I feel like hopping on a train and visit the author in Leipzig just to ask her what she wanted with this book. 200 pages read and I have no idea what happened here. This was like a feverish dream, a surreal jumble of words randomly chosen from the dictionary.

I know that Y/N doesn't stand for Yes/No, but it's still a No from me. Sorry.

Thanks NetGalley and Europa Editions for an Advance Review Copy.

a strikingly evocative novella with compelling prose and themes that gives the reader much to think about

the premise of this was uniquely exciting but the execution fell flat for me. whilst it was an interesting read at times, it felt like the book was missing something that would make it genuinely engaging.

I couldn’t get past Yi’s apparently dying need to use synonyms for every single word that she could in order to sound more intellectual, before finding out whether I’d even like the story or not.

Y/N felt like a fever dream — I didn’t know what was real or fake. I think I wanted to like this more than I actually did due to the detached writing style.Itdives into the mind of one deranged fan. A Korean adoptee who lives and work in Germany with no interest in Korea finds herself obsessed with idol Moon after attending his concert with her friend. When he announces his retirement, she decides to book a flight to Korea in hopes of finding him.

While in Korea she meets a bunch of people who are also fans of Moon’s group but the conversations and interactions they had felt fake so it didn’t seem real that this would actually happen. The way they conversed was so weird but that could be the whole point?I was left wondering if the whole thing was in the protagonists head. Overall very disjointed and confusing and I found it nigh on impossible to follow the narrative or timeline and it lead to a very unpleasant reading experience that felt like a chore.

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Thanks ever so much to @europaeditionsuk for sharing this title with me on @netgalley!

Y/N by Esther Yi.

Well, this was a fever trip and a half. Following similar themes as Idol, Burning by Rin Usami, we follow the narrator's descent into madness as she becomes fixated on a Korean boy group, in particular, one of its members. Thinking back to the novel, 'fixated' may be too weak a word. She is positively consumed by her obsession, to the point where the narrative itself blurs and you can no longer tell what's actually happening in real life and what is only imagined in her head.

Anyone who has ever interacted with or even stumbled across 'stan Twitter' will be entirely familiar with most of the emotions described in this book. Yes, they're extreme for the most part, but also entirely believable. The author has done a fantastic job of recreating a fan's state of mind. I have seen some reviews say that the writing is self-absorbed and pretentious, but I truly thought it matched the narrator's deluded, self-aggrandising attitude perfectly. It has echoes of Ottessa Moshfegh in that so much of the imagery is verging on the primal and the disgusting (Kristeva abject klaxon!) and I absolutely loved it.

The reason for my slightly lower review is that, as the novel progressed, the plot did lose me a little and there was no satisfying ending to feast on. There were parts of the novel which had me gripped (such as when the narrator is given the chance to visit the group's company building and meet them) but I felt like the strong points only came in peaks and troughs and there was no satisfying enough grip to keep me going throughout. Still, a fantastic read for anyone who has ever been a part of a fandom or would like to feel themselves mentally unravelling (because who wouldn't?)

3/5

This is a strange little gem of a novel. The prose is both beautiful and somewhat dense - it doesn’t care about easing you in and is verbose from the very start, which I initially found jarring, but grew to enjoy. I found the first half of the novel, where the narrator falls into fandom more engaging than the latter half when she journeys to Korea, and it became less clear what was real and what was imagined, but it kept my attention throughout. I felt some themes could have been explored a little more deeply, but overall this had some luscious writing and an interesting, almost hallucinatory tone in parts - a wild, and enjoyable, ride.

This was clever, many layered, but weird.

The story is told in two rivers of narrative, one flows from a superfan of Moon, a boyband member, and the other is a fanfiction about Moon using the y/n (your name) genre. The line between reality and fiction is blurred (probably withe a lot of underlying nuances I didn't get). But the writing was excellent and the concept was unique.

This is a surreal exploration of the world of the obsessive super fan and where that level of worship takes a person. A young woman becomes mesmerised by a member of a Kpop boy band. She travels to Korea and attempts to find her idol, convinced that her feelings about him are unique. The book plunges between realities and it is often impossible to tell what is fantasy and what isn't as a series of increasingly bizarre situations unfold.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this if I'm honest. I felt further and further out of my comfort zone as I progressed through the book. The main character is so fractured that I felt that I never really got a handle on her and it was hard for me to feel any empathy with her. It was a very Kafkaesque experience of extreme fandom.

