Welcome to Litsy!

This book doesn‘t know what it wants to be—a memoir? a love-letter to K-pop? a critique of K-pop?an indictment of politics, religion & fandom?—with the result that it is repetitious, surface level in its commentary, & ultimately, for me, disappointing. The author has a lot of opinions & offers them freely without any obvious knowledge of (or doing research on) what she is opining on which distracts from what could have been an interesting memoir.

As a #kpop and music nerd, this was a fantastic quick read. While I think some specialized knowledge of the industry is required to get the most out it emotionally, Kwon touches on misogyny, racism, diet culture, suicide & mental health, and so much more - tethering her own personal life journey to the idols she‘s adored.

I was approved for this nonfiction/semi memoir about #kpop and immediately had to cue it up same day. The author uses her fandom of various groups, mostly boy bands and solo female artists, to tell the story of her journey to adulthood.

Kpop will always be special to me. My first live concert from a Korean artist was JYJ back in 2010 — one of its 3 members has already been mentioned quite a bit in this book.