The Runaway Roommate (Kdrama Chronicle) Book Review

[zombiechick815.livejournal.com]

Have you ever wanted to read a romance novel about a girl who is obsessed with K-dramas? Well, that book is here!

The Runaway Roommate synopsis from amazon is; "Casey Peters has a problem and that problem is the half-Korean hottie that moved in when her former roommate moved out. Now her life has become like an episode from one of her favorite dramas, complete with: crazy exes, roommate shenanigans and confusing plot twists.

This story is a Naughty Niblet: the perfect amount of sexy to satisfy, but not make your hips big."

Runaway Roommate starts off with our heroine, Casey, a 32 year old computer programmer who is obsessed with K-dramas, in need of a roommate as her current roommate is moving out. Casey’s co-worker gives her the number of his cousin who happens to be looking for a new place. Casey is amazed when she meets the mystery man, David, at a coffee shop for the first time “He was broad-shouldered, looked to be in great shape, very attractive, oh, and Asian. Korean as it turned out.” Casey goes on to describe David in further detail, “If you’ve ever seen Kim Kang Woo, you could understand why my mouth started salivating…” Of course, David has a girlfriend, who we learn he met on a blind date set up by his mother.

Shortly after, David moves in with Casey. Although Casey begins to start an attraction towards David, she has no desire to start dating after her last boyfriend, Richard, abandoned her. Due to this she has stopped caring about her appearance and has stopped trusting others to not abandon her as Richard did. It just so happens that after moving away a year ago, Richard took a job at Casey’s company and is now her boss! David is there to emotionally support Casey, explaining to her that Richard likely took the job to try to win Casey back. Casey is then left with the decision to try and forget about what happened in the past with Richard and try to start over with him, or see if her feelings for David can lead to something more.

Overall, I would say that Runaway Roommate is pretty much your typical trashy romance book. There wasn’t anything outstanding about it, and the sex scene was lackluster “…our tongues wrapped around each other, dancing and stabbing”. I found Casey to be somewhat irritating and immature, and David to be too perfect of a character to be believable (but I guess that’s what trashy romance novels are all about). The other big issue I had with the book was that I felt that the pacing was off. Casey was kind of emotionally unattached for such a large majority of the book, and when interesting things actually started to happen, the book ended. I felt that the climax of the book should have happened halfway through the book and what happened after could have easily been expanded.

What makes Runaway Roommate part of the Kdrama Chronicles (besides how obsessed Casey is with K-dramas) is that each chapter opens with a scene from one of Casey’s girls night where she and her friends are discussing various aspects of typical kdramas, such as “wrist grabs”, “makjang moments”, “wide eyed kisses”, and various actors and actresses, “’Is it wrong to find a woman so damn sexy?’ ‘Not when it’s Ha Ji-won’”. However, these openings rarely correlate to what happens in the chapter. Overall I found the K-drama aspect kind of forced and awkward. At any point that the author could possibly squeeze in a scene of Casey eating Korean food or drinking soju she could.

If you enjoy reading trashy romance novels and you enjoy K-dramas (and you have nothing else to read), then you might as well give this a chance. Otherwise it’s not a book that I would personally recommend. I’ve read more entertaining romance novels in the past, and it’s not like this really filled any K-drama void in my life.
If you do enjoy Runaway Roommate, there are three other books in the Kdrama Chronicles series; The Game Changer, The Serendipity Switcheroo, and The Blogging Housewife.

The Runaway Roommate is currently FREE on amazon for kindle.

Source: Me & amazon

Anyone up for a book club?

Comments

[uledy.livejournal.com]

damn, anyone can really get published, huh?

but what does this mean: the perfect amount of sexy to satisfy, but not make your hips big?? Like, not sexy enough to impregnate me???

Thanks for writing a review, OP! This is really cute! An Omona book club would be so cute, but like, with better books maybe??

[zombiechick815.livejournal.com]

I know! I was thinking the same thing! What does that mean?!

Thanks! As soon as I saw this I thought it would be fun to share ^.^ Yes, better books would be a must! I don't know if we could find translated copies of current Korean novels, or if we should just read whatever.

[love-allure.livejournal.com]

._. my time has come, i find it best to leave.

[szhuns.livejournal.com]

I've been laughing at this gif for a hundred years omg

[awsteven.livejournal.com]

lol gdi koreaboos. they just need to post their fetishizing fantasy shit on asianfanfic tbh

[torontok.livejournal.com]

our tongues wrapped around each other, dancing and stabbing”
the face just made at this.
This sounds liek some typical koreaboo, fetishistic shit, i'll pass
An Omona book club would be cool though. Maybe we could all read contemporary korean novels or even Kim Man Jung

[zombiechick815.livejournal.com]

That's what I was thinking. Are there many contemporary Korean novels that are translated to English?

[lysblack.livejournal.com]

oh lawd.

with said, the girl in the cover looks like scarlet johansson.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

Time to dust off some of my fanfic and send it to a publisher, if that can bring money I have a chance

[localised.livejournal.com]

lol I googled the book's publisher and I'm pretty sure this was self-published, which yeah... anyone can do. Although usually it's a financial loss to the author. :P

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

Anyone up for a book club?

I've been reading a lot lately but nothing k related so idk

[rennehollic.livejournal.com]

I just finished a book about Nero and other about roman civilization
I might not be the most fun

[atopworld.livejournal.com]

Book club with claasic and diverse literature?!?!? I've always wanted a book club!

[canxi.livejournal.com]

Lol, I've been reading J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy (the original Peter Pan story). It's pretty classic, lol, and really free on project gutenburg. It's on my e-reader, now. haha.