This was an interesting read... Well written and out of the norm... Sometimes too much. I never knew where the story was going, and sometimes felt as lost as the main character. And I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

"A hyper-realistic literary novel about BTS Army" sounds like a joke—perhaps a rather mean, condescending one—but the first shock of Yi's bizarre, impossible-to-categorize debut is how quickly it places you in its heroine's headspace. The narrator, a nameless Korean-American woman living in Berlin, is dragged to a performance by the world's preeminent Korean boy band (referred to by the narrative as "the pack of boys") and falls in instant, obsessive love with their youngest, most mercurial member, Moon. She breaks up with her boyfriend, travels to Korea, and dedicates her life to finding Moon, even as he parts ways with the band and disappears from public life. Her quest is interspersed with excerpts from a self-insert fanfic she has written—whose heroine is referred to only as Y/N, short for "your name"—in which she and Moon are a regular couple living in Korea.

It's a premise that's ripe for mockery, and there is some of this in Y/N's earlier chapters—from the narrator's boyfriend, who can't understand why she'd prefer an unattainable fantasy to him, and from a psychiatrist who specializes in curing women like the narrator, who tries to explain to her the difference between actual love and fandom, insisting that what she can offer Moon is thin and lacking in any nourishment. But Y/N isn't, ultimately, a novel of psychological realism. In its flat, affectless narrative voice, and the effortless erudition of all of its characters—who all speak and sound the same, and are equally ready to deliver pithy musings on the nature of love and reality—it reminded me very strongly of Tom McCarthy's magnificent 2005 novel Remainder. Like that novel, what Y/N is interested in—what its narrator is striving towards and willing to sacrifice the rest of her life to gain—is the immediacy of pure, undiluted experience. The narrator knows that her love for Moon is irrational, but she's also disgusted by the compromises and mundanities of rational, real love. She imagines that with Moon, she could transcend her fleshy humanity and become something else, an embodiment of the pure idea of love. This is also reflected in her fanfic, in which Moon is "discovered" and recruited into the band, with the heroine of the story within the story letting him go so that they can meet again as fan and fannish object, a purer connection, she believes, than their ordinary relationship.

This may all sound high-flying and philosophical, but the truth is that Y/N is exceedingly (and yet very drily) funny. Its depiction of the band is a pitch-perfect parody of how pop culture juggernauts try to justify their stratospheric popularity by pretending a profundity they don't actually possess. It's full of surreal touches such as a Seoul building being doused with organ-melting disinfectant to get rid of a cicada infestation, or the pyramidal Polygon Plaza where the pack of boys have their headquarters. The people the narrator meets on her journey, such as the artist O, who accosts her on the street and demands to examine the dirt on her shoe, are at once larger than life and winningly human. At the same time, this is also a very sad novel, about a woman who has been so disappointed by life's possibilities for connection—a disappointment, the novel hints, which may be rooted in alienation from both her American and Korean identities—that she prefers to annihilate herself on the altar of fandom. That sadness comes to the fore in the novel's final segment, in which the narrator finally meets Moon and discovers, to her shock and dismay, an actual person, who has already found the love he needed to complete himself with someone who sees his humanity. It's a touch of realism that one wouldn't have expected in a novel so committed to its strangeness as Y/N, but it works perfectly, and leaves you feeling both heartbroken and exhilarated.

A very strong intensification of what this kind of celebrity obsession does to the obsessed; it's dark, strange and entirely enabled by the world around her. Her journey to stalk a K-pop star runs so smoothly; the publisher description references Pynchon, and I think it does have that same darkness by propulsive movement towards an entirely absurd and unattainable destination. Well recommend for anyone who likes that sort of thing, or is cynical of the contemporary pop machine's treatment of fans and performers.

Thanks to Netgalley and Europa editions for the eArc of y/n by esther yi!

This book is one big bizarre fever dream. Basically, y/n follows a thirty-something korean-german woman living in berlin as she becomes obsessed with a k-pop idol named moon. When moon suddenly retires from performing and from public life in general, she travels to seoul to find him. This narrative is interspersed in the book with the y/n (= your name) fan fiction the main character writes about moon.

