I love Mary H.K. Choi and the way she writes authentic characters and relationships. This novel explores a sister relationship fraught with real world complications and emotions. Jayne and June are estranged sisters that come together again after June's cancer diagnosis. Choi has written another beautiful story that is heartbreaking, poignant, and relatable. I saw someone ask on goodreads if this is young adult fiction or adult and I think that Choi's novels serve as a wonderful bridge between fans of YA and "adult" fiction. Her stories defy these labels by being so realistic and well written.

Yolk is an emotional, well-written book that is infused with grief, experience, and authentic voice. Mary H.K. Choi's work would be engaging for adults, as well as young adults.

Jayne Baek is barely getting by. She shuffles through fashion school, saddled with a deadbeat boyfriend, clout-chasing friends, and a wretched eating disorder that she’s not fully ready to confront. But that’s New York City, right? At least she isn’t in Texas anymore, and is finally living in a city that feels right for her.

On the other hand, her sister June is dazzlingly rich with a high-flying finance job and a massive apartment. Unlike Jayne, June has never struggled a day in her life. Until she’s diagnosed with uterine cancer.

Suddenly, these estranged sisters who have nothing in common are living together. Because sisterly obligations are kind of important when one of you is dying. - Goodreads

I liked the second half of this book much better than the first. It felt like the author finally was able to fully convey the story she wanted to tell. This is not to say that the first half of the story had no significance or was a lot of fluff because that is not the case. Jayne is living a complicated life that is of her own unintentional design and as confusing it is for her, it does get hard for the reader to be consistent in her story.

I didn't like or dislike Jayne and I believe that is because there was a lot of vagueness in the first half of the story, so when I did begin to feel something for her the story was wrapping up. The second half of the story felt more sure than the first half.

The pace of the novel is good. I didn't feel that it moved slow or too fast. It felt like I reading the events of the story in real time and I liked that.

Overall, this isn't a bad write. I enjoyed some of it but not all of it.

Wow. Do you ever have any of those books that leave you feeling #rekt to the point of contemplating life for a half hour after reading? This is one of those books: one that will leave your head spinning and your heart wanting to stay with Jayne and June.

Jayne and June grew up as restaurant kids and total opposites, grappling with their Korean identity in a Texas school system. Now that they live in NYC, both are trying to find their way independent of one another— until suddenly Jayne needs her sister more than ever with a secret she’s harboring. A tale of sisterhood, coming to terms with your own faults, rebuilding relationships, understanding self-worth, and navigating NYC— this is a not-to-be-missed beauty of contemporary fiction.

Trigger warning: eating disorders and uterine cancer, but both handled in a respectful and realistic tone. I highly recommend this book and am thankful to Netgalley for the ARC!

**Trigger warnings for eating disorders (primarily bulimia) and cancer**

This might be my favorite book of the year. I saw so much of myself in Jayne: her struggle with herself and her body and feelings of home and family. I'm finding it difficult to articulate just how much this book means to me but here are some of my overall thoughts:

Choi has an exquisite, sardonic sense of humor in all of her books and this one perfectly balances between subtly humorous and serious. I highlighted at least 30 sentences/passages for their poignancy and relatability.

On-page therapy!

The book romanticizes New York City, but in a realistic way (if that’s even possible) that I found relatable. It's the average person who doesn't have the greatest living situation (cockroaches and sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a man you’re sort of sleeping with, ugh) but it still shows the bright spots of living in the city. The struggle of feeling alone but still surrounded by millions of people and trying to find your own corner of the city. It's not all glitz and glamour but I still found myself missing the city all the same. It felt real.

Jayne and June have a tumultuous, yet tender, sister relationship that I think is developed beautifully over the course of the novel. The ending resolution sort of felt like an "ah ha" moment but I actually think it worked well for the story. I sobbed.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a hard hitting contemporary, sister relationships, and/or an honest look at the life of the Asian-American young woman in the city.

4 stars

It took me a minute to get in the groove of this novel, but the wait was worth it.

This is my third Mary H. K. Choi novel and my favorite so far. What I wish I had known more accurately from the jump is that this is NOT YA; it's very clearly - at least to me - New Adult.

This is a series of scenes that make up a continuous narrative. The sisterly relationship between June and Jayne is complex and well devised, and it is riddled with pain: a common theme in all parts of the novel. Jayne's experiences separate from June are also essential. Her romantic life is messy at best, but there's some hope that she may make different choices. It's challenging and rewarding to watch her work through some of these moments and potential new opportunities. The parent/child relationships are also well drawn. Jayne experiences disordered eating, something that Choi appropriately notes with a trigger warning and Author's Note at the start of the novel. In spite of these measures, I was not prepared for how explicit some of this conversation was going to be. This mention is my added warning to you, Dear Readers. An added bonus for me was the unexpected discussion of health care and general wellness. I love how this conversation evolves throughout. Choi clearly covers A LOT in this work.

While the separations between events were challenging for me at times - even in the separate locations - I grew to really admire the structure and style by the novel's end. Growth is messy. Jayne is messy. It's hard not to root for her after witnessing her journey.

Jayne always imagined life would be different when she moved from her parents' home in Texas to New York for fashion school. But instead, she's got the same boy problems, the same lack of direction, and the same disordered eating she isn't ready to confront. Her older sister June lives in New York too, but feels worlds away in her fancy apartment and cushy finance job. But when a cancer diagnosis leads them to commit insurance fraud, they must relearn to navigate their sibling relationship as adults.

Mary H.K. Choi is a brilliant writer, and she tackles so many complex topics seamlessly, including the loneliness of new adulthood. (Speaking of - I would definitely categorize this as New Adult rather than YA.) Jayne and June's imperfect relationship and their struggle to relate to each other in their twenties feels so real. This is my first of Choi's work, but I've definitely got to read her other stuff now!

Yolk, by Mary H. K. Choi, is an intimate look into the lives of Korean American sisters Jayne & June Baek. I finished this book in one sitting (400 pages!!) because I could not put it down -- the sisterhood between Jayne and June is so multilayered & complex & the honesty of the characters struck me in a way that I couldn’t stop reading.

The main character, Jayne, is a mess. She’s selfish & unlikable, the younger sibling/19 year old who has a lot of unresolved issues. She steals, drinks heavily, & leans on terrible men. Yet one of my favorite parts of Jayne is the dualities of her self-awareness - she both realizes she’s a mess (pg 85 “I knew it was damaged that I slept with 3 random guys in barely a week when I arrived, which is why I don’t think about it.”) & goes to therapy, yet cannot admit to her deep issues with the relationship with her family & the way she perceives her body. That being said, I loved her (& sometimes hated her) because of how real she felt. I loved reading about her because Choi so perfectly writes all the hard edges & raw truths of people in these pages.

This is the main character we follow to her older sister June. June seems to at first be Jayne’s polar opposite: smart, successful, rich. While Jayne lives in a small apartment in NYC filled with roaches & black mold, June lives in a fancy & fabulous NYC home. Their relationship is uncomfortably comfortable. Jayne harbors resentment so strong towards her sister that it leaks out of the page like a gaseous cloud & when they finally awkwardly reunite June shares with Jayne that she has cancer. A vulnerability is shown to Jayne that she doesn’t know how to handle & they both hold back their emotions, their hopes, dreams, fears, & often sit on the couch in silence, seeing but not watching Gilmore Girls.

This book is not for everyone. It’s pacing is slow yet Choi’s writing in this is incredible. There is so much to reflect on in Yolk about the relationships we have with ourselves & the people around us. I read this right after Miracle Creek & found myself also reflