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further thoughts on Frankly in Love
May. 20th, 2020 10:07 ami continue to find it funny that people seem to either love or hate (or both love and hate at the same time) Frankly in Love by David Yoon, and in some cases for the same reasons. i've seen the style mentioned in both positive and negative light, for instance, which i completely understand. i personally enjoyed it, but it's a matter of personal taste. i also remember seeing someone complain that it's weird how laughter is written out, which i thought was very expressive and humorous.
the fake dating trope is seen as a big plus by most reviews i've come across, although there was also one that complained about "the 'twist' about half way through the book with the love interest", which kind of puzzles me, because i thought it was pretty much as advertised. it says on the tin that it's a fake dating story, you know what's going to happen.
one of the main criticisms i've seen is that the main character briefly cheats on his girlfriend before breaking up with her. i don't know, i thought it was handled in a satisfactory way. but i also suspect that i'm not the best person to judge. i know i've had it explained to me, but i guess i continue to not understand how it's such a huge component of the reviews when it was such a small part of the book. what i'm trying to say is that it doesn't have such a huge impact on me as it seems to for others.
the second big criticism is the poorly handled attempt at queer rep. this i agree with. either do it properly and integrate it into the story from the beginning, or make characters be casually queer (since we don't need a narrative reason to be queer in real life either) but don't make it a big emotional reveal out of the blue in like the last five pages.
i haven't seen many people mention the Korean text in Hangeul, which surprises me because i thought was very unusual in mainstream anglo YA, and narratively interesting enough that i made a whole post about it.
this post doesn't really have a point. i recognise that i am driven by feelings of defensiveness toward a book i enjoyed. by posting this on my own Dreamwidth which absolutely no one reads, i am hoping to avoid causing any inconvenience or making this come across as attacking people for their opinions about a book, while still having an outlet to chatter about it.
the fake dating trope is seen as a big plus by most reviews i've come across, although there was also one that complained about "the 'twist' about half way through the book with the love interest", which kind of puzzles me, because i thought it was pretty much as advertised. it says on the tin that it's a fake dating story, you know what's going to happen.
one of the main criticisms i've seen is that the main character briefly cheats on his girlfriend before breaking up with her. i don't know, i thought it was handled in a satisfactory way. but i also suspect that i'm not the best person to judge. i know i've had it explained to me, but i guess i continue to not understand how it's such a huge component of the reviews when it was such a small part of the book. what i'm trying to say is that it doesn't have such a huge impact on me as it seems to for others.
the second big criticism is the poorly handled attempt at queer rep. this i agree with. either do it properly and integrate it into the story from the beginning, or make characters be casually queer (since we don't need a narrative reason to be queer in real life either) but don't make it a big emotional reveal out of the blue in like the last five pages.
i haven't seen many people mention the Korean text in Hangeul, which surprises me because i thought was very unusual in mainstream anglo YA, and narratively interesting enough that i made a whole post about it.
this post doesn't really have a point. i recognise that i am driven by feelings of defensiveness toward a book i enjoyed. by posting this on my own Dreamwidth which absolutely no one reads, i am hoping to avoid causing any inconvenience or making this come across as attacking people for their opinions about a book, while still having an outlet to chatter about it.
