For fans of Korean pop culture and lovers of Korean music fan culture, Hart & Seoul is the book to check out. It ties in aspects of idol culture into a more familiar setting, essentially amplifying the trope of "bringing the big city boy to the small town girl". While this story may feel familiar to those who are already immersed in Korean pop culture, the style and writing may be jarring for first timers. The constant usage of Korean phrases sometimes distracted from the plot and dialogue. Overall, if you're looking for a fun contemporary read and you have a deep interest in K-pop, Hart & Seoul may be just the right book for you.

I thought I would really enjoy this book but I found it hard to connect with. I think it is very age specific and I'm a bit older for the book. I read a lot of YA, but this one just felt really young. I think it's definitely a cute enough, easy read but just not for me.

This book is such an interesting one, it has a unique premise and I was so excited to see how idols are like in real life too so this is such a refreshing take on the contemporary genre. I am a little annoyed with the main character in the beginning as she seems like a childish person but she has matured and grown so much throughout the book! The writing style was simple and sweet so I had no hard time getting into the book. Overall, I think it is a fun, quick read for anyone who wants a refreshing and cute read!

A really easy read, especially for those who are into K-Pop or K-Drama, but the story doesn't offer much in terms of originality from other offerings in the genre.

This was a light fun read and it was nice having the Korean culture tied in throughout! However, I did find it fairly predictable and cheesy sometimes. It didn't have the same strong impact as I was expecting, but not a bad book overall.

This was a cute, fun read. I loved the incorporation of Korean culture, food, and music. However, I found this book predictable and didn't think it added anything to the genre.

I have never really understood K-pop or the fascination with it but when I saw this book was up on NetGalley I knew I wanted to give it a shot and see if it would help me understand. Plus I would hopefully get a good contemporary story out of the deal. And now that I have finished this story I still don't understand K-pop but I do know that I really enjoyed this story.

It started out as a very light and cute contemporary story and by the end was looking at some very dark and deep things. Now being outside of the K-pop community I can't speak to how accurate that part of the story was but I can say that this book did not shy away from some really heavy things.

At the end of the day this was a story that I found very enjoyable with a couple that I loved seeing grow. And while I still don't think K-pop is for me: I am a big fan of Lee.

I was so excited for this book, but I ended up feeing a lot of anger towards this book. This probably is just a really personal thing, but so many things rubbed me the wrong way. I'm Chinese and not Korean, but even so, some things are just generally regarding Asian cultures.
One of the things that really bothered me was that Ms. Park couldn't seem to be 'properly' speaking English, that is, with actual grammar. Lee Hyung-Kim also had some encounter with this, when he said "she should go to hospital". I'm pretty sure this wasn't a typing fault or something, because Merri repeated this several times in her head, in the exact way. Another thing that really bothered me when Merri thought the following: "He didn't look old enough to have finished high school". From personal experience, I know it's not fun to have people think you're sixteen whereas you're actually twenty. So even when those things happen in real life, nothing in the book fought this to show that it is wrong to do so.
The storyline itself was fine, nothing special and very predictable. Had those 'problematic' aspects not been there, I would definitely have given this book three stars. Also because it tackles mental health problems, plastic surgeries and extreme pressure, to show that not everything is as it seems and that the K-pop scene is far from perfect.

Initially, I was drawn by the description of this book because I had never heard of this in the book community. I was expecting a love story, and I thought it would be predictable. However, it is definitely more than just I did not expect to two teenagers falling in love, because the main characters are so complex in their own ways, that I immediately wanted to discover all their layers.

Something that I did not know much about was the K pop world, and how complicated it can get for an artist, but like any young adult, I related to that character because it reminded me (to some degree) what the pressure of everyone around you added on to me whilst growing up.

I recommend this book to anyone that loves an original love story.

The plot is simple. A runaway k-pop star falls in love with the girl next door. Even though this story is cliche, I definitely enjoyed this book. I enjoyed it much that I read it in a single sitting.
Hart & Seoul has
- Celebrity and noncelebrity trope
- Cute characters. Merri is an artist and I really wanted to see her artwork especially the ones she posted in her blog. Lee is such an expressive character.
- We get to know the struggles - both physically and mentally a pop star faces. I didn't give it a thought much before the book.
- Special mention for mentioning kimchi and the piggy back.

Read this if you wanna read a cute and fluffy YA romance and also a kdrama fan.

I thought it was very interesting to read a novel with such diversity from a non-Korean author. I am not a huge fan of K-pop, however, after reading this novel, I think I want to start listening to them. Beginning of the novel when Merri began to have her life come apart, that was very heartbreaking and depressing. When Lee came along, it was fun to read their conversations and Merri's inner dialogue. It was also quite fun to read her reaction when she learned he was a runaway member of a K-pop group.

I highly recommend this book to K-pop lovers and romance readers who love brilliant writing.

Thank you to Netgalley for this copy of Hart & Seoul in exchange for an honest review.

As someone who loves K-Pop, I was definitely drawn to the blurb and found myself feeling very intrigued. A girl who falls in love with the K-pop star but doesn't know it? Sign me up.

But I have mixed feelings on this book. On one hand, I love how she included the topic of mental health in this book, as it's something I think needs to be talked about more in fiction. But on the other hand, there were a few mistakes. Some Korean words weren't written correctly, and I feel like the main character could have done research on Korean culture in the book, instead of relying on the MC to explain everything to her.

With that being said, the book read like a K-drama. It was a fast read and predictable at times, but had some heartwarming and serious moments throughout the story.

Hart & Seoul follows the story of Meri and Lee. They are more foes than friends at the beginning of the story. However, Lee is there to help Meri as her world starts to crumble. Soon Meri discovers that Lee is a k-pop star in hiding. I grew attached to both of these characters. They were real and lovable. So much so that couldn't stop reading, and I wanted to keep reading their story when the book was over. I was thrilled to see an announcement of the sequel on the authors instagram page!

