29 Dates

by Melissa de la Cruz

[readingwithwrin]

“At the end of the day, Jisu was her parents’ puppet. She would give them a 4.0 GPA, she would faithfully attend all the seons and settle for the least offensive date, and she would live the life that they picked out for her. If this was her destiny no matter what, what was the point in being the good girl when she was thousands of miles from home?”

29 Dates is about Jisu who is a Korean high school in her senior year. With her parents pushing for her to get into a good college, she is feeling the pressure and its all made worse by her not knowing what she wants to study while everyone around her seems to know what they want to do.

When she is sent to San Francisco to have a better chance at an Ivy league she is now forced to live with a host family, away from everything she’s ever known just to please her parents. Her parents are also insisting that she go on dates set up by a matchmaker. The problem is Jisu doesn’t like these dates, in fact, she hates them but does them to please her parents. She tries to be the good daughter and please her parents, she gets as good of grades as she can but they never seem to be enough, and she just wants to have fun and enjoy her last year of high school without all the pressure about college and all the stress that comes with that.

“you’re allowed to have a life outside of school. You’re allowed to have interests outside of your fifteen-year plan. You know that, right? “

The majority of this book is spent in America with Jisu learning to navigate American culture. Which means figuring out what is considered dating and what is just being friends and lines get blurred and she is extremely confused and stress about all of it. Jisu also has an American host family who is nice but also is very different from what she is used to. While we don’t get to see the host family much what we do get to see shows them as a nice family who is very kind to Jisu and tries to make her feel comfortable and apart of the family.

“The biggest tragedy will be if you find yourself years into a job that you don’t even want. At the end of the day, all of us want the same thing for you. We want you to be happy.”

I loved all of the side characters we get to meet along the way. Jisu makes some really great friends in America and she had some pretty amazing best friends in Korea as well. I loved how they kept in touch and really were present throughout the majority of the book. I especially loved Jisu’s grandfather and how supportive he was of her decisions and passions. He truly supports her and I loved their heart to hearts.

“My generation—before the war and even during it—we sought out what we wanted. We went into the world and made of it what we could. “

Overall I really liked and enjoyed this story. It’s fun and light-hearted while also touching on the extreme pressure that high schoolers are put under to get into a good college. It’s something that so many across multiple countries are dealing with and it’s something that is not okay. Nobody should be working themselves as hard as we all are anymore, just to get into a certain school or have all the right credentials to impress an Ivy league while hating the whole process. It’s something that I’m really glad is being touched on and talked about in young adult books. One of my favorite parts of this book was the little excerpts from Jisu dates where we get to see some hilarious moments. I absolutely loved them and I could have read a whole book of just the date portions as I know some of them had to be extremely awkward.

“I decided a long time ago that I could please my family as best as I can, but I still need to be happy.”

Jisu relationship with her host families daughter was really sweet as well and I loved how it was something that evolved throughout the book. You can really seem them grow into a type of family and it was so nice to see.

“Wasn’t this how you were supposed to spend your time in high school? Enjoying time with your friends, instead of getting caught up in your anxious thoughts about the future? “

I also know that there is some controversy about this book as Melissa De La Cruz is not Korean and is Filipino. I completely understand the criticism, and now after having read this book I want to read more books set in Korea or with Korean characters. If you know of any other books by Korean authors or with Korean characters please recommend them to me.