Y/N

A Novel

By: Esther Yi

Narrated by: Greta Jung

Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

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 audience, 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.

©2023 Esther Yi (P)2023 Spotify Audiobooks

reads like a fascinating theory of knowledge essay

I’m not going to lie, I much prefer narrative fiction with a thread I can properly follow, but the narrator was delightfully weird and the audio performance was flat in a way that enhanced the story. The Kpop industry already IS a twisted allegory for sublimation of the self in pursuit of impossible desires, but this is one of the more interesting ruminations on the subject that I’ve seen.

Don’t know

Very hard to tell if I liked this book in the end. I finished it but it is relatively short. The writing is very good and has flashes of brilliance. Very Sally Rooney-esque. But the story is all over the place and it’s hard to tell if that is the point in the end. Not making sense of the world as a statement of intent. Or perhaps I am too old or the wrong gender to appreciate this.

Well written, just a bad plot

The way this author writes is beautiful. However, some of the scenes, dialogue, and the whole premise of the main character being this obsessed with a pop star is a bit too far-reaching for my brain to be able to accept.

I guess it’s supposed to be an exaggeration of what occurs in modern day. But I find all her interactions and thoughts about Moon annoying and uninteresting.

The only thing that even kept me listening this long were the bits with the main character and Masterson. I wish the story were just all about them and their dysfunction. But because it’s not, I probably won’t bother to finish.

Surreal, unhinged, brilliant

Wonderfully written and disturbing. I couldn’t stop listening to this convoluted story. I loved that I had absolutely no idea where it was going at any point in the story.

Even if you hate K-Pop...like me

To call this novel Pynchonesque in tone is not a slight on Ms. Yi's talent which is wholly original. On the surface the story seems to be a reflection on obsessive fandom but gliding underneath is a wonderful exploration of identity in the age of social media. What happens if people become their avatars? What if reality is evolving to a stage where only our avatars live and co-mingle in the 'real' world.
There is a fine European texture to these reflections and it seems no coincidence that Ms. Yi is based in Berlin. I can't wait to see what else she has up her sleeve.

Self Reflective Weirdness

This protagonist is unusual, and kept my interest through out the strange turns of the story. At times the book had me looking to see if it was categorized as horror. I enjoy fan culture, and this was an interesting view of it.