicated. Add on that the stress of getting into college, a scary medical diagnosis, and just general teenage malaise, and that is pretty compelling.
What was more interesting to me was the relationship that Frank had with his parents and his sister — that is at the heart of this book for me. Frank’s older sister Hanna has been effectively disowned for marrying a black dude, Miles, and is living in Boston — very far from their home in California. Frank’s parents are demanding, “racist” (that’s his word, not mine, I promise), and different; all of these things bother Frank in different ways. David Yoon adroitly navigates cultural differences, racism, and privilege in a way that doesn’t feel preachy, and it definitely makes you think about your inherent biases. This was the strength of the book for me, not the convoluted romance plot.
Honestly, this one would have gotten a higher rating for me had I not found the particular language used by Frank so distracting. To be fair, that may be me showing my age (I am decidedly not a teenager), but I found it distracting and unnecessarily. I was a teenager not that long ago, and while there were definitely weird things my friends and I said, it wasn’t anything like the language created by Frank and the Limbos and the Apeys and Q and Seven Letters and Nine Characters and and…it just took me out of the (fantastic) story. I don’t honestly believe that the youths talk like this these days. (We won’t get into how quickly the relationships progressed because I feel like in a rom-com, that’s always fast).
I am not the target audience for this book, but I really did enjoy it. It was best for me when David Yoon was borrowing from his own experience and not trying to create a world/vernacular that teenagers live in and use now. I have a better understanding of the immigrant experience and what it’s like to have a foot in two worlds, while not knowing exactly where you belong.
TL;DR: A smart and fast YA read about the Korean-American experience and how that impacts everything in your young life: falling in love, family drama and relationships, and choosing a college. It was funny, it was surprisingly emotional, and as I’ve never been a teenage boy, an interesting point of view.
If you liked this, try these:
“Red, White, and Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston (Moira’s review here!)
FYI: If you click on some of the links in this post and make a purchase, SFOL may get a small percentage of it! Thanks in advance!
