Book review: 'Pippa Park Raises Her Game' is about a bratty girl who doesn't appreciate her culture, blessings, family, or anything else other than basketball

Erin Yun's debut book, Pippa Park Raises Her Game has a lot of potential. Yun's book is based loosely on Charles Dickens's Great Expectations so we already know she's dealing with an already-proven plot success. Heck, Dickens's main character was even named Pip.

Image from Pippapark.com

Unlike Pip, however, Pippa Park is Korean American. Her mom lives in South Korea, earning money to send home to Pippa and her sister, Mina. Pippa lives with Mina and her husband and goes to an average public junior high. Her grades aren't that great, but at least she's on the school basketball team. She has a good best friend and she can even earn a few extra dollars working at her Mina's laundromat.

But Pippa's life changes when she's given a scholarship to the ritzy Lakeview Private School. Pippa tries desperately to fit in. She lies about her past, ignores her best friend, and finds herself ashamed of, and hiding, her Korean heritage.

Then Pippa's life takes another turn when she starts receiving anonymous messages on Facebook from someone claiming to know all her secrets. Pippa starts getting worried as the heat is turned on.

Yun is a great writer and she knows her audience. However, reading about bratty Pippa gets old fast. I kept hoping Pippa would straighten up, or at least show some kind of moral compass. But it seems like the only thing Pippa has going for her is a talent in basketball and a brother-in-law who has the heart of an angel. Yes, Pippa finally does get her life together, but not until the end of the novel, and not before readers have probably already developed a profound disgust for her perpetual antics.

Pippa Park Raises Her Game has clean language and deals with a tween girl's coming of age (wait, can 7th graders really have a coming of age experience already?) story. Romance doesn't go beyond kids having crushes on each other and, while Pippa gets her comeuppance, she isn't a character I would ever want my own kids to look up to.

A native Texan, Yun lives in New York City.

Book breakdown:
247 pages
No illustrations
Best for ages: 9 through12
Educational factor: none
Moral content:extremely lacking
Parents could be concerned about: Pippa is a brat, not an upstanding main character