A romantic comedy about two entrepreneurial Korean American teens who butt heads—and maybe fall in love—while running competing Korean beauty businesses at their high school.There’s nothing Valerie Kwon loves more than making a good sale. Together with her cousin Charlie, they run V&C K-BEAUTY, their school’s most successful student-run enterprise. With each sale, Valerie gets closer to taking her beloved and adventurous halmeoni to her dream city, Paris. Enter the new kid in class, Wes Jung, who is determined to pursue music after graduation despite his parents’ major disapproval. When his classmates clamor to buy the K-pop branded beauty products his mom gave him to “make new friends,” he sees an opportunity—one that may be the key to help him pay for the music school tuition he knows his parents won’t cover… What he doesn’t realize, though, is that he is now V&C K-BEAUTY’s biggest competitor. Stakes are high as Valerie and Wes try to outsell each other, make the most money, and take the throne for the best business in school—all while trying to resist the undeniable spark that’s crackling between them. From hiring spies to all-or-nothing bets, the competition is much more than either of them bargained for. But one thing is clear: only one Korean business can come out on top.
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I received an e-arc of Made in Korea by Sarah Suk from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book follows Valerie and Wes who run competing K-Beauty businesses at their high school, the rivalry gets real when they make a bet that whoever makes the most money in sales wins, and the loser turns over their earnings. This is a problem as both Valerie and Wes need their profits, Valerie wants to take her grandmother to Paris where Wes is saving to go to music school.
I thought it was inspiring to see how two high school students built and successfully ran their businesses on top of homework and extracurriculars. I really liked the rivals to lovers romance going on and the friendships that the characters had as well. Taemin was probably one of my favourite characters.
I felt myself relating more to Wes and how he thought about things (really overthinking about things). I felt that Val and Wes and the other characters read like authentic high schoolers, they made mistakes but they learned from them in the end.
3/5 stars
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