File Under: Books with Misleading Blurbs

The advertised premise of The Trunk by Kim Ryeo-Ryeong is that a popular match-making service in South Korea has an elite level secret division called New Marriage (NM). The (obviously rich) clients of NM can pay for temporary marriages for whatever reason rich and powerful people might want one. This in and of itself was never really explained in a convincing or believable way, but...whatever. 

The blurb describes Inji, the main character as being booked for a second marriage by a wealthy music producer, whose "dark past begins to unravel as well as the sinister underbelly of NM management, who will stop at nothing to preserve their reputation and that of their wealthiest clients."

That sounds pretty intriguing right? The book has also been adapted into a series, which implied there should be enough meat on these bones to really go somewhere. 

Regrettably no. 

There's no discernable dark past for Inji, unless you count a bad relationship with her mother. Ditto for some sinister underbelly of NM with the only possible exception being involved in a pretty dark crime, but (and this is important) it's mentioned in passing about halfway through, and then never mentioned again. 

What you get instead of a story that sounds great on the blurb, is a hodgepodge of minor plot points of no real consequence or bearing on each other, save for Inji being the focal point. I kept thinking that this all had to come together somehow, but it never did. All I was really left with was a bunch of sadly boring filler that served no greater purpose. 

Oh well. That's the life of a reader right? All of our favorite authors were new to us at some point, and you can't find them until you take the plunge with that first book.

Have you read The Trunk? Am I missing anything? If so, please tell me so I can squeeze some appreciation out of it 😂