Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo

Genre: YA, contemporary, romance, romantic comedy, realistic fiction
Published: May 2019
Read: July 2019

I’m blaming my lack of posts on this book review. I spent my 6 hours on the plane reading, eating, writing my first review for this book, holding in my pee, reading, finally peeing, and reading some more. Delta doesn’t have free wifi, but I had a gmail page out, and I wrote my whole review for this book in that gmail draft. WHY DID I THINK IT WOULD SAVE? Thanks to my awesome Razer computer (which isn’t awesome atm), I didn’t type my draft in MS Word, because I don’t HAVE MS Word. SO IT DIDN’T SAVE. I’m SO PISSED. I think everyone knows how annoying rewriting things is, so I haven’t written more yet, because I have to first rewrite this one. Whee.

Read this because…

I read Maurene Goo’s I Believe in a Thing Called Love a while back and it was cute—lighthearted and cheesy, but the good kind, so after that I knew I would want to read her other works. From what I remember, Goo’s characters, usually Asian/Korean-American, are like me in the sense that they understand and refer to Kdrama/Asian drama tropes that I LOVE. I just love cheese. :) So I knew I had to read this when I saw what it was about. (I actually didn’t know there’s another book she wrote before this one… That’s how much I haven’t been reading :(.)

The Review

This book is told in the alternating perspectives of Lucky and Jack, our main characters. Both characters’ narrations read very quickly and easily. You can definitely hear their voices—although I could understand if people critique that their voices aren’t very different. Both have their serious and silly moments. Jack seems super suave but also super sweet; Lucky is gutsy and loves food (since she barely gets to eat it…)

The book starts in Lucky’s POV, the queen of Kpop who has just finished the final leg of her world tour in Hong Kong. She’s tired but craving a hamburger. When she secretly slips out of her hotel room, she ends up on an exciting adventure in Hong Kong. This book is a journey book (i.e., like Gayle Forman’s Just One Day and some of those road-trip novels which I can’t recall at the moment). It follows the main characters across a day/set period of time, and their detailed activities through that period of time.

We also meet Jack, a Korean-American expat in Hong Kong. He’s graduated from high school, but is taking a gap year to intern at the banking corporation his father works for—but actually is just trying to avoid going to college, because he doesn’t want to major in accounting or business or something that can make money. What he really wants to do is what he loves: photography. And so he is secretly also working for a tabloid magazine. While out on the job, he bumps into Lucky—twice—and then the journey goes from there. He at first doesn’t realize who she is, but becomes excited about the opportunity he has once he does.

Now, if you watch Asian dramas, you can easily see where this is going: They hang out and at least one of them (Lucky) will fall in love, only to somehow find out about Jack’s secret and feel betrayed and heartbroken. But it’s still fun to watch how it unfolds.

The two characters have their insecurities and through various conversations, they are quickly able to touch and poke on those discomforts they each have. In this case, the characters aren’t very different, but at the same time, it’s very realistic. Goo also mentions a bit about Korean idol trainee life, which seems all accurate, based on the general population (from non-stop practicing at a young age, to weekly weigh-ins).

If you know nothing about Hong Kong (like me), I think this story would be a nice tour guide-y book, as it brings the characters through there, highlighting many fun attractions.

Spoilers

(highlight below to read)

“The insecurities that they have are:
Jack: wants to do photography, but since his father majored in like literature or creative writing and then didn’t become super famous and became a banker, feels like he doesn’t have his parents’ support. He thinks he doesn’t want to go to college because what can he do to make money other than those miserable occupations that he has no desire to do? Therefore, he’s trying to avoid by running away (aka doing this gap year). He’s doing this secret side job for the tabloid magazine.
Lucky: is a superstar, but she’s unhappy. Unhappy, not because she doesn’t love singing and her fans and all that, but because she isn’t ENJOYING herself authentically. She still gets a high from performing, but she’s not allowed to really interact with her fans. She’s uncomfortable in her high heels, and she just wants to really DO MUSIC—sing and write—and connect with people with her music. But it’s not up to her, it’s up to her entertainment company.

The two meet, and Jack shows her around Hong Kong. At first, he who doesn’t listen to Kpop doesn’t know who she is. He ends up bringing her to his apartment since she knocks out (he thinks it’s because she’s drunk, but it’s because she had taken sleeping pills and anxiety medicine) and discovers just who she is. He tells his boss.

