Review: "Falling for Korea" by Piper Jean

Falling for Korea by Piper Jean
Published June 2022 via Vaniker Press
★

That was...a ride. Untagged spoilers below the fold.

The cover: Is lovely.

The heroine, part 1: A blonde, blue-eyed California girl who is sent to Korea by her mother, who will not tell her why. Sydney's first language is, improbably, Korean (learned from her similarly white mother), and virtually nobody in Korea blinks at this. Despite speaking fluent and apparently unaccented Korean, has never heard of most Korean food and openly talks about American food as "real food". (Cue all the Korean boys falling over themselves to make sure she never has to eat Korean food.)

The heroine's friends: Nonexistent. I think the book technically does pass the Bechdel test, because there are other female characters and Sydney occasionally engages with them, but it passes only on a technicality. After all, why would a seventeen-year-old need friends when she has a stalker godbrother boyfriend husband around to fulfill all her social needs?

The heroine's godparents: Running Sydney's life without any agreement from her or, like, telling her what they're doing. Have planned out her adoption, where she'll go to university, where she'll live, and who she'll marry...all while she still thinks she's returning to her mother in California in a few weeks.

Literally everyone but Sydney: Actively lying to Sydney for most of the book.

Villain #1: A mean bitchy mean bitchy meanie who is not above chucking a rock at someone's head or putting a terminally ill child's already shortened life at risk to make the (completely innocent, naturally) heroine look bad. Throws herself constantly at the hero (though everyone understands that she doesn't actually want him; she just wants him to want her). Runs rampant through the book, chucking rocks and all, until she drops off the page because there's a bigger villain in town.

Villain #2: Not actually the bigger villain (that one's still to come). One of the boys who immediately falls head over heels for Sydney for no particular reason except that she's there. Gets aggressive fast. Eventually sees the error of his ways and dedicates himself to protecting Sydney from villain #1...until she drops off the page and so does he.

The hero: One giant red flag. Is a literal stalker—puts tracking software on Sydney's phone before even meeting her, reads Sydney's emails, interferes with her emails, hacks her bank account, reads her text messages, etc., etc. Gets mad and tells Sydney she is "too emotional" when she's upset at learning the truth about the first of his lies. By the time we get to lie #713, she's thinking that "only Chul could make stalking romantic" (185). IT IS NOT ROMANTIC, SYDNEY. HE'S AN ASSHOLE. Also low-key tries to guilt Sydney into sex, after she has been married to him without her knowledge or agreement, by asking how much more sure she can be than married. SHE DIDN'T AGREE TO MARRY YOU, YOU ASSHOLE.

The heroine, part 2: A doormat. One who feels guilty that the guy who forced her to marry him is now stuck with her.

Villain #3: On paper he has Munchausen by proxy (albeit a manifestation that I don't think exists in real life). In practice he's just unhinged.

The plot: Also unhinged.

I don't know what I expected out of the book, but this was not it. If I'd ever seen a K-drama, would this all make more sense? I'm not sure I've ever seen even an American soap opera. Though, if Chul is the sort of hero one can expect in a soap opera—from any country—then nope, nope, I'm out. Nobody needs that many red flags in their life.