Holy Boy / Lee Heejoo
What it is: stalker central
Did I like it: it was okay
This category was suggested by JJReads: thank you JJReads! And because I love music I had no doubt I would be able to figure something out for this item.
One music genre I know very little about or voluntarily listen to is the K-pop genre, but when I spun the wheel of the virtual radio it landed on Jump by Blackpink. It’s a catchy song and I figured I should make my next book something Korean. The amount of translated Korean books on the market is reaching new heights every week it seems, which meant I was spoiled for choice. So a book about four fans kidnapping a K-pop star? Perfect!*
The book starts with a newspaper article and an interview, which give away some clues about the story that will develop (but which I didn’t remember well until they came into play). Then the first chapter is told from the perspective of a young man lying bandaged in a bed. The women caring for him assure him he’ll get better but he has lost his memory, broken his legs and some ribs and injured his feet. This leaves him confused and only able to stare out of the window and observe the women whenever they come into his room.
From that point on the story focuses on these women and lets you in on how they met and what their personal background stories are. This set-up is solid and really takes you in right away.
Ahnna, Mihee, Nami, and Heeae are four women from different backgrounds and have different ages, but they have one common denominator: their love for singer Yosep. He is their idol and they are his fans. Although they would describe it as devotion, any normal person would label it stalking as they know everything there is to know about their idol and they are convinced that nobody cares as much about him as they do. And so, they decide to kidnap him and take proper care of him.
It is Ahnna who finds the other women and becomes the group leader: the kidnapping is her idea and she provides their hideout location. This hideout is a mansion in the hills in the north of South Korea surrounded by forest. It’s a classic setting because not only is it secluded, but it allows for the house to be filled with scary taxidermy as well. Also, it’s raining non-stop, making it feel more desolate.
While this book must be an absolute nightmare for anyone having a career in the spotlight, there were some things that didn’t really work for me and one of these things was the lack of timing mentioned in the chapters. It was sometimes difficult to tell if I was reading in the now or in the past, especially when storylines started to overlap and more people were introduced. All in all this book was a good-enough for me, with an interesting idea and great setting, but some clunky bits in it.
*Disclaimer: it is never okay to kidnap any kind of popstar
Bookworm in the City 