Good Enough
Description
Paula Yoo scores big in a hilarious YA coming of age novel about an overachiever who longs to fit in and strives to stand out. The pressure is on!
How to make your Korean parents happy:
1. Get a perfect score on the SATs.
2. Get into HarvardYalePrinceton.
3. Don't talk to boys.*
Patti's parents expect nothing less than the best from their Korean-American daughter. In this story of intense academic pressure, everything she does affects her chances of getting into an Ivy League school. So winning assistant concertmaster in her All-State violin competition and earning less than 2300 on her SATs is simply not good enough.
But Patti's discovering that there's more to life than the Ivy League. To start with, there's a first crush on Cute Trumpet Guy. He's funny, he's talented, and he looks exactly like the lead singer of Patti's favorite band. Then, of course, there's her love of the violin. Not to mention cool rock concerts. And anyway, what if Patti doesn't want to go to HarvardYalePrinceton after all?
*Boys will distract you from your studies.
- Funny YA Books: Follow Patti's hilarious and painfully relatable lists on how to please her parents-and what happens when she starts breaking all the rules.
- Korean American Protagonist: A heartfelt and witty look at the life of an ambitious Korean-American teen navigating the immense pressure to be the "Perfect Korean Daughter."
- High School Romance: He's the Cute Trumpet Guy who plays in rock bands; she's the classical violinist who's not supposed to talk to boys.
- Overachiever Protagonist: For a girl who's a concert-level violinist and valedictorian contender, Patti Yoon still has to figure out what it means to be good enough for herself.
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From Paula Yoo:
Okay, I admit it. Like Patti Yoon, I play the violin. Yes, I was concertmaster of my Connecticut All-State High School Orchestra. And I snuck out occasionally to see a couple of cool bands (sorry, Mom & Dad). But this novel is a work of fiction. Although I too was forced to undergo a really bad home perm, it burned my left ear, not my right. And there was a cute guy in my homeroom who played rock guitar and asked me to work on a few songs with him, but his name was not Ben Wheeler.
When I'm not writing novels that allegedly have nothing to do with my personal life, I also write TV scripts. I was born in Virginia and grew up in Connecticut. I've also lived in Seoul, South Korea; New York; Seattle; and Detroit. I now live in Los Angeles with my husband, who plays guitar—and yes, we jam occasionally, just like Patti and Ben.