A review by iris_ymra
Shine by Jessica Jung

3.0

'If someone had told me when I was eleven years old about everything I’d have to sacrifice to get to this point, everything that would be stolen from me, I would have said they were writing a K-drama.'
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Rachel's family leave everything behind in New York to come to South Korea along with her to pursue her dream of becoming a K-pop Idol. She has gone through years of training now and has been eager to make her debut since she would be out of the teenage years in less than 3 years more.

On this path, Rachel has found love and received hatred, has known scandals and exploitations that circulating in the K-pop industry. But she is not to stop after how far she has gone, she will make sure to Shine definitely.

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This book was definitely a scandalous journey telltale of the K-pop industry, and if you are the one who has been into K-pop (like I had been) you probably have already known much of the scandal and controversial things in this industry.

Jessica did good for her first novel and her writing too, a certainly nice and well arranged storyline and conflict building -- whether it's the truth or not, but most of the conflict she brings in this book is undoubtedly well known among k-popers -- from the diet, the training, the relationship rule and even the double standard of female and male idol treatment. Though most of the scenes and plots were kind of typical and not something new for me, I can say that I've read and seen similar situations in young-adult romance novel/movie before.

And if any of the readers were expecting any tea spilled in this book about Jessica and Girls' Generation, no, you are not going to have it. Also, in spite everything that is K-pop relate, this book also portrays family relationships, friendship, and love -- though for me the love sides are kind of cringe and cheesy for my liking. Yet I was still wondering what would Rachel and Jason relationship turn out to be, and I certainly think there's more of the conflict and questions that were still left unanswered.