Review by Booklist Review
Intensely compelling, courageous, joyful, and illuminating, food and culture writer Kwon's first book grounds itself in the experience of being a bbasooni, a super fan of the musical genre K-pop. Each chapter traces the career of a K-Pop artist or group, such as H.O.T., BoA, TVXQ, and Shinhwa, in an industry that demands much from its stars, often problematically. Kwon's willingness to embrace her ambivalence will fascinate readers. She writes, "K-pop isn't perfect, and, in many ways, it fills me with so much rage because of how misogynistic and toxic it can be, but it also provides me with so much joy and hope." Ultimately, K-pop helps Kwon explore parts of herself--the bodyshaming she endured, the reasons she lied to her family, her plastic surgery, and the experience of visiting Korea as the child of immigrants. K-pop is also a way for Kwon to explore the geopolitical and psychosocial history of Korea. Kwon may even undersell her project as "notes from a K-pop fan;" this is truly razor-sharp cultural criticism that will give readers a more profound understanding of Korean history. The book combines a musicologist's researched, nuanced detail with the broad, big-picture analysis of a cultural historian.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This perceptive debut from food writer Kwon folds piercing examinations of fandom and Korean pop culture into a candid self-portrait. In five sections, each named after a notable K-pop performer, Kwon nimbly interweaves descriptions and critiques of the K-pop machine with her memories of growing up as a second-generation Korean American in 1990s Los Angeles. With her punchy and accessible prose, Kwon delivers a primer on the intensity of K-pop fandom, sharing how the thinness and plastic surgery--enhanced beauty of the genre's stars affected her body image as a teenager ("I just didn't have the perseverance these girls did, and isn't that what was wrong with me?"). Along the way, she also catalogs the friendships she's formed with "found family" who share her passion for the music. While the focus stays mainly on K-pop, Kwon's digestible overviews of Korean history--including the continued cultural fallout from Japan's colonization of Korea in the early 20th century--and her fluency in broader pop trends lend the proceedings extra dimension and relevance. This entertaining blend of criticism and personal history will captivate even those who've never pressed play on a K-pop track. (Mar.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A front-seat look at K-pop fandom. The surfboard on top of the Korean wave that has swept the world in the past two decades has been K-pop, a mix of sugary tunes, precise choreography, handsome boys, and impossibly pretty girls. Kwon, an American-born Korean who was listening to it before it went global, provides an account of her relationship with K-pop, delving into its cultural roots and artistic development. For Kwon, as a teenager, the music was a way to escape the oppressive discipline of her family and to bond with her friends. But the intensity of K-pop fandom could be almost frightening. One Korean boy-band idol's fans broke into his house to steal his underwear. Kwon never went that far, but she admits that dedication could easily turn into obsession. Behind the scenes, it was a grueling life for the entertainers, with management companies ruthlessly controlling every aspect of their lives, including savage diets and cosmetic surgery. Exploitation, especially of young women desperate for a shot at stardom, was rife. Kwon, who often felt caught between cultures, went through a series of battles with depression and believes that K-pop helped her cope. By the time BTS--the boy band known in Korea as Bantang (which translates to "bulletproof")--became a worldwide craze, Kwon was no longer obsessive, although she found she could enjoy the music for its own sake. She sometimes loses the narrative thread in the second half of the book, but there's still a lot--including Kwon's willingness to laugh at herself--that makes it an enjoyable read. A fun, colorful memoir of a global phenomenon. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
