"My Summer In Seoul": K-Pop-Set Novel To Get TV Adaptation

[waves-of-light.livejournal.com]

Will Yun Lee and Mark and Christine Holder’s Seoul Street and 04 Entertainment have preemptively nabbed the rights to My Summer in Seoul, bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken’s forthcoming romance novel set in the competitive world of K-Pop, to adapt as a television series. A search is out for a female Asian American writer to pen the adaptation.

The project comes amid a recent rise in the popularity of Korean dramas worldwide that culminated in the success of Squid Game on Netflix, which has become a global phenomenon.

My Summer in Seoul, set to be released later this fall, follows Korean-American Grace Lee as she embarks on a life-changing trip to Seoul working for her uncle’s record label. Her life changes as she begins an internship with one of the biggest KPOP bands in the world. As she builds friendships with the members, and starts to fall for one guy in particular, she soon realizes that she’s living her own K-Drama come to life and while she wants happily ever after, she just might end up with a hard lesson learned.

In the series, described as Emily in Paris meets To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Lee follows her dreams all the way to Korea to work as an intern at one of the biggest record labels in the world. Brought up by her Korean dad and her gorgeous blonde hair blue eyed mom-this is the first time Grace Lee has been out the country and able to experience her heritage first hand. The minute she gets off the plane to start her three-month internship she feels like she’s finally come home, that is until she meets the other intern who’s going to be training her. Solia takes one look at Grace and worries she’s going to get fired, after all Grace wasn’t what anyone was expecting. Grace is wearing the wrong clothes, her hair looks like a bird nested in it then died from asphyxiation and she doesn’t speak any of the language. What’s even worse, is that Grace soon learns that the entire production company is in panic mode-meaning she gets to meet everyone right away-Nike sweats, messy bun, and all. She tries to think about the positive as she’s brought to a gorgeous apartment building but soon realizes she should have asked more questions about what her internship required of her.

Jet lagged and starving, she meets up with her Uncle Siu-the CEO of the company-as well as five gorgeous men who all seem to be close to her age. She wonders why they look so familiar and within minutes has the answer. She’s standing in front of one of the worlds biggest K-pop groups SWT. And her new internship includes making sure none of them escape the apartment before their big showcase, along with guarding the door so the band lead doesn’t attempt suicide-again.

Lee, Mark Holder and Christine Holder produce for Seoul Street, along with Colet Abedi, Jasmine Abedi & Brian Zagorski for 04.

Seoul Street currently has Aloha MotherF**ker, a drama series based on Jason Ryan’s best-selling novel Hell-Bent, set at HBO Max. On the feature side, the company has Lions in the Garden in development with Kevin Hart’s HartBeat Productions.

04 Entertainment has scripted project Nurturing, Healing Love set at Lifetime, The Royals Next Door with Wonder Street at Hallmark Channel, and Dying To Be Me in development with Wonder Street. The production company also has also partnered with The Content Group on a scripted series with Wall Street Journal bestselling author Nana Malone and another based on K.A. Tucker’s One Tiny Lie, among other projects.







I have never heard of this book before. Please don't make me do a book club on this. Please.


source: deadline

Comments

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

Her uncle is the CEO of one of the biggest Kpop companies and hires her as an intern yet she has no idea about the language, the culture and his artists? And of course she as the intern has to take care of them and make sure they don't escape their dorm? Sounds legit.


Anyways can Sica drop her second book already? And where the netflix fim about Shine?

[memei5.livejournal.com]

Brought up by her Korean dad and her gorgeous blonde hair blue eyed mom
i dislike this

Grace is wearing the wrong clothes, her hair looks like a bird nested in it then died from asphyxiation and she doesn’t speak any of the language.
so she shows up on the first day looking a hot mess and not speaking the language? girl...your choices!

She tries to think about the positive as she’s brought to a gorgeous apartment building but soon realizes she should have asked more questions about what her internship required of her.
so she accepts an internship and moves country without even knowing what she's required to do? must be nice to be wealthy and free of burdens!

And her new internship includes making sure none of them escape the apartment before their big showcase
my god, wattpad 1d fanfiction had better premise set up than this

along with guarding the door so the band lead doesn’t attempt suicide-again
EXCUSE ME??? what.

overall i think i could potentially read/watch this if i was tipsy and doing it with a friend so we could laugh at it otherwise...this is a laughable concept



also this is probably not my space to say but even the cover with the lead looking like a regular old blonde white girl is very side-eye worthy to me - even when the book is set in asia, the main lead still needs to be biracial and white-passing?

[mortkero.livejournal.com]

Sounds exactly like a book written by a non Asian.

Eww at the extra emphasis on "gorgeous blonde hair blue eyed mom"

[xoxkenzxox.livejournal.com]

I checked and...yeah....Rachel Van Dyken.

[memei5.livejournal.com]

yep that makes sense!

[em-cavey.livejournal.com]

[infj23.livejournal.com]

The audacity

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

MTE, I... it's odd

[xoxkenzxox.livejournal.com]

hahaha! it's as if I copied your comment below.
100% same thoughts.



The cover is like a Nicholas Sparks cover (white people almost kissing) which is messed up considering it's supposed to be Koreans but OK.

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Agree with all of this

[em-cavey.livejournal.com]

even when the book is set in asia, the main lead still needs to be biracial and white-passing?

Yeah there's a lot to be said about how asian characters in western media, if they're not FOBs or other stereotypes, are often biracial and in film/TV are frequently played by biracial/multiracial actors, who could often pass for other races. They don't want them to be too asian.

I mean, idk if that's specifically the case for this book but it doesn't look promising lol

[memei5.livejournal.com]

it's the same with black characters as well, especially on netflix. they always always cast light-skinned or biracial actresses - somehow zazie beetz is going to portray stagecoach mary and zoe saldana played nina simone

it's like poc are cool as characters but they can't be too asian/black/latina for white audiences to digest

[em-cavey.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely, and holy shit I forgot about that Zoe Saldana / Nina Simone mess 0_O How did anyone think that was a good idea

Even in Crazy Rich Asians, which is one of maybe three asian-centric movies Hollywood’s ever made, had a lot of half-white actors. Like no one's trying to deny multiracial Asian identities but so much of anti-Asian racism comes from westerners thinking we're weird-looking, and filling our very few visible media representations with too many Caucasian-ish faces reinforces that clusterfuck of a discourse. I'm so thankful, if that's even the right word, that To All the Boys actually cast a full-Asian actress even though that character was ALSO half-white in the book -_- I mean, things are getting better but they've got a looong-ass way to go

[frequency.livejournal.com]

this sounds horrible 😬

[xoxkenzxox.livejournal.com]

Wait. what?

Brought up by her Korean dad and her gorgeous blonde hair blue eyed mom
This disturbs me for some reason.

she doesn’t speak any of the language
Smart to get an internship in a foreign country then...*eyeroll*

Uncle Siu-the CEO of the company
Naturally you have to have some nepotism.

along with guarding the door so the band lead doesn’t attempt suicide-again
That's freaking dark. Let me guess, she falls in love with this one and she becomes his strength to get over his depression.





This reminds me. I still need to read Jessica's book.

[nefertitii.livejournal.com]

this sounds like ff written by a 14 year old. the premise is just.... she has to guard them? lol

SWT really.

and the cover is horrendous. im offended.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

What in the bad Mary Sue fanfic hell is this?! Hahaahahah

[921227.livejournal.com]

This sounds subpar even for the genre. Will not recommend for the Omona book club

[ginger-star.livejournal.com]

When did bad fanfiction become ok to be actually published? jesssuusss

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Fifty Shades of Gray is when

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Of all the K-pop novels they could pick and it’s this one and not, say, XOXO by Axie Oh which didn’t read like bad fanfiction and was actually fun and also handled Korean culture really well (no surprise given that the author has Korean heritage).

If we’re gonna do a book club, I vote XOXO.

[daynr.livejournal.com]

Coming here to request OP choose a more appropriate (but not too heavy) book for us instead...

OP, winter break is coming up and you got a recommended book! New years club?

[imahurricane.livejournal.com]

'her Korean dad and her gorgeous blonde hair blue eyed mom' ew. the novel sounds k-boo-ish.

[em-cavey.livejournal.com]

ㅅㅂ 이 무슨 정성스런 개소리냐ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

I don’t have the energy for this colonizing fetishizing bullshit today so