A Delicious Career & Romantic Reset
In which our heroine reads So We Meet Again and gets hungry!
The protagonist of Suzanne Park’s So We Meet Again, Jessie Kim, has spent most of her twenties working around the clock to prove herself at an elite Wall Street investment firm only to find herself laid off at the first sign of trouble at the company. To make matters worse, she soon realizes that she has been laid off because of her race and gender, while the white, male beneficiaries of nepotism have been promoted.
The sexism and racism at Jessie’s Wall Street firm is blood-boiling (for both Jessie and the reader), and while she isn’t at the firm beyond the first chapter, the frustration the experience inspires influences her actions as she strikes out on her own. To complicate things further, when she moves back in with her parents in Nashville, she reconnects with her middle school rival, Daniel Choi—and as she begins working on a new business idea, she can’t quite tell if he is helping or hurting her efforts.
Daniel Choi is a fun love interest; in Jessie’s memories from middle school, he is the annoying kid with a bowl cut whose accomplishments her parents would constantly compare against hers. When she runs into him at the grocery store, he has transformed into a tall, broad-backed, successful Venture Capital dude. Though Jessie is reluctantly attracted to him, she can’t help but feel resentful of his success, especially since she is feeling lost and unsure of her own life. But as they keep encountering each other, sparks continue to fly.
Jessie resurrects her old YouTube cooking channel, Hanguk Hacks, in which she demonstrates how to add Korean flavors to the bland dinners from meal subscription services. As she throws herself into making her channel a full-time job, she inadvertently makes her parents—especially her mother—secondary YouTube stars. The development of her relationship with her parents is really lovely and touching, and for me was one of the highlights of Jessie’s story.
The importance of all kinds of relationships—not just romantic ones—is crucial to the novel. Jessie realizes that while she was on Wall Street, she let work completely take over her life. Back in Nashville, in addition to bonding with her parents over Hanguk Hacks, she is able to reconnect with her childhood best friend and has an adorable friend-meet-cute with a woman delivering her groceries, while also maintaining her friendships with the former coworkers she left behind in New York.
If we’re being technical, So We Meet Again is probably better classified as Women’s Fiction* than as Romance, since while there is a satisfying love story with a happy ending, the central focus of the novel is really Jessie’s journey to recover from her experience on Wall Street and make Hanguk Hacks into a success. But it is a satisfying journey, and incredibly joyful to be along for the ride as Jessie learns what makes her happy–her friends, her family, making and sharing food, and, it turns out, Daniel Choi.
*Women’s Fiction is a marketing term that really drives me crazy, but that is probably best left for a different discussion.
Read This If You Liked:
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne for the rivals to lovers plotline
Must Love Books by Shauna Robinson or Would Like To Meet by Rachel Winters for the soul-searching about finding a career
More From Suzanne Park:
The only other novel from Suzanne Park that I’ve read is Loathe at First Sight, which follows a young woman working to prove herself at a video game company dealing with the frustrations of sexism, nepotism, and an intern she might be falling for. If you enjoy So We Meet Again, make sure to check out this one, too!
She is also the author of two YA novels, Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous and The Perfect Escape