Y/N: A Novel
Written by Esther Yi
Narrated by Greta Jung
3/5
()
About this audiobook
Surreal, hilarious, and shrewdly poignant—a novel about a Korean American woman living in Berlin whose obsession with a K-pop idol sends her to Seoul on a journey of literary self-destruction.
It’s as if her life only began once Moon appeared in it. The desultory copywriting work, the boyfriend, and the want of anything not-Moon quickly fall away when she beholds the idol in concert, where Moon dances as if his movements are creating their own gravitational field; on live streams, as fans from around the world comment in dozens of languages; even on skincare products endorsed by the wildly popular Korean boy band, of which Moon is the youngest, most luminous member. Seized by ineffable desire, our unnamed narrator begins writing Y/N fanfic—in which you, the reader, insert [Your/Name] and play out an intimate relationship with the unattainable star.
Then Moon suddenly retires, vanishing from the public eye. She stumbles into total disorientation. As Y/N flies from Berlin to Seoul to be with Moon, our narrator, too, journeys in search of the object of her love. In Korea, an escalating series of mistranslations and misidentifications land her at the headquarters of the Kafkaesque entertainment company that manages the boyband until, at a secret location, together with Moon at last, art and real life approach their final convergence.
From a conspicuous new talent comes Y/N, a provocative literary debut about the universal longing for transcendence and the tragic struggle to assert one’s singular story amidst the amnesiac effects of globalization. Crackling with the intellectual sensitivity of Elif Batuman and the sinewy absurdism of Thomas Pynchon, Esther Yi’s prose unsettles the boundary between high and mass art, exploding our expectations of a novel about “identity” and offering in its place a sui generis picture of the loneliness that afflicts modern life.
Editor's Note
Most anticipated…
Dubbed one of the most anticipated releases of the year by outlets like Literary Hub, Esquire, and Entertainment Weekly, Yi’s fervent debut follows a Korean American copywriter who becomes entranced with a K-pop star. “Y/N” moves from Berlin to Seoul and between reality and fanfiction, exploring how art and fandom shape our sense of self.
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Reviews for Y/N
73 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It was ok but not the best book I read
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5amazing, surreal, poetic. i loved this, will be thinking ab this book for a very long time.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a brilliant Hitchcockian, Kafkaesque, Wizard-of-Oz novel and the reader is fantastic, appropriately deadpan (while shifting wonderfully into different characters). Sink for several hours into this dream of Berlin and Seoul. It will linger on the backs of your knees…
1 person found this helpful