This is a hard book for me to review because I have such mixed feelings about it.

I love that it takes place over a day where Lucky and Jack find each other and have this awesome adventure in Hong Kong. Lucky doesn’t think Jack knows who she is, only one of the biggest K-pop stars around. But Jack know and he’s not telling. That is until he can get the scoop on her for the tabloid he works for.

I love the Hong Kong setting. It seemed so cool and fun and full of life. The food descriptions sounded amazing. But the story was a little too long and there wasn’t a lot of balance between Lucky and Jack’s POVs.

Here’s where it gets complicated. Lucky is a super star living the dream, ready to break into America. Bu she’s lonely and unhappy and homesick. Her life isn’t her own and she feels like the magic of singing for her has gone away. I liked her internal struggles, but I don’t think I liked her as a character. Her personality was both martyr and princess rolled into one. I didn’t really like her. She whined and complained too much, with glimpses of this strong female she wanted to pretend she was, but wasn’t. She was mostly frustrating to me.

Jack wasn’t much better. He knows who she is and takes her around the city under false pretenses so he could use her to get photos to start his photography career. Of course he falls in love with her and she finds out. I wanted to like Jack, but his internal conflict posed lots of problems for me. He takes a drunk girl back to his apartment, even though he is pretty sure he knows where she is staying (swanky hotel). He lies to her and tells her she is miles away from the city so she hangs out with him longer.

Normally, I love Goo’s books but this one fell flat and felt more problematic than anything.