I frankly don't know how to review y/n, because my thoughts are all over the place. So here's just a few of them.

1. While y/n is bizarre and over the top, anyone with any experience with fandom culture (ie who had a tumblr account in the 2010s) will recognize reality in it. The way some of the characters in the book seem to see moon - as a god or some otherworldly being - is not far off from how certain fans treat their idols in real life.

2. Parasocial relationships thrive on and require a certain amount of distance - i loved the way this was explored in the y/n parts.

3. The writing style can be a bit hard to get through at times, but it definitely echoes the style of cringy y/n fanfiction. Think 'i looked into his bright blue orbs' and the infamous messy y/n bun. It'll give you fanwar flashbacks.

4. Y/n not only focuses on idol culture and parasocial relationships, but also on the way we watch, interact with and relate to art. All very fascinating points, but it did feel to me like this relatively short book tried to say so much in a small amount of pages that i kind of lost track.

5. Did i fully understand this book? Absolutely not.

6. There were also some scenes that i could have done without (something with cuticles. I get what yi was trying to say, okay, i just didn't wanna hear it)

7. Is it possible to dislike reading a book and still call it a good book? I think reading y/n is meant to be a slightly uncomfortable, unpleasant experience. That also makes it hard to give it any sort of rating. I'm gonna settle for 3.5 stars.

Writing a review for literary fiction can sometimes be extremely difficult because enjoyment of books in this genre is so subjective. Y/N is no different. Y/N is bizarre and full of rambling tangents, but the underlying themes of fan culture and celebrity idolism were fascinating. I really liked how dark this went because I wasn't expecting it and it brought a necessary dynamic to the book.

For such a short novel, this debut packed a lot in. I would recommend this to people who have an understanding of fan culture in the modern world, especially of k-pop fan culture, but who also enjoy weird, almost entirely uncomfortable, literary fiction.

2.5 stars

Yet another book that I'm at a loss how to describe. I have very little idea what Esther Yi was trying to convey with this novel. I thought, from the description, it was going to be an indictment of how society glorifies and idolizes celebrities but it didn't seem to be that. Then I wondered if it was about mental health issues but that didn't seem to be it either. I considered it might be about art in all its forms and the artists struggle to convey their selves by whatever medium they chose.

At the end of the book I still have no real idea. All I can say is that I had a furrowed brow at the beginning and at the end but I quite enjoyed the middle, which seemed more accessible. Other than that I finished it, it didn't give me a headache and there were some bits I enjoyed, hence 2.5 stars.

I might recommend it to those who are intellectually higher on the evolutionary chain than I am. Most of this book just confused me I'm sorry to say.

Y/N is an exceptional novel about obsession and the lengths that people are willing to go to for what they perceive as 'love'. Our narrator, whilst cynical at the offset regarding the famous group of boys that everyone was doting over, attends a concert during which she falls irrevocably and maniacally in love with one of the members, Moon.

A chaotic and unreliable narrative ensues, as our protagonist strives to achieve her dream of meeting this celebrity crush, simultaneously becoming caught up in he writing of fan fiction centred around her love. The use of the Y/N fan fictions weaved throughout the novel help to cement this depiction of a slightly unhinged, delusional individual, and the concise but informative style of writing makes this novel flow beautifully. Esther Yi is an incredibly talented writer and this is a novel that you will devour in one sitting, and will stay with you for a long time!

Surreal, questionable and sometimes terrifying, Y/N is a deep dive into fandom culture and also the cult of fans. As someone who has enjoyed her fair share of Korean boy bands (specifically BIGBANG and SHINee), I was fascinated and first attracted to this book by what I thought it was saying about fan culture. It ultimately didn’t say anything that I didn’t already know: fan culture, especially surrounding Kpop artists, is a fervent and a severe catching that looks close to an ailment to the outsider. The love of a fan is powerful, if not a little delusional. What is love anyway, especially when in a parasocial relationship? I didn’t really finish with any new understandings, and I felt a bit confused at times too. However, Y/N was still a metaphysical fever dream of a book. Hard to read at points and a little bit grotesque and grisly, sure, but I nonetheless enjoyed it.

a weird, fascinating book! v interesting on parasociality, and i enjoyed the surreal/sometimes incomprehensible/dream (wish-fulfilment?) plot. i’d be interested to see what the response to this is like, because i feel like the ideal reader is terminally online/aware of certain kinds of fandom while not actually participating in them—i fall into that category, but i don’t know how many people do.

