Lily Chu

Ariadne (Ari) Hui is a lawyer whose primary focus, right now, is making partner at her firm. She works hard, tries to do all the right things, and does her best not to stick out any more than she already does by being visibly Asian. It's not a job that makes her happy, but that doesn't really matter.

Then she comes home one evening to find some random stranger in the apartment she shares with her friend Hana. His name is Choi Jihoon, and it turns out that he's Hana's cousin. He's come from Seoul to Toronto for a few weeks in order to get over a bad breakup - Hana's on a work trip and forgot to mention him. Ari tries to simultaneously be a good hostess and not let him upset her routine and her work. However, he's ridiculously good-looking, and there's a steadily growing attraction between them. Ari finds herself drawn to him and enjoying his company even as she worries he might still be hung up on his ex. Plus, he's leaving soon and she has her career to worry about.

Then Jihoon's secrets blow up in both their faces, and Ari finds herself faced with complications and decisions she never expected. Both Jihoon and Ari have to figure out who they are when they're not doing their jobs, and what they really want enough to fight for.

The publisher had some choices to make here, and they opted to spoil something on the back cover description that isn't fully revealed in the text until about 150 pages in, although I suppose there are enough hints that it isn't too hard to guess. The back cover spoiler helped underscore one of the draws of this book but, at the same time, I think it made the pacing seem worse than it actually was. It seemed to take ages for Ari to finally learn what was really going on with Jihoon, who'd only told her that he worked in the music industry and that he was having some writer's block with his newest lyrics.

While I liked Chu's The Stand-in, I felt that the growing friendship between Gracie and Fangli was stronger than the romance between Gracie and Sam. This time, however, she got the balance right. Ari and Jihoon got plenty of time to get to know each other and become more comfortable with each other - Ari's passion was planning excursions and trips for people based on what she knew about them, and the walks she planned for Jihoon were fun and interesting. I think Ari noted this herself, but when they went out on walks together it was almost like they were going on dates without actually dating.

At the same time, Ari's relationships with her family and best friend still got enough room to breathe. Chu writes some great, complex minor characters, especially women.

Professionally and family-wise, it was pretty obvious from the outside what Ari needed to do, although it took her a while to get to a point where she could see it and then get the courage to do it. Things were more complicated when it came to Jihoon. There was a moment that was an absolute gut punch, and I was glad that Chu gave Ari (and me!) time to process it and how she felt about it before nudging her towards the HEA.

All in all, I enjoyed this and am looking forward to reading Chu's next release.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (altro)

Gracie is trying to get her mother, who has Alzheimer's, into a better nursing home, but the one she wants for her is more expensive and has a huge waiting list. Gracie's job is a nightmare - she's being subtly harassed by her boss but doesn't feel she can do anything about it because 1) no evidence and 2) she really needs the money. Then she receives a nerve-wracking offer she can't really refuse: get paid handsomely to act as the double of famous Chinese actress Wei Fangli. This puts Gracie in frequent contact with Fangli's best friend, the gorgeous and equally famous actor Sam Yao, who disapproves of this plan but will do whatever is necessary to help Fangli.

The scenes with Fangli and Gracie were wonderful - I loved reading about those two becoming friends. Unfortunately, the romance between Gracie and Sam wasn't as good. In the midst of everything else, it didn't have enough room to breathe. Sam was pretty emotionally walled off - he took on the bulk of teaching Gracie to be Fangli, and one of the most important lessons he had to teach was that everyone watched literally everything he and Fangli did when they were out in public, and every word, gesture, and action had to take that into account.

Gracie learning to be Fangli was great, if anxiety-inducing. That said, the author went a bit easy on her, so situations that should have blown up in her face and ruined the whole plan ended up being much less disastrous than I expected. The story's internal logic occasionally had some issues, as well. For example, Gracie was acting as Fangli's double so that Fangli could rest while still projecting "Fangli is fine" to the world, but at one point Gracie used laryngitis as an excuse to avoid having to talk and there were no real consequences.

The cross-cultural mental health aspects were interesting. Also, I loved that each chapter started with an illustration of Gracie's latest stab at her productivity app (which, by the end of the book, I really wished I could try). I wish the romance storyline had been stronger, although I appreciated that this was a bit of a romance unicorn, with off-page sex (on-page was limited to kissing and hand-holding).

While I had some issues with this book, I still enjoyed it a lot and plan to try more of the author's works.

Extras:

Reading group guide, interview with the author, and blank templates of some of Gracie's various To Do list ideas.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (altro)