Because Lucky doesn’t want to go back to reality (her hotel where her manager and security team are looking for her desperately), she stays with Jack for the day, and he brings her around, all the while pretending he doesn’t know who she is.

That’s part of what attracts Lucky to him: he’s a hot, nice guy who seems genuinely interested in her, without knowing who she is. She slowly let’s him in on her true feelings about being a star, while also trying to push him to go after what he wants.

The book is filled with butterflies and giggles: from unintentional hand holding to intentional hand holding—and, YES, even a Kdrama kiss scene: On the crowded tram to Victoria Peak, a lady recognizes her, so to divert attention away, she kisses Jack (this, which happens to be her first kiss). After a while, she tells him that she likes him (here, Goo takes the opportunity to teach her readers the word 고백 (gobaek; confession [of feelings])). But by now, Jack is starting to feel guilty, and so he’s doing this pushing away thing, since he won’t see her after today, since he’s doing this secret story on her... But he keeps getting attracted to her again. There’s also a scene when they went to watch the light show, but she gets recognized and almost mobbed, but Jack saves her (although she also says she doesn’t need to be saved all the time).

Finally, at night, they go to a club-first karaoke, where she let’s herself go and performs her hit song the way SHE wants to perform it. The audience loves it but is respectful; afterwards, they go to a dancing club, and she lets loose, enjoying her last moments of freedom. When their feelings are at a high, Jack avoids her and goes to the bathroom and YUP, here it is. He leaves his phone and Lucky sees it, as he’s getting texts from his boss asking about Lucky. Additionally, she sees the secret photos he’s been taking of her all day. She’s horrified and hurt and annoyed and and angry and everything, but she still acknowledges that Jack is an amazing photographer, capturing her feelings in his shots of her. She runs away, to where—who knows: she has no idea where she is, she doesn’t know where to go.

Jack, with the help of his roommate, is able to find her—but by then, Lucky has already devised a plan; to attract attention so that her security team will find her and bring her back. Jack apologizes but Lucky is too hurt already. By the time the crowd starts getting out of hand, security steps in and whisks her away, leaving Jack behind, heartbroken.

We fast forward to Sunday, Monday. Monday is the day Lucky is going on “The Later Tonight Show” in America, making her American TV debut. On it, she advertises for Jack: he’ll be releasing a photostory of her.

Jack, meanwhile, finally discovered he was doing bad stuff by working for tabloids, or at least this article on her—even if it would’ve promoted him to a permanent spot. He takes back his photos before his boss gets them and quits the company. He watches Lucky on TV and is amazed that she hasn’t condemned him and advertised for him. Also, she performed on the show the way she wanted to, totally taking everyone, including her management company, by surprise.

AND THEN WE FAST FORWARD TO A YEAR LATER! While her company was okay with her move for a little bit, they still wanted to control her every move. She is able to get out of her contract, and now is signed to a Kpop label based in LA, writing songs and doing what SHE wants, as Cat. She also does private gigs and invites fans through lotteries on Instagram.

During one of these gigs, as Catherine—her full name (that we don’t find out until these last chapters), she spots Jack. They sort of briefly kept in touch, but distance and busy-ness and everything didn’t do anything for their relationship. She meets him briefly—and all the sparks reignite. Jack actually lives in LA too now—he IS going to college, attending UCLA as a photography and journalism double major. His parents were actually totally fine with him doing photography; they wanted him to be happy. This is the part that actually made me happy and teary.

The two promise to meet after the show.”

</spoilers>

Other Comments

I previously typed a whole thing about one of their conversations… I guess I should do that again now.

One of the first conversations that Lucky and Jack bond over is their American-ness/being a foreigner. Jack’s family is Korean/Korean-American, and they moved to Hong Kong for his dad’s job. Lucky is Korean-American and moved to Korea when she was 13 to start training. They both experienced being foreigners in the countries where they live—but not the way that, say, a white person would feel in Asia.

I just realized that this is becoming too long and not ONLY relevant to this book; so I’m going to write a separate blog/essay and I’ll link it here afterwards.

Overall

- Did I cry? No. I think I got a little teary in at least one spot (SEE, I ALREADY FORGOT AND IT’S ONLY BEEN 5 days…)
- Should you read it? If you want a light-hearted read for the summer (or whatever season), definitely yes. Again, don't be expecting something completed unheard of and outlandishly amazing—this book plays on cutesy corny things that have been done and redone (in the Asian drama world). It’s just cool to READ it in an American-published book. So thanks Maurene Goo for that!

-huay