I'd like to thank NetGalley for this ARC copy of Hart & Seoul in exchange for an honest opinion/review of the book.

Alright, so my K-pop loving self was first drawn into the blurb of this novel. Hart & Seoul is the story of Merri Hart, a young teenage girl that just got back from Australia, to discover a rather snobbish guy named Lee Hyung-Kim moving in as her new next-door neighbor. As time passed by, Merri discovers that there is more to her neighbor than just the sparkly guy she sees right next door.

Initially, the book's concept had a mix of that usual trope of enemies to lovers and the ordinary girl meets popular boy themes. Being a huge kpop fan, I was at first excited to read this book, because I do rarely read books that mingle with other things that I enjoy. That being said, while this book tackled on a lot of cheerful, and funny moments, I sorta felt that it could've expounded a bit more on the more serious topics in the story. The author wanted to put an emphasis on some themes like the dark side of the kpop industry, as well as negative fandom behavior. Being part of a rather huge fandom in the kpop world, I felt that these certain issues in the industry haven't been fully explained and expressed in the book. The kpop industry had only been explained on a surface level and the same with the Korean culture side.

There was a lot more to Korean culture and Korean pop culture than how it was portrayed in the book. As far as character development, Merri felt a bit too plain for me. Being someone as well in the creative field, and have been doing art, there are those small-time artist struggles that could've given her more depth. The thing that did make me sigh a lot is how Merri tried to not follow her mother's footsteps but ended up doing exactly as her mother was. There are also so many artist platforms that could've broaden up in the story. I know DeviantArt is a good platform for artists, but I've seen more artists leaning toward using websites like Instagram, Patreon, and Behance just to expand their online portfolio. Teenage artists are a bit more tech-savvy in that aspect.

Then we got to Lee Hyung-Kim, I won't lie, but the Korean romanization of some words in the book made me somewhat cringe because it came out a bit off to me. There are a lot of Korean swear words haha, and I have heard a lot of these wordplay used by native Koreans and in dramas. While it is stereotypical to hear the word "Aishi" and "Aigoo", if one is to give life on a native Korean person, you should expect a wider use of words like "pabo" for Idiot and other slangs. There were plenty of instances as well that Lee's character would provide insightful moments like Korean culture, even if it were portrayed through his aunt. It just somewhat felt like a one-sided showcase of culture.

In the end, I did rate this three stars, because there is potential in the plot. It could still be made better, and I love the dynamics of Merri and Lee. I would honestly like to see where this story goes, and how both of them grow.

This was super cute! I really enjoyed this. The plot line was fun and the characters were great! I highly recommend this!

Fun and a great read to start summer break. This is a light read that week have you laughing, crying and wanting more.

The book was okay. If you are new to k-pop and want to know more about it, this book is for you. The characters weren't very memorable. I didn't like how Merri acted as Lee was her Wikipedia. She could just google most of the things which she asked, this aspect was a little annoying. Also, it doesn't look that the author herself knows enough about Korea and k-pop to write about it. As I said, IF you are new, this book is okay. If you can ignore the little mistakes, then its okay too.

This was a nice romance book! I really liked Merri and I enjoyed the story. The struggles that Lee faced were handled well and I found them to be realistically done. The only thing that I had a tiny bit of a problem with was the way they made up but other than that the story was very sweet and endearing. I really had fun reading this and can’t wait to read the second book!

I found this book very nice and adorable - and yes a bit over the top sometimes in the book.
I really liked it, i know that there are issues that they don't talk that much about in korean culture but i really disliked the kpop-star for a while, but he kind of grew on me. But i also got used to it, because honestly? it felt like a k-drama just in a book way, and k-dramas are supposed to be wierd, adorable, over-the top sometimes. But nontheless. I liked it :)

Upfront I must say that I really enjoyed this book.  I couldn't stop turning the pages.  I read through this in two sittings and I couldn't stop.
But I have a couple of things I didn't love with this book.
First of all the book, especially in terms of plot and intrigue, was predictable.  The enemies to lovers trope was well done, but you knew exactly where this was going.  Boy meets girl.  Girl doesn't like boy, boy doesn't like girl.  Eventually, with a little bit of pushing, they become friends and then a little bit more.  The pair are torn apart in traumatic circumstances and then he wins her back in a grand, dramatic gesture.
Isn't that how all romance books go?  There was nothing new.  Nothing unusual in the telling of the story.
Until you got to the ending.  The ending was a cliff hanger, and I LOVE myself a good cliff hanger.  I don't like unresolved stories.  I want to know what happens right now!  Please, Kristen, when will the next book be out?
(And can I just say why don't big romantic gestures happen like that in real life?  Why couldn't that be me?)
But coming away from that, my other problem with the book was the use of Korean language in the book.  I have no problem with Korean wordage being used, even in speech but I would have preferred to have the word spelt in their correct romanisation rather than how Meri was hearing them, unless it was when her misunderstanding the pronunciation.  I've read Kristen's blog and she wrote something about how she went back and to between using the romanisation and phonetic pronunciation.  Here is the original post.  I think in the end, for me at least, she made the wrong decision on that one.
The characters were great.  Deep, well-rounded and human, and not just the two main characters, Lee Hyung Kim and Meri.  You meet a lot of other characters along the way and Burnham has obviously given a lot of thought to those characters and then never come across as 2-D.  Even down to the simple thing as when Lee never uses contractions and Ms. Parks stilted English.
In an ideal world I would have given this book three and a half stars but I would rather round down than up, especially with this, despite how close it was to four stars.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to anyone and I hope that you enjoy it as much, if not more than I did.