One of the most amusing things about this book is the amount of time seemingly dedicated to Jessica talking about how everybody loved how stylish Rachel was, like noting that a high-fashion photographer assumed she had her own line already and that everybody knows what a fashionista she is. Accelerating the timeline was a wise choice, as even moving the chess pieces to setup for the grand finale of Bright was painfully slow for the most part, so chronicling the “happy” years of Girls Forever would’ve likely been dreadful.

I had assumed that Jessica would milk the SNSD saga and save the juicy stuff for a third book, but surprisingly she skipped five ahead to where she and the group were already famous, describing Rachel as gaining confidence but also not feeling at home around her group for years. Much to my surprise, the payoff was indeed as dramatic as one only could’ve dreamed, with things rapidly escalating towards the end. Naturally, the interest for most from these YA-type novels from Jessica is obviously derived from getting a quasi-autobiographical honesty about the K-pop industry from somebody who actually used to be a star, and this one had the promise of an eventual payoff given what we know happened between her and the rest of SNSD.

Two years later its sequel Bright was finally released and it’s similarly readable but the stakes are now higher. When former SNSD member Jessica released her debut novel Shine, I blazed through it in one unadvisable caffeine-fueled night, but oddly enough it was surprisingly enjoyable for what it was.

Bright jessica jung review