[suxaholic.livejournal.com]

no thanks the level of fetish-sizing is totally a turn off

[rennehollic.livejournal.com]

...........if this can get published it means my fanfictions can as well right? and maybe turn into a drama.
I shall work on it

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

I'd like a signed copy of your work <3

[jrt131n.livejournal.com]

Um....
Not my cup of tea....

[nnejck.livejournal.com]

lmao what is that gif from

[redgreendress.livejournal.com]

I think the book club idea is great, if there are enough omona members interested. I've read some translated bits of the novel that Coffee Prince was based on and I was really enjoying it. Also http://www.goodreads.com/genres/korean-fiction is a good place to start looking if you want to read an English transl of a modern Korean novel.

As for this Runaway Roommate thing, I suspect whoever reads it will die of second hand embarrassment before Chapter 3. I would.

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! I like your idea and thanks for the link.

[undeadkennedy.livejournal.com]

“…our tongues wrapped around each other, dancing and stabbing”

[rennehollic.livejournal.com]

that image is disturbing
poor tongues

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

this one seems a bit fetishy? but i like the idea of an omona book club lol

[zombiechick815.livejournal.com]

It was pretty fetishy, but I'm not sure if the others in the ~Kdrama chronicles~ are that bad because I know one of the book covers has two white people on it.

Help me get a book club started! It seems like a decent amount of people are interested!

[laeryn.livejournal.com]

I'd be up for a book club! It could be really interesting to read Korean novels/about Korea, I don't really care. I've read a little about NK and Korea's politics in general, but never Korean fiction D: so I'd love to~

[zombiechick815.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm going to research Korean fiction and see what options there are for us.

[redhandedjilll.livejournal.com]

Hate to break it to the author, but there's already a book about a white chick into k-dramas who starts courting a grouchy Korean man.

http://www.amazon.com/Bird-Fish-Adrienne-Leslie/dp/1419691929

And it wasn't that good, either.

[zombiechick815.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a lot of interest in a book club! Jia seems like an interesting book ^_^

[kaylaa7x.livejournal.com]

this book sounds like a hot ass mary-sue mess but good luck to you author person.

[gray-fairy.livejournal.com]

I mean, I'm glad that East Asian guys are finally being considered as attractive and sexual human beings instead of as the typical asexual martial artist or the unattractive geeky/nerdy guy like it happens in 99% of western movies and series (hate those shitty and offensive stereotypes with burning passion), but I hate this kind of fetishization too. One of my friends is exactly like that and she's obsessed with finding a cute Korean or Japanese boyfriend. She literally doesn't think about the possibility of having a partner of another ethnicity. Gross tbh.

[canxi.livejournal.com]

I'm not gonna lie, I try to get into trashy romance novels and the pacing and lack of just everything that makes a story good and readable always throws me. D: I've yet to find a well written one so I dunno why there are so many of them on the market????

Anyway, I would be interested in a book club even if it's at least to just check out what you guys are reading. I have a really long book list I have to go through D:

[jesymphony.livejournal.com]

If you're interested in trying some actually good trashy romance novels I can legit suggest some amazing authors/books/series for you.

[jesymphony.livejournal.com]

k guys brb I'm gonna publish my story about a girl who's actually a demon fox but she wants to be an idol so she's part of this high school and she gets bullied there but then a group of 4 implausibly good looking guys all start falling for her and the main guy is a makjang and a CEO and he has a tortured backstory that he needs the heroine to unravel cause she can see ghosts because she's a fox demon but she's too busy trying to make it as an idol and the second lead is a guitar-playing song-writing sunbae who gives her all the greatest songs and she's about to be famous so the third lead comes along to teach her to dance all while the fourth guy is in a corner and randomly professes his love while also being the head of her fanclub and it's all set in 1997

[embroideredkiss.livejournal.com]

dying laughing, tho I actually would read this.

[tempestdance.livejournal.com]

lulz scrolled down after not enough to make your hips big. what does that even mean?

this does remind me of something else though, how many korean dramas get accused of plagiarizing, often from fanfiction, and since these writers aren't published and would rather be anonymous (i mean the social stigma of writing slash fanfiction...), they can't do anything about their works being stolen right under their nose and bringing in the money. hong sisters are notorious for this, like with the greatest love and master's sun.

anyways i wish more korean novels were translated too but now i think about it i don't think koreans read too many novels, the popular korean literature i could think of right now are all like, self-help books that aren't really helpful at all. they have a raging boner (as do i) for bernard werber though.

[nrafx.livejournal.com]

your comment about kdramas plagiarising fanfic reminded me of that whole thing about how 49 days apparently copied a shinhwa fanfic lmao... i'm not sure if that was actually true or not but damn, now i want to know what other dramas maybe stole from fics. i never knew about the hong sisters thing, that's really interesting (i'd say surprising but then again, there are so many fanfics out there with kdrama-esque plots, it prob seems very easy to use one and get away with it).

[anonymous-loljk.livejournal.com]

yes please for book club.
also lol at trashy romance novels. smh at the rate growing korean fetish that made this kind of thing possible. people are actually publishing fanfiction into commercial releases in my country; even blatantly using a certain korean celebrity pictures on the cover (courtesy what?).

[shintotchi.livejournal.com]

I used to be into trashy romance novels...when I was in 8th grade. So relieved this was self-published. If this was picked up by an actual publisher, then I have no worries, and I should submit my book now. Foolishness -_-

[e-bone (from livejournal.com)]

What kind of Eleanor and Park realness is this

[jrt131n.livejournal.com]