The Comeback
By Lily Chu
Who is Ariadne Hui?
• Laser-focused lawyer diligently climbing the corporate ladder
• The “perfect” daughter living out her father’s dream
• Shocking love interest of South Korea’s hottest star
Ariadne Hui thrives on routine. So what if everything in her life is planned down to the minute: That’s the way she likes it. If she’s going to make partner in Toronto’s most prestigious law firm, she needs to stay focused at all times.
But when she comes home after yet another soul-sucking day to find an unfamiliar, gorgeous man camped out in her living room, focus is the last thing on her mind. Especially when her roommate explains this is Choi Jihoon, her cousin freshly arrived from Seoul to mend a broken heart. He just needs a few weeks to rest and heal; Ari will barely even know he’s there. (Yeah, right.)
Jihoon is kindness and chaos personified, and it isn’t long before she’s falling, hard. But when one wrong step leads to a world-shaking truth, Ari finds herself thrust onto the world stage: not as the competent, steely lawyer she’s fought so hard to become, but as the mystery woman on the arm of a man the entire world claims to know. Now with her heart, her future, and her sense of self on the line, Ari will have to cut through all the pretty lies to find the truth of her relationship...and discover the Ariadne Hui she’s finally ready to be.
I was just idly scanning the 2024 prompts and realizing I'd just read something that totally qualified, through no intention of my own. Serendipity! However, I have read like, three books in between (the two Robert Galbraiths and the Emily Wilde one) so my recollection is already a bit faded. I like to write the reviews as soon as possible afterwards, when it's fresh because it's too easy for me to forget. I was also considering whether Where the Dark Stands Still qualifies as an "enemies to lovers" since I read that out of turn too, but I wasn't sure whether they truly qualified as "enemies" from the get-go.
[For a very mini review of Where the Dark Stands Still: fun, but seems like almost a complete knock-off of Uprooted? The author thanks Naomi Novik in the notes, so presumably she's aware of the influence, but a young woman who semi-accidentally falls in with a long-lived tree magician who is fighting creeping corruption in the woods? In an eastern-European (i.e., Polish) inspired setting? If you wanted to read two almost identical books, read these!]
Anyway, back to The Comeback: I have no idea how the book wound up on my potential read list but I checked it out because I was entertained by the idea that some korean pop star is hanging out undercover at his cousin's while this lawyer goes about her business.
[I'm pretty sure I also read Chu's The Stand-In, which I thought was... fine? I don't remember hating it, but I also don't really remember it at all, which I suppose is damning it with faint praise. I vaguely recall the premise, but the plot points described in the blurb don't ring a bell. The Comeback is more of the same: fun while you're in it, but easily forgotten.]
Back to business: a lot of the complaints are about Ari - she's wishy-washy, gets in her own way, too naive to be a 30-something, one review calls her "bitter, judgemental and close-minded" which I assume is because she initially thinks k-pop is for stupid, etc - or the melodrama in the last third of the book (some reviewers had no idea why there would be issues after Ari and Jihoon decide to get together, and one reviewer complained that Ari's valid objections to his intense superstardom were talked down, others complained about the multiple break-ups) but I really didn't have an issue with any of that. I felt like Ari, although certainly more of a "sit on the sidelines" kind of a person than most romantic heroines these days, made reasonable decisions for herself and her life. Certainly she didn't display any of the confidence that you'd hope to see in a 30 year old, but she also didn't feel like a teenager, just someone desperately unhappy in the wrong job and unable to imagine anything else. I didn't feel like other characters were unfairly criticizing her for turning down the position of pop-star girlfriend - sure, you want your two friends to make it, but no one called her a coward for turning him down (that I can recall). The Big Misunderstanding here that in an effort to quell public interest in their relationship, Jihoon goes along with the idea that they're not dating - and implies that she's some sort of stalker - doesn't feel like a cheap manipulation just to keep them apart.
I don't know. I was never a fan of One Direction, but I was still appalled and taken aback by Liam Payne's young death. The hyper-scrutiny and public fascination and parasitical relationships that fans form with the stars is so skin-crawlingly weird, it was interesting to read about it from the perspective of the girlfriend.
I guess I just don't agree with all the negative reviews. Is it going to win the next Nobel Prize? No, but that's not the point. It was a fun, inoffensive foray into a modern day Cinderella story - handsome prince plucks a nobody out of obscurity and makes her his queen - and I wasn't spending too much time worrying about whether they'd get back together or whether Ari would get a new job doing tours once she's fired as an attorney. The conflicts didn't bother me, and the personalities didn't grate. To each their own.
20. A Book That Fills A 2024 Prompt You'd Like To Do Over (Or Try Out) [5: A Book About K-Pop]