Oh dear, what have I just read? What in the Wattpad was this book actually about? How and why is this book even being published?

The writer clearly went overboard with the thesaurus from the very first page. The writing style was awful; there were several laugh out loud moments due to how bad the writing actually was. The story was completely senseless. The book started off weird and got progressively worse.

"He’d assumed that Y/N stood for “Yes/ No,” believing the slash to signify the protagonist’s fragmented sense of self. When I clarified that it stood for “Your Name,” he grew only more confused."

A mash-up of BTS Army and Can Xue style surrealism that didn't cohere for me.

The narrator of Y/N is an adopted Korean-German who works as "an English copywriter for an Australian expat’s business in canned artichoke hearts" in Berlin. The novel opens:

"The pack of boys had released their first album in Seoul two years ago, and now they were selling out corporate arenas and Olympic stadiums all over the world. I was familiar with the staggering dimensions of their popularity, how the premiere of their latest music video had triggered a power outage across an entire Pacific island. I knew the boys were performers of supernatural charisma whose concerts could leave a fan permanently destabilized, unable to return to the spiritual attenuation of her daily life. I also knew about the boys’ exceptional profundity in matters of the heart, how they offered that same fan her only chance of survival in a world they’d exposed for the risible fraud that it was.

At least this was what I’d derived from hours of listening to Vavra. As her flatmate, I was subject to her constant efforts at proselytization."

The pack of boys a BTS-like K-pop band with an adoring army that the boys call "the livers" (the organ of the body, not in the sense of those who live). Our narrator, as the opening demonstrates, begins rather cynical of their attraction but within a few pages, and after one concert, she's as fanatical as any of the livers, believing that one band member, Moon, is speaking to her individally in his mass online video chat sessions to millions.

When Moon mysteriously leaves the band, she is sent for a session with a psychologist, a specialist in curing similar addictions, but when he points out that she is not really deeply infatuated with Moon, as she is in Berlin and he's in Seoul, this rather backfires as she immediately drops everything and gets on a plane to try and find him.

The Y/N of the title refers to a particular type of fan fiction, as her German boyfriend's ex-lover, another The pack of boys addict, tells her: "Y/N fic ... she explained, was a type of fanfiction where the protagonist was called Y/N, or “your name.” Wherever Y/N appeared in the text, the reader could plug in their own name, thereby sharing events with the celebrity they had no chance of meeting in real life."

And the novel itself becomes rather surreal with two separate strands, Y/N fan fiction written by the narrator alternating with her own real-life pursuit of Moon, which is, if anything, even less real-worldly, almost spiritual.

"She packs a suitcase and leaves the apartment, her ears cocked for the pocket watch. She seeks quiet places, like chapels and landfills. Whenever a sparrow chitters neurotically in her proximity, she stamps a foot to make it fly away. She walks and walks, ending up in a city of staggering proportions, but, with the repairman nowhere to be seen, she keeps walking, and this city slowly becomes another city, which becomes yet another city, until Y/N, too exhausted to take another step, falls onto her back on the sidewalk. Her suitcase collapses next to her like an obliging sidekick. Y/N’s view of the blue sky is obliterated by brand-new apartment towers that have yet to be occupied . . .

I put down my pen. I didn’t know what should come next."

As the author explained in an interview: "My narrator is an obsessive fan, but at heart she’s an intellectual who has a refined, and even pretentious, appreciation of Moon. She’s not supposed to be a fan. The object of her devotion is supposedly low culture, anti-intellectual, but she’s arriving at her deepest ideas about art, about freedom, through this devotion.
...
K-pop and fandom are very fraught arenas. K-pop is a symbol that, in my opinion, traffics in displaced spirituality. Stars are called “idols.” There are very few things in an average person’s life that one would call their idol. My narrator has no outlet for her enormous capacity for devotion. She doesn’t go to church, she can’t fight for a country, she can’t lose herself to sexual passion, she can’t embark on a great work of art. So what does she turn to? She turns to K-pop."

It's a fascinating concept, and New York Times review brings out the novel's strengths, but I must admit this rather left me cold as it was too abstract to really give me insight into K-pop idolatory.


Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.