Today I have the pleasure of being on the Frankly in Love blog tour. Earlier this month I reviewed this phenomenal #ownvoices story of family, identity, and expectations. But I wanted to do something creative for this graphic cover that I’ve fallen in love with!
Frankly in Love
High school senior Frank Li is a Limbo–his term for Korean-American kids who find themselves caught between their parents’ traditional expectations and their own Southern California upbringing. His parents have one rule when it comes to romance–“Date Korean”–which proves complicated when Frank falls for Brit Means, who is smart, beautiful–and white. Fellow Limbo Joy Song is in a similar predicament, and so they make a pact: they’ll pretend to date each other in order to gain their freedom. Frank thinks it’s the perfect plan, but in the end, Frank and Joy’s fake-dating maneuver leaves him wondering if he ever really understood love–or himself–at all.
Find Frankly in Love on Goodreads, Amazon, & The Book Depository.
My Frankly Basic Nail Art
Let me just preface this by saying I am no means a nail artist. I had to buy some of these polishes and borrow them from my friend. Nail art is something I always wish I was better at, but I cannot get my left hand (my non-dominant one) to cooperate. I was inspired by the graphic cover, specifically the dimensional shadows!
You want to start off with a pastel yellow base coat. I had to do about three coats for this look because my yellow was pretty streaky. Comment below if you have a favorite opaque yellow polish because I couldn’t find any! So make sure you get a good colored nail. That being said, if it still is a little streaky, most of the nail is going to be covered up.
First Layer
I had a total of dark blue, light blue, turquoise, a light green, and a dark green. Begin by painting the lightest color for each nail. I didn’t have enough surface area to do three different colors on every nail, so I had to pick two colors for the smaller nails.
I had thought I could try to do a more curved line, but when practicing I couldn’t do it reliably. For the sake of simplicity, I choose to just paint a straight line – but feel free to do whatever shape you choose!
Next comes your next layer of color. Paint another strip of color overlapping the first slightly. How much overlap is entirely your choice, I just tried to roughly divide my nails into thirds. I wanted the yellow to still peek through. Now for most of the nails you are done, unless you want to do a third stripe – which I did for my thumb.
And now that brings us to our final look! I’m really pleased with how it turned out and the mix between looking really good and how simple it is to actually complete it. That being said, I messed up about all of the nails once so this was a real labor of love – especially for the yellow nail polish. Because there are so many coats, you should let it dry for quite a while. Feel free to top it off with a top coat, or even some shimmer if you want!
However, if you are thinking, this is too hard to do on my other hand. I have a solution for you! Speaking as someone who knows it was too hard to do on my other hand (because I can’t draw a straight line). I choose to do polka dots that are the inverse color of the corresponding nail on the other hand. This may be a little confusing to describe without seeing the nails right next to each other. But for the nails choose the darkest color on each of your nails and then dot the lighter colors on your nails and voila!
About the Author
David Yoon grew up in Orange County, California, and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife, novelist Nicola Yoon, and their daughter. He drew the illustrations for Nicola’s #1 New York Times bestseller Everything, Everything. Frankly in Love is his first novel. You can visit him at davidyoon.com.
Tour Schedule
| September 9th: | Raf | The Royal Polar Bear Reads | Philippines |
| September 10th: | Dane | Ya Sh3lf | Germany |
| September 10th: | Noura | The Perks of Being Noura | Saudi Arabia |
| September 11th: | Jenny | Levicorpvs Blogs | Philippines |
| September 11th: | Fabian | Herrdreist | Germany |
| September 12th: | Kath | Kath Reads | Germany |
| September 13th: | Kevin | Bookevin | Malaysia |
| September 16th: | Melissa | The Reader and the Chef | Mexico |
| September 16th: | Meg | Bibliophilogy | Malaysia |
| September 17th: | Arbenit | Travel with a Book | Albania |
| September 17th: | Joshua | tsundoku_sempai | Philippines |
| September 18th: | Seji | The Artisan Geek | The Netherlands |
| September 18th: | Timo | Rainbookworld | Germany |
| September 19th: | Zshavette | Wander Lost Soul | Philippines |
| September 19th: | Catia | Ray of Books | Italy |
| September 20th: | Lili | Utopia State of Mind | Germany |
| September 20th: | Vivian | Bookish Angel | Philippines |
Very awesome nail art! I loved, loved this book and wish the author was coming to my area for a book signing. I’m looking forward to the next book already!
YAY! And thanks! I think it ended up turning out okay! ME TOO! I would get everything signed lol