Book Review: XOXO by Axie Oh

“People who live for tomorrow should fear the people who live for today.”

Axie Oh, XOXO

Review:

Jenny is on her way to a stellar future as a cellist. She’s spent her life practicing and seldom, if ever, choosing fun and friendship over study and rehearsal. But in her most recent review, she’s told that she lacks ‘spark’ in an otherwise flawless performance. After a pep talk from her uncle, she takes a chance and battles the boy lurking in the karaoke bar to a sing-off. 

Later, she meets the boy, Jaewoo, on the bus and the two of them end up at a festival together. She befriends him and laments that he is going home to Korea. She fears their brief texts back and forth are the end of their friendship, but upon hearing of her grandmother’s failing health, Jenny has an opportunity to transfer to a music school in Seoul. There, she runs into Jaewoo again and learns that he is a member of the K-pop group XOXO. 

I know nothing about the world of K-pop so I was a bit lost, but I had fun for what it was. I feel like more could have been done with Jenny, her mother, and her grandmother given this was the driving force that moved Jenny to Korea. The focus is almost solely on Jenny and Jaewoo’s relationship (which is fine, I just wish the familial issues would have been explored a bit more). YA is sometimes hit or miss with me and I felt old reading this one. 

Likes & Dislikes:

What I liked:

• Lighthearted and fun.
• Venturing into the K-pop scene was new territory for me. I was lost but entertained.
• Sweet characters.

What I didn’t like:

• While, yes, I did have fun, I didn’t particularly care what happened between the characters.
• Can we please, please, please stop having sex scenes between people under 18? I cannot stress enough how creepy I feel about it.
• I wish there had been more scenes to build the tension between Jenny and her mother. Their confrontation felt empty with only vague passing mentions of their relationship (made worse by the fact the mother is absent almost the entire book).

Afterthoughts:

I only picked this up because I needed a book that begins with the letter X for a Bingo challenge. It definitely wouldn’t have been on my radar if I hadn’t gone looking for book titles. Glad to have come across it!

Where to buy the book: