A review by iotareads
Shine, by Jessica Jung

4.0

It is not the tell-all book everyone desperately wants it to be. It's a YA book about the crushingly devastating life of a teenage trainee trying to navigate evil corporate and misogynistic system just to survive and live her dream. The main protagonist is a teenage girl so it's understandable that she makes the wrong choices sometimes. So is the antagonist, whose character is built from trying to survive the system as well. It's no doubt a page turner but I personally think the pace could be better and the problems could be more elaborated instead of brushed over as soon as a new problem arises. But maybe that's also a reflection of how chaotic a teenage mind is. I wish there were more of Kang Jina, her character is one of the most important ones in terms of moving the plot and having the key answers to Rachel's current dilemmas. All in all, I hope the unanswered things in this book will be elaborated in the sequel!

I've seen articles and youtube videos trying to relate the antagonist to SNSD member and paint Jessica in a vengeful light but there is no one member that you can connect with Mina, so I wish people would just actually read this book!