Give Me A Reason By Jayci Lee

2 out of 5 stars (and the yearning did all the heavy lifting )

Give Me a Reason is a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, following Korean-American actress Anne Lee as she returns to the  U.S. and reconnects with her first love, firefighter Frederick Nam, ten years after breaking up to save her family from bankruptcy. It’s a contemporary second-chance romance with lots, and I mean LOTS, of yearning. 

I hate to say this, but I genuinely think that the cover art might just be the best part of the book.

The more I think about it, the more it feels…rushed. Which is frustrating because there was SO MUCH POTENTIAL. The first half had me in my FEELS. The yearning, the tension, and the emotional charge made it easy to get attached to the characters. As someone who can binge 20+ K-dramas, I’m usually pretty good with yearning and angst and unresolved longing that takes forever to be communicated, so I was pretty invested.

Anne gives very soft vibes, and you can just tell Frederick is down bad, LIKE REALLY DOWN BAD, and they never really got over each other. The habits that fell back into place when they met again were super sweet, and it felt as though we could reminisce about their relationship with them.

Then the second half happened.

It just got harder to follow with inconsistencies and unnecessary plot filler. It felt like the story either ran out of ideas, the writer got impatient, or there were just not enough pages to fully flesh out Anne and Frederick’s relationship. It was kind of annoying for them to get married a few pages after getting back together. Seriously, it had been 10 years since they last interacted, and there were so many unresolved feelings and miscommunications. I really wanted to see them rediscover the new versions of each other, not only reminiscing about how they were in the past. Instead, the long-awaited emotional conversation between them just…never happened. 

There were also so many miscommunications that lingered and never really resolved themselves, besides assumptions that they had moved past it, making it more frustrating than anything.

There were also questionable side plots that felt underdeveloped. Andrew’s appearance was out of the blue and served no real purpose besides a second option that wasn’t really an option. Anne’s aunt, Mrs. Hong, who had been the ENTIRE reason for Anne’s initial breakup with Frederick but the resolution got less than 3 sentences. There could have been so much more genuine conflict with that, yet there just… wasn't. 

We also assume that everyone finds out about Katie’s pregnancy, but there was never a proper reveal, especially after emphasizing the secrecy and how it is meant to be a turning point in Anne and Katie’s friendship. Similarly, Anne never realized that Frederick was not interested in Bethany or Tessa (although it was pretty obvious); instead, it was just a push-pull relationship until both girls conveniently found their own partners.

Overall, I just wanted to see more character growth for each character and developed scenes, especially because the first half was so good. 

Despite all this, the letters that gave us insight into Frederick’s years of healing are easily the strongest point. Turning this into their way of confessing was absolutely adorable, even though there were some loose ends. The letters capture an emotional depth that I wish had been developed in their present-day relationship.

Tropes include:

• Second-chance romance

• Forced proximity

• Emotional anguish

• Miscommunication