I adore Susan Lee and when she first started talking about writing an adult romance, I was definitely intrigued. When the audiobook hit LibroFM for reviewers, it was a mad dash to download… even though I was buying a physical copy too. I don’t have a problem with patience at all….
I bet you’d never guess that the main character in Julia Song is Undateable [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] is named Julia Song, right? Well, she’s the CEO of a K-Beauty company and crushing it. The only problem is, she’s not doing so well in the relationship department, but she’s okay with it. That is, until her grandmother reveals that she’s sick and her dying wish is to see Julia happily married. No pressure.
Julia agrees to let her family set her up on three blind dates. She’s not confident in her ability to be a good date, so when she runs into her childhood friend, Tae Kim, who is now all grown up and muscled out, she asks him to be her dating coach. Tae always had a crush on Julia, so he can’t help saying yes, especially with his family’s pressure on him to get his life together.
I love that Susan used Taehyung Kim as her placeholder name and it stuck. If you aren’t a K-Pop fan, that’s the real name of V from the group BTS, which is her favorite member. I only wish that she included a reference to the shared name in the backyard concert scene, where Julia and Tae are watching a BTS concert film. That scene is perfection and dreamy as is, but it felt like a missed opportunity to me.
Susan’s books often include conversations about identity and family expectations in the context of Asian culture, and this is no different. This book is so real for anyone dealing with that kind of pressure, or just feeling lost in life in general. The spicy scenese didn’t quite live up to my homes and dreams, but since Susan usually writes YA, I’m letting it slide. I think she’ll easily grow in this area in subsequent adult romance books.
Overall, this was a sweet, enjoyable romance and solid debut in a new genre.
Literary Hypewoman 
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