This is a 4 star book, but I'm bumping it to 5 stars in an attempt to balance all the negative reviews. I'm not familiar with this author, but it sounds like she normally writes books very heavy on romance and sex. This book focuses on a Korean adoptee's journey meeting her birth family and embracing her birth culture with a side plot romance. It's still a romance, but apparently not what her fans were expecting. Although honestly, given the cover looking completely different from her other book covers, they should have had a clue.

As a white adoptive parent of a transracial adoptee, this book was great insight into how transracial adoptees struggle with their identity and with a connection to their birth families and cultures. The author, a Korean adoptee herself, covered a lot of the same struggles that transracial adoptees share. I really like that this is a fiction choice as most books about transracial adoptees are memoirs or nonfiction. Some reviews were annoyed by the angst and emotional rollercoaster, but I felt it was all appropriate given how Hara was hit over and over by new information that made her question everything she knew.

That ending though....I'm happy to hear there is a second book coming because there's a lot more left to explore. I want more for Yujun and Hara, who I thought had a really sweet romance, and I want to see how things shake out as Hara and her two families get to know each other. Also, I loved learning Korean culture and exploring Seoul alongside Hara and would love to learn more.