Esther Yi
Books
Y/N -- Esther Yi - Hardcover
Vulture, "Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2023"
Elle, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023
Entertainment Weekly, A "Not to Miss" in 2023
Esquire, A Best Book of Winter 2023
Cosmopolitan, "Best Books of 2023 so far"
The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023
Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023
Goodreads, A Buzziest Debut Novel of the Year 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 boyband, 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. As Y/N flies from Berlin to Seoul to be with Moon, our narrator, too, journeys to Korea in search of the object of her love. An escalating series of mistranslations and misidentifications lands 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.
Author: Esther Yi
Publisher: Astra House
Published: 03/21/2023
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.35h x 5.59w x 0.94d
ISBN: 9781662601538
Review Citation(s):
Booklist 11/01/2022 pg. 49
Publishers Weekly 12/19/2022
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2023
Elle, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023
Entertainment Weekly, A "Not to Miss" in 2023
Esquire, A Best Book of Winter 2023
Cosmopolitan, "Best Books of 2023 so far"
The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023
Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023
Goodreads, A Buzziest Debut Novel of the Year 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 boyband, 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. As Y/N flies from Berlin to Seoul to be with Moon, our narrator, too, journeys to Korea in search of the object of her love. An escalating series of mistranslations and misidentifications lands 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.
Author: Esther Yi
Publisher: Astra House
Published: 03/21/2023
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.35h x 5.59w x 0.94d
ISBN: 9781662601538
Review Citation(s):
Booklist 11/01/2022 pg. 49
Publishers Weekly 12/19/2022
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2023
About the Author
Esther Yi was born in Los Angeles in 1989 and currently lives in Leipzig, Germany.
Product Attributes: Absurdist, Asian American, Astra House, Esther Yi, Fiction, Fiction - General, Hardcover, Literary