At New York Comic Con, Jayci Lee gave me the first bookmark with the cover of her upcoming book on it, and the group of bookstagrammers I was hanging out with burst into the song that the title comes from. Seeing the look of joy on Jayci’s face at this is something I won’t soon forget, and made me even more eager to grab the book.

Give Me A Reason [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] is a retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] with Korean characters. I wanted to read Persuasion before diving into Jayci’s book, but didn’t have the time or patience to do so with this beauty sitting on my shelf.

Anne Lee is a K-Drama actress, but it’s something she wrestles with personally. She left the USA to take up acting in order to save her father from bankruptcy. In order to do that, she left Frederick behind and broke his heart in the process. Now, Frederick is a captain at his fire house and totally over Anne. Totally.

A scheudling mixup leads them to run into each other in a classroom for career day and it zaps both of them in a way they weren’t expecting. Making matters worse, they are both part of a wedding party and now have to see each other at all the events leading up to the nuptials. Anne quickly realizes she never got over Frederick, but shoves it down in her belief that he and her cousin have feelings for each other.

Jayci says she wrote this book because she wanted Frederick to grovel on the page, so definitely expect some of that, as well as some heavy yearning. It’s delightful. However, if you hate miscommunication in books, then this is not the one for you. There’s lots of it, but I didn’t mind too much. If you can accept that miscommunication is a part of life and relationships, then this is worth diving into.

I love how Jayci brings the Korean American experience into her stories so beautifully. This one is no exception, with its discussions of family duty and dealing with feelings of belonging. It blends well with Jane Austen’s original works, and makes me want to go read the original to see what Easter Eggs I missed.