Bingsu for Two by Sujin Witherspoon
Publisher’s Summary: Meet River Langston-Lee. In the past 24 hours, he’s dumped his girlfriend, walked out of his SATs, and quit his job at his parents’ cafe in spectacularly disastrous fashion—even for him.
Somehow, he manages to talk his way into a gig at a failing Korean cafe, Bingsu for Two, which is his lucky break until he meets short, grumpy, and goth: Sarang Cho. She’s his new no-BS co-worker who’s as determined to make River’s life hell as she is to save her family’s cafe.
After River accidentally uploads a video of his chaotic co-workers to his popular fandom account, they strike viral fame. The kicker? Their new fans ship River and Sarang big-time. In order to keep the Internet’s attention—and the cafe’s new paying customers—River and Sarang must pretend that the tension between them is definitely of the romantic variety, not the considering the best way to kill you and hide your body variety.
But when Bingsu for Two’s newfound success catches the attention of River’s ex and his parents’ cafe around the corner, he faces a choice: keep letting others control his life or stand up for the place that’s become home. And a green-haired girl who’s not as heartless as he originally thought . . .
My Thoughts: This was the perfect read for my first official review of the year because it’s much easier to share about a fun book than most anything else and this one was definitely entertaining. River and Sarang are enemies from the start and that’s one of my preferred tropes. And while I have no explanation for this, fake dating pretty much always works for me too. I guess it’s true that the heart wants what it wants as Emily Dickinson once wrote.
River really does turn his life upside-down at a rapid clip with progressively funny moments. The chapter titles are also there to let us know that the train wreck is about to begin almost like the little signs that Wile E. Coyote holds in his cartoons.
As in most rom-coms, there are misunderstandings galore and there is a delightful roller coaster of events and emotions. The author uses a wide variety of formats in the storytelling which gave it a fast paced and scattered feel which matched up well with River’s slightly chaotic emotions and behavior. There are videos in script form along with texts and social media posts too. It all flows well and I appreciated the breaks from paragraphs.
River and Sarang have plenty of bantering opportunities along with more serious and measured moments of honesty as they get to know each other. There are times when readers will have second-hand embarrassment for River, but there are also plenty of reasons to laugh and smile.
On another note, there are Korean words in the book that are written out with the English alphabet like Umma for Mom, but there are also some words written in Hangul. Whenever that happens, the translation may be found at the bottom of the page. There is also Hangul on the cover, but it is subtle with 빙수 카페 (Bingsu Cafe) on the awning and some other words on a small sign in the corner of the window. I appreciate that authors seem to be more inclined to include languages other than English within their texts and it is interesting to see the variety of ways to do this.
Recommendation: Get it as soon as you can especially if you are in search of something on the lighter side. This is an adorable book that is sure to delight readers and possibly inspire them to visit their nearest Korean cafe.
Extras:
Fun online menu for the cafe
Q&A with Author at The Nerd Daily
The Seattle Times Article
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Pages: 320
Availability: On shelves now
Review Copy: ARC via publisher