K-Drama Rules in “I Believe In A Thing Called Love”

In I Believe In A Thing Called Love, by Maurene Goo, when overachieving high schooler Desi Lee gets a crush on a new classmate, Luca, she determines that all she needs is a good, solid plan to land her first boyfriend. Her father’s beloved Korean soap operas, er, dramas, provide all the steps she needs to put her plan into action.

Her plan is a little bit crazy, but Desi is determined to succeed. (By the way, if you’re wondering why Desi doesn’t sound like any Korean names you’ve heard, it’s because her parents choose her English name after Desi Arnaz.) So, whether she’s staging a car accident, convincing her pal Wes to be her Second Male Lead pretend boyfriend, or untying a boat to drift out to sea, Desi follows the beats of a K-drama, no matter the cost.

I Believe In A Thing Called Love starts out like a typical high school YA.  I’d already gotten to see her watching TV with her Appa, studying with her friends, and suffering flailure (flirting failure, obvs). so by the time Desi starts doing truly crazy stuff, I already cared for this character enough to roll with it. Besides, some of the novel’s beats are a cute tribute to K-drama staples, like when Desi conveniently overhears a very important private conversation, while trapped with her rival.

Still, there were a couple twists that felt a little too rom-com for me. I’ve never really connected with the part in rom-coms where the couple has a fight for no reason, I know it’s a genre staple but ugh. Just talk to each other like normal people! So, the part where Luca flipped out at Desi just felt less like an actual argument and more like a labored set-up for a dramatic reconciliation.

But it’s such a fun dramatic reconciliation (PROM), and such a fun book.

Pairs well with the Netflix series Dramatown, a TV show riffing on the specific scenes and beats of K-dramas. Dramatown is about an American girl who loves Korean dramas and falls into a world of drunken piggybacks and romantic misunderstandings. Also works with My So-Called Bollywood Life, in which an American-born teen looks for romantic guidance from Bollywood films.