Frankly In Love by David Yoon - Restarting January 15th 2020

[HeatherH]

@Maddie - I've been so fantasy heavy for awhile that I'm actually really excited for some contemporary!

@Callie - I'm good either way.. we can set a loose schedule if you want? My work schedule is funky so I can be hit or miss (like may fall behind one day but I'll make it up another or something like that)!

[callie]

@HeatherH Do you want to try aiming for maybe 4 or 5 chapters a day? I do school at home on my own terms so my schedule is a little wonky also, so a loose schedule is good!

[HeatherH]

Sounds great to me!

[callie]

So I was roughly 5 or 6 chapters into the ebook before it got returned so I started roughly around there. So I am currently at Chapter 11.

I'm liking it a little more in the audiobook format. The writing style bothered me a lot when I was physically reading it, but with the audiobook it only bothers me a little bit. I'm not really connecting to the characters very much. I'm still hopeful because I'm not too far into it, but especially in contemporaries I connect to the characters pretty quickly.

Also, I feel like there is a lot of world building for a contemporary? Usually there isn't really world building because its our world so that is kind of weird.

One of my favorite tropes is fake dating so I'm super excited to get more into it!

[HeatherH]

Finally starting! I grabbed the audio as well so we shall see how it goes. I've heard the fake dating trope is almost non-existent in this after being hyped as that so I'm going in with low expectations for that which stinks since that was why I bought it to begin with.

[HeatherH]

Ok so.. I've gotten about 30% in and really just not enjoying this at all so I'm DNF'ing it :/ Hope you are enjoying it better so far though!

[callie]

So I ended up finishing it yesterday because I didn't want to do anything and I could convince myself that binge-ing a book was productive....

I gave it 2.5 stars. I wasn't really a fan of it, I probably could have DNFed it but I wanted to finish it so I could correctly express what specifically I didn't like about it.

I felt like the characters just said the same thing over and over again and not a lot happened. Some of the stuff they were saying wasn't BAD, it just got really repetitive and tiring. I also felt like it dragged on a lot at both the beginning and the end (view spoiler)[like the beginning had a lot of world building, but I didn't think it was to terrible. After Frank and Joy got together, I thought to story would wrap up fairly quickly because that was basically the plot of the book, but instead it kinda dragged on there and then it picked up a little again after the drama with the dads, but then after a little bit of that it dragged on until the end. I felt like a lot of that could have been condensed a little more (hide spoiler)]
I wasn't a fan of the writing style, it just didn't work for me. The audiobook was better than the physical book in my opinion, which helped a little. I love fake dating, I was really hoping it would focus on that but I agree with you, Heather, it wasn't really a big focus in the book.

(view spoiler)[Then, the fight with Joy and Frank's dads. The majority of it was in Korean so to me, a non Korean speaker, all I heard was gibberish got a good number of minutes. It wasn't even short, it was a good amount of just straight up Korean with no translation or anything. That really annoyed me. That was the only time I wish I was physically reading it, because I could have just skipped over it, no big deal, or even good translated it, but with the audiobook I couldn't. I feel like if they had the first couple lines in Korean, and then just put something like "they continued to argue in Korean and neither Joy or I could understand a word of it" or something kinda sorta like that it would have been much more enjoyable and still would have gotten the point across. I feel like even if you spoke or could read Korean, hearing what the fight said wouldn't have added much to the story so I just felt like it was unnecessary. That is my own personal opinion, I think with the physical book it wouldn't have bothered me so much. I also just want to say, if it added to the story or the experience I wouldn't have minded that much Korean all at once, I just felt that it didn't do anything and there was no purpose for it to be there. I hope that makes sense! (hide spoiler)] With that said, I did like the little tidbits of Korean. Like when they would say something and it would be translated or even if it wasn't, with the context of the story around it you could kinda guess the meaning. So yeah, with the occasional word or sentence of Korean thrown in there I enjoyed it, I think that did add to the story and environment.

(view spoiler)[ I do want to briefly talk about Frank's best friend. I can't even remember his name right now. Turns out he likes guys! Which I totally called. I just can't wrap my mind around how he came out to Frank though. Like you show up at your best friend of like 10 years door, and out of seemingly nowhere his just kisses you. Now, personally, I would probably say something like "Okay, I completely support you and all but I don't feel that way about you." pretty generic response and that was kinda what I was expecting Frank to say. However, instead of saying anything, Frank just hugs him? Like if I was the one who just kissed someone I would take a hug as an "I feel the same way" or something. Is that just me? As a reader I was just kinda like... Okay... I called Q (HA REMEMBERED!) being gay, and I kinda thought he might like Frank... but does Frank like him back? Is this going to be like a huge surprise plot twist? Then nothing really happens. So I figured, no, Frank doesn't like him... did Q ever actually like Frank though or was that just his way of coming out? Like I'm still really confused on that. Because neither of them actually really said anything. Q didn't actually say if he liked Frank so it could have totally been his way of coming out instead of telling him with words. I'm still just really confused on how that happened. I don't know, I just had to mention it because there was just such a lack of communication with words on how they felt. I don't personally get how that worked because I need to be told with words how people definitely feel, or else I'm just going to be sitting confused forever. (hide spoiler)]

[HeatherH]

I read all your spoilers, even though I DNF'd it haha. Sounds like ti stays a mess through the whole thing. I'm totally bummed about this one honestly, but not going to waste precious reading time when I was just struggling so bad with the beginning chapters.