This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park

Soo-Ja Choi desperately wants to move to Seoul so that she can study to become a diplomat. Her father won't allow this, and the only way Soo-Ja can see of getting there requires marrying a man she does not love, but who might want to move to Seoul.

However, on the eve of her wedding, another man proposes to Soo-Ja, and this time it's a man that she does love. Soo-Ja follows through with her wedding, but the other man that proposed will drift in and out of her life, reminding Soo-Ja of her choice and what could have been, had she chosen him.

Sounds like an interesting plot, eh? However, the character of Soo-Ja and the defining choice she made about which man to marry never seemed solid to me. This, along with some other events in the book that didn't quite make sense, made it seem like the story was built on a faulty and fragile foundation.

Instead of just an okay book, I think this could have been a great book. I want to sit down with the author and say, "Hey, let's think through some of these things a little bit more." And then send him back to the writing board because this really could have been a great book.