The Name Drop

The Name Drop by Susan Lee

A Korean-American girl is looking forward to an internship with a big Korean company in New York. She thinks this will allow her to get a good recommendation to get scholarships to go to college. Her family cannot afford the school, but are not poor enough for financial aid. She has a challenge of over-sharing when under stress. When she goes to check in for her flight she goes in on details, which end up with her showing her id with her korean name. In the airport she also notices a dapper Korean guy.

The dapper Korean guy is the teenage son of the CEO of the company. He is going to HQ for a special internship for children of executives. However, his Korean name is the same as the Korean name of the girl. When he checks in, he gets the seat in the back that she was supposed to have, while she gets the first class seat. She ends up being picked up by the chauffeur and taken to the townhome, while he ends up joining the intern group in the cramped apartment and the minimum wage internship.

They eventually meet to discuss the situation and realize that both of them like it. The girl works to achieve with her responsibilities. He likes to be a regular guy.

The interns put together a hackathon for the company. It is a success, perhaps too much. The CEO shows up. He acts nice to the girl and offers her a scholarship, but also fires his father. The boy is in the bad grace of his father but still gets strings pulled to go to UCLA. In the epilogue, they meet again. Will the romance go somewhere.

The book is a light, superificial story of teenageers going through challenging situation. It showcases the masculine, patriarchal culture in Korean business. Is it still this bad? The boy and girl have a "trading places" vibe. It seems the company has a lot of talented people that are not listened to while those in authority are underqualified.