I Didn’t Love This Book and I Still Bought a Copy
Here’s the truth about Temporary Wife Temptation by Jayci Lee. I thought it was fine. Harlequin allowed me to read it via NetGalley. I didn’t love it, but I still bought my own copy. Why?
As an Asian American reader, it feels important to demonstrate to publishers there is money in romance written by an Asian American author. To prove that success doesn’t only come from white readers validating Asian American work. Even when I was super let down by TWT’s half-Korean heroine.
Temporary Wife Temptation is the first romance in recent memory with two real Asian appearing models in a clinch on the cover of a book written by a Korean American author. No pagodas, no concubines, no mis-identified use of kimonos or cheongsams, no whitewashing of Asian features on an illustrated cover. That’s (some) progress.
Upfront, let me say: the book delivers solid execution on the marriage of convenience trope with plenty of steam and good grovel late in the story.
But the heartbreaker is, the Asian American rep is a bit of a mixed bag for me.
Garrett Song is the heir apparent to his family’s fashion business, but to clinch the CEO spot, he needs to satisfy his grandmother’s demand that he take a wife. But before his grandmother can arrange someone for him, Garrett takes matters into his own hands and approaches Natalie, the director of HR at the company, with a proposition. She has her own reasons for getting into a marriage of convenience — adopting her niece. Lines blur between real and fake as they spend more time together.
Garrett’s family carries most of the representation in the story. Grandmother is a strong, opinionated matriarch, like every mom who lays it down. Garrett’s operating under the weight of familial expectations. And it’s so familiar. Culture is a reassuring anchor, and can be a hindrance at the same time.
But who we need to talk about is Natalie, the other love interest in the story.
Natalie is half Korean, but has little connection to her heritage since she doesn’t really remember her mother and was raised by her white dad, who seems to have wanted little to do with her.
And this is where I I felt so let down. As a mixed race person, to me Natalie was effectively a stand-in for a white heroine.
Ideally, Natalie’s distance or disconnection from her Korean culture would be used to represent and recognize the varied experiences mixed race people have based on where and with whom we grew up. But there’s none of that depth. It didn’t read or feel that way. It was more like hedging a bet. It felt like a device to make this romance accessible to white readers. She’s Korean, but not really.
Garrett asks, “Are you familiar with Korean culture? (p.43)
It’s early on and and I thought, “What? Isn’t she Korean?” Then I thought, is he mansplaining Korean culture to her? And then I realized…is that question really for Natalie OR THE READER?
The exchange continues, “She sighed with a sheepish shrug. ‘I’m half Korean but all I know about our culture comes from K-drama.’” Again, Natalie is a surrogate.
This undermines the whole story. At this early stage, why would Garrett ask her that if she’s Korean? Is she actually white passing?
People who are multi-ethnic and multi-racial all have different experiences in the world, but Temporary Wife Temptation doesn’t actually seem to be for Korean Americans, or Asians or Asian-identifying readers, regardless of the faces on the cover. And what’s most surprising is that it’s coming from an #ownvoices author. It’s a head-scratcher.
Temporary Wife Temptation itself ends up ranking 3 or 3.5 stars. All I know is that I’m interested in seeing what Jayci Lee’s stories look like in other hands. She has another book, A Sweet Mess, coming this summer from SMP Romance. Stay tuned.
