Book Review of #2 Sea and Sky by Adrienne Leslie
Author: Adrienne Leslie
ISBN: 978-1-4392-4097-7
Publisher: BookSurge publishing
Part of a Series: Bird and fish prequel
Type of book: Korean dramas, adult, romance, 2007, interracial relationship asian male/white female
Year it was published: 2008
Summary:
Cancer survivor Wendy Dale has been busy healing others; her alcoholic husband, her chronically ill daughter and cantankerous mother. No wonder she took a Korean lover. But Hyun Jae Won returned to Korea leaving Wendy unable to heal herself. After discovering her good friend Libby Spring abandoned a baby in Taegu, Korea years earlier, Wendy offers to make the six thousand mile journey to locate Libby's now-grown son. Finally, she has an excuse to find her soul mate. Now, if she can only find out why she's trhowing-up every morning.
The eye opening, jaw dropping second book in Adrienne Leslie's Bird and Fish Duology, is finally out. Only this time, in Sea and Sky, the flames of love aren't smoldering. They're burning the house down.
Characters:
The characters are on the flat side unfortunately. I didn't understand Kang Koja's motivations or reasons in trying to date Hyun Jae Won, even though the author tried to explain it. Also, she was too evil. Personally in Korean dramas I identified more with villains than heroes/heroines, or rather more with secondary characters than main characters. Unfortunately secondary characters always got lousy endings, and in this book it's no different. Again I had a difficult time liking or identifying with Wendy Dale, I'm not sure why.
Theme:
Love inspires changes is one theme I understood.
Plot:
This was written in third omniscient point of view from practically every single character within the book. There are some things that she left unresolved such as a hopeful meeting with Libby's son and Wendy and Sarah, or perhaps wedding between Wendy and Jae would have been interesting, or Jane finding out about her future sibling. Although the factoids of few things here and there were interesting, they didn't add anything to the story, sad to say.
Author Information:
Adrienne Leslie was raised in New York’s ethnic mélange called Brownville, Brooklyn. The first born in a large extended family, she was more comfortable in the company of adults than playmates. She attended New York City public schools till high school when dramatic changes in Leslie’s family’s economic status placed her in the exclusive Eron Preparatory School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The easy life was short lived with the sudden death of her father. Using her tenacity to keep her family intact, Leslie graduated CW Post College earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education and a Master of Science degree in Reading
In 1990, she began teaching advanced English classes in Little Neck when the Asian-American student population became the largest in the district. As a way to connect with her students, she kept up with the latest Korean melodramas which quickly grew into her own passion.
She is a self-taught Korean speaker and writer and has worked tirelessly for the Korean American educational community. An award winning grant writer, she was named English Educator of Excellence for the state of New York in 1996 and in 2003 was invited by the South Korean government as New York’s educational ambassador. Soon after, she wrote of her experiences for The Korea Times.
Often appearing on Korean television and radio both in the US and Korea, she recently enjoyed a season on Radio Korea as ‘The English Teacher.’ Leslie’s newly completed, Sea and Sky, the second of the stories in her Bird and Fish Trilogy is due out in 2010. As an insomniac who writes in the predawn hours, Ms. Leslie lives in eastern Queens with her husband and family dog.
Opinion:
Compared to Bird and Fish this is much improved. For one thing there's not a lot of product placement and the book looks normal and is separated normally. Still though, this book is not my cup of tea. Miss Wendy Dale, to me anyways, is still painted as a Mary Sue and unfortunately the author chooses to ignore a few resolutions in the book such as meeting of a certain character and learning the truth.
2 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)
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