Frankly in Love Book Review

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My favourite book of 2020 was Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also a Star and so I was excited for Frankly in Love as it is written by her husband, David Yoon. Frank Li is a high school student whose Korean parents live in their Korean bubble in America, and as such, want him to have a Korean girlfriend. However, when Frank falls for Brit (who isn’t Korean), he knows he needs to find a way to date her without her parents knowing. Enter Joy, the daughter of family friends whose parents also would not approve of her Chinese boyfriend. And so Frank and Joy concoct a plan to allow them to date who they want – pretend to date each other to pacify their parents. What could possibly go wrong…

I am so glad David’s writing lived up to the beauty of Nicola’s because it was STUNNING. The quote above is just one of many that I could have chosen, so here’s another to whet you appetite: “I can feel it. I know the others can, too, for whatever secret reasons they have in their hearts. It doesn’t so much matter what our specific secrets are. What matters more is the fact that we have to keep spam for so many of them, all the time. We all sit and nod for a moment, letting Ella’s words float before us. We all just want to love who we want to love.”

The power of Yoon’s writing definitely made me feel more emotionally connected to this book – I felt acutely the pain, joy, happiness, and fear of the characters and I think the book does a good job of projecting common feelings in a way that unites readers. As a white reader I can’t relate to the storyline as much as others would be able to, but I think Yoon portrays a universal feeling of belonging with Frankly in Love that will resonate with many readers.

Overall I think the plot was predictable, but this really wasn’t a book which needed to be unpredictable, if anything its predictability made it familiar and therefore more comforting and loveable. Frank’s perspective on the world was both refreshing and eye-opening. Yoon uses him to comment on race, gender, and the society we live in and as he’s an eighteen year old protagonist, it felt more compelling coming from his young mind.

This contemporary romance will make your help full and almost certainly on the brink of tears but he end; it’s full of life and love and beauty simply seeps out of its pages thanks to Yoon’s breathtaking writing. I’m so glad I finally got round to reading this novel and I can’t wait to read more of his work!