Studying -- parent pressure -- peer pressure -- grades -- college applications -- if this all sounds too heavy and boring for YAs over summer, you're wrong. Think Korean. A young lady comes to San Francisco for her final high school year so she can get her grades up to apply for the best colleges. Seoul's schools are notoriously high-pressure, and Jisu isn't sure what she wants to do. She just knows that she loves photography. Oh, and that her traditional family is setting up an account with a Korean matchmaker. Poor Jisu is going to endure 29 DATES with second and third generation Korean-American boys during this extremely funny, complex and inspiring book.

At first, I admit, the words I didn't know meant it felt like I was working. But they're well explained, maybe on the second time of using. And who doesn't want to get an insight into another culture? Seon or matchmaking blind dates are imposed on Jisu with a one-sheet, like a brief resume, for each boy. They are into tennis or physics, their parents are economics professors and art directors, literally overachievers hoping their kids will marry very, very well. But the guys are normal teens (if wealthy), some of them nice, some boring, conceited, cheap. They go to the movies, the park, for lunch, whatever other 17-year-olds do on first dates. Most of them don't even speak Korean.

And then there's high school. Living with a host family and mixing with a variety of students gives Jisu new experiences, and she can still FaceTime with her friends at home. She can even meet boys she likes for real. And the lovely family of a schoolmate can make her kimchi and banchan any time she's homesick, which does happen pretty often, because Jisu is only 17, and a long way from her parents and beloved, supportive grandfather.

The author Melissa de la Cruz explains at the end that seon dating would normally happen at college age, but she has involved this facet of Korean culture to bring home to YAs what pressures a young student can feel. On one hand, Jisu isn't obliged to get engaged, and she has ready-made contacts and an excuse to get out and have fun. On the other, she has so much study to cope with that adding another obligation makes the frequent meetings a chore. I thoroughly enjoyed Jisu's story, and she started to feel very real. 29 DATES by Melissa de la Cruz must be the best culture-clash story for Young Adults this year, so get ready to start speaking a few words of Korean. And if you do have a Korean background, you'll probably laugh until you cry.