Elena's best friend, Robbie, and his family move when the kids are ten. The separation is devastating to them both, and all the more so when abruptly Robbie stops communicating with Elena a few years after he moves back to Korea. It comes out that the reason for the silence is that while training for a K-Pop debut, he wasn't allowed to have a personal cell phone. No one told Elena that, so she felt abandoned, and never bounced back socially from being deserted. 

Then Robbie shows up out of the blue, showily asking Elena to make good on their childhood promise to go to prom together. Elena's shocked response isn't what Robbie expects, and awkwardness persists...and persists. I found the will-they-or-won't-they-but-obviously-they-eventually-will a little tedious. Still, I love a K YA, and this one is just fine. 

In addition to the romance, Once Upon a K-Prom has a "save the community center" plot that is endearing. 

It's hard to have a stunning best friend, like Charlie does. Amelia, the best friend, is gorgeous, but also generous and kind and truly thinks the world of Charlie. Too bad Charlie doesn't think well of herself. That's her struggle in this book--to love herself, despite her newly skinny mom being judgmental about Charlie's weight, as well as being deeply self-involved. Of course Charlie has to crush on a hot, popular guy, who only sees Amelia, when meanwhile, a stocky artist kid named Brian has feelings for Charlie. 

There's gets-loses-gets back in this story, but also a lot more, about friendship and appreciating oneself, which can be tough when you're a fat, brown girl with no dad growing up in Connecticut. 

You'd think such a good ghostwriter could have gotten the book to under 16 hours. I mean, it has to have been ghostwritten, right? Prince Harry tells us himself that he wasn't good at school and that he didn't go to college. I'm not the biggest education snob, but I know that as someone who went to public school from K-Masters, I can't speak as effectively as friends who went to elite colleges. Whatever, the point is that the book is well-written, but loooooooong. I'd start cutting with the frost-nipped penis.

This book is full of myopic outrage--paparazzi are the worst people in the world--and while they did cause his mother's death, which is outrageous--his vitriol against them is not compelling when it comes to his own, unbelievably charmed life. You do feel for him once his wife and kids are involved.

I do believe that the royals did him dirty, but it's wild to see the prince and Markle shilling so hard to maintain their luxurious lifestyle. At one point Prince Harry maths up a figure of $6M a year to fund their security needs. Anyway, if it weren't for the length (I listened to at 1.35x), Spare would be just what most readers probably want. It's gossipy and easy to make fun of, but you also do get a feel for the horrors of being a royal, and of being a spare one. PH is really bothered by his spare status, and I can see how he would feel that way, but it's also like getting a 99 on a test and griping about not getting 100. 

I've read a ton of K-Pop YA. TNF is my first K-Drama. Since I don't watch K-Dramas (or listen to K-Pop, actually), I can only assume this novel has all of the elements: chaebols, jealousy, slow-burning revelations, late night shin ramyun, and a love interest who carries an umbrella. 

Protagonist Chloe Chang grows up knowing nothing about her father, who died before she was born or when she was a baby (I don't remember). She and her two besties, Hazel and Seb, fantasize that Chloe's dad is a local newscaster and for Chloe's 18th birthday, Hazel and Seb buy her a 23 and Me kit to see if they're right. They're not, but a cousin appears!

Cut to Chloe being whisked to Seoul, first-class to meet her halmoni, who happens to own an enormous department store and other holdings, along with the rest of the complicated Noh family. Chloe's secretive mother had been against Chloe's trip the whole time and does little too cooperate, which frustrates Chloe and makes her suspicious. Secrets are revealed and betrayals ensue. 

It's quick, fun read, and I'm eager for a sequel. 

I loved reading this book and didn't want it to end. LiC follows lady chemist Elizabeth Zott through a career of being thwarted by one rapey man-in-charge after another. She doesn't sleep with any of them until she falls madly in love with awkward, grudge-holding, famous, brilliant Calvin Evans. 

"even the single men" dear blob!

some other quotes

this goes for actors too

ugh and this truthy truth

Because she can't Science, Zott somehow ends up with a cooking show, where she salt-fat-acid-heats before it's a thing, explaining the chemistry of cooking healthy foods to her 1950s housewife viewers. 

Foxfire meets The Outsiders in this story of friendship between 1960s girls, including girls from different sides of the tracks. Protagonist Evie acts and dresses like a greaser, but with her sober and loving mother and grandmother, she has a more stable home life than most of her friends. Diane is a soc, or in Bad Girls parlance, a "tea sipper," but she and her sweater sets have just moved to the bad side of town to live with a drunken aunt. Evie encounters Diane at a concession stand, where it becomes clear that Diane is no more popular with the tea sippers than Evie and her friends are. Evie stands up to the mean girls and later that night, Diane returns the favor. 

At 15, Evie is the youngest of the group, but the other girls see that Evie has something special in her. They just don't know what yet. They're tough girls. Evie observes

This is a story about hardness in young women, and about their care for one another, and about how soft the baddest girls are inside. 

Now that I'm an audiobook reader, I wish I'd waited for an author-narration. Like many comedian essay collections, some of the text, especially the reprints, feels like filler. The reprints are also just less funny on the page than they might be in context or performed. Friedman (oh yeah, I read this because the author and I have similar names!) doesn't do herself any favors sharing some of her meaner-spirited jokes. I watched her comedy special, <a href="https://www.peacocktv.com/watch-online/movies/ladykiller/b0d8d5bd-8306-3632-a08b-9e753cabfb0e">Ladykiller</a>, and loved it. It's feminist, political, self-aware, and devoid (mostly? completely?) of the gratuitous and body-shaming humor. 

I love Dial A for Aunties, so I expected to enjoy its sequel just as much. I'm not sure if my liking it less has to do with its length, that I listened to it, or if it's just not as much fun. This time the wedding Meddy and her mother and her aunts are involved with is Meddy's. Normally the Chans would be working the wedding, with Meddy as photographer and elders covering the cake, hair & makeup, flowers, and MC duties, but since they're the wedding family, they have to hire alternative vendors. Luckily another family of Chinese Indonesians present themselves, and Meddy finds herself becoming close with her counterpart Staphanie. 

The wedding is in the UK, where Meddy's fiancé Nathan's family live. They're proper Brits, and the Chans are...loud. Once again, a running theme is Meddy loving her wacky elders despite or because of their quirks. Another running theme is kidnapping!

The narrator is versatile and enthusiastic. 

Obadiah (his real name) is a seventh grade swimmer recovering from a Bad Year (that we don't learn much about, but it involves his gender transition). The Bad Year may be over, but bullies still bully, including his swim coach, necessitating Obie's move to another team. He's lost his best friends Lucy and Clyde anyway, but he's still nervous about starting over with another team. 

Luckily, Obie has a lot of support from his parents, brother, and grandparents, and eventually...a girl he likes. 

I didn't love the sequel as much as the first in the series, but it is still a pretty exciting Teens Against Sexist Capitalism story. The teens are Candace Park, an American K-Pop idol in Korea, about to make her debut and the other members of THE GIRLS. They are the creation of a supposedly reformed K-Pop megacorp, but no megacorp is every truly reformed, is it, even if it has a girl boss at the helm. 

Other plot lines concern a light love triangle and another kickass girl group that comes out of nowhere, adding pressure to THE GIRLS stereotype threatened ability to convince the K-Pop world that girl groups are worthwhile.