Although promising a lot of inside info about the K-Pop industry, Shine skirts any kind of heavy-hitting commentary in favor of a few thoughts on gender inequality, the pressure of big business on the young hopefuls, and examples of how K-Pop orgs get around the 7 year contract law. As a social commentary, romance, or engaging novel, it sadly falls short. The romance is soppy and contrived, the characters amalgamations that never feel real, and the main character comes off as highly entitled and not very talented.
Story: Rachel was born in New York but always held close her Korean culture. When she is given a chance to become a K-pop star through a training program in Korea, her entire family uproots and moves to South Korea so she can pursue her dream. Five years later, she’s still going through the grueling training in order to be ready for her big debut. But a scheming co-trainee, a hot boy band star, and her own doubts begin to derail her.
The very best aspect of the book is the immersion into South Korea. From the foods, the mannerisms, the slang, and the people, it’s a great book to really get a feel of the culture. Perhaps because the author was also raised in North America, she bridges the gap between Western and Korean, giving us a great introduction into life in Seoul and South Korea.
Unfortunately, that’s where the superlatives ended for me. The ‘glimpse’ of behind the scenes of K-Pop is fairly non existent because our heroine is a trainee and not a K-pop star. The machine that grinds out these stars pretty much equaled: double eyelid surgery is a must; don’t have a boyfriend ever; practice dancing, interviewing, etc often; and you are there to do what you are told since the talent agency knows best. As well, there will be a whole cadre of trainees and most will never get their big debut. This is fairly standard stuff – just read an interview or book from former boy band members in the USA and you’ll get the same thing.
As for the actual K-Pop industry, a lot of the second half of the book (and to me, the main point the author wanted to make) is the issue of gender inequality. The girls are treated harshly by the business AND the public, with the boy bands getting favorable treatment and carte blanche for offenses. In a key scene, a K-Pop idol female and male start dating despite the rules against it. The female’s contract is dropped and she is drummed out of the industry. The boy received a ‘naughty boy’ slap on the wrist. Similarly, at the training camps, the boys are given free reign and constant attendants while the girls are ignored and may not even be fed for an entire day. That was the main issue pressed throughout and even our two main protagonists experience very different treatment as they decide whether or not to date. The main conflict of the book is that the love interest is unaware of how unfair things are and makes decisions that would not affect his career but could end hers.
Another portion of the book is the cattiness of the girls. There’s a lot of nastiness and slut shaming. Girls try to sabotage each other constantly and the ugliness gets old very fast. Main villain Mina, whose wealthy tiger father is a tyrant and holds the talent agency hostage with his wealth, is hardly a nuanced character and could have been so much more as written. At least she isn’t given a lobotomy (read: cathartic change of heart) at the end from the ‘goodness’ of our main character. But as an antagonist, I got sick of the junior high antics very fast. She was a waspish one-trick pony of nastiness.
Most problematic for me was that main character Rachel was a dud. She has all these people believing in her talent but all we see is a litany of poor decisions, inability to take direction at the training, and a lot of selfishness. She messes up dances, lets herself be used and manipulated, even has trouble doing her one talent, singing, at times. She can’t do interviews and freezes up on stage. I imagine she was meant to be relatable, or nicely flawed, but instead she comes off as incompetent and not really worth all the faith in her. Everything is about Rachel – she’s a black hole of attention that everyone else revolves around. Love interest Jason Lee is absolutely clueless and his interest in Rachel is very inexplicable. She’s completely rude to him the beginning and distant through most of novel. Perhaps he’s so shallow he only cares about looks? There is a LOT of egregious ‘tell’ but little ‘show’ to back it up. Add in tired cliches in the romance trope such as getting drunk/drugged and puking on the love interest’s feet (which the men always find inexplicably amusing and endearing) and you get the idea that this falls dangerously into Mary Sue territory. It’s Jessica Jung creating a fantasy boyfriend through fantasy situations that don’t have a lot of imagination or nuance.
There are many side characters but they sort of appear and disappear as needed. Rachel’s parents and sisters are cliches of goodness (most sisters want to kill each other at some point in their young life!!) and Rachel’s only problem with her parents is that they misunderstand her (despite giving up everything for her). Rachel’s good friend Akemi starts off strong then disappears mid book, leaving an unresolved plot thread that feels more like author Jung’s apology to a friend when she got her debut rather than a valid character in Shine. But then again, most characters feel like idealistic or contrived amalgamations rather than real people.
I did finish Shine but admit it was very unsatisfying. I do not follow K-Pop but was looking for an interesting book that would give a nice glimpse into the people and culture of modern South Korea. In some regards, I did get to see more about the food and social habits. But the characters and plot were not well done and more like a fan fiction than an actual novel. It’s a light and fluffy read, though, but ultimately very unrewarding. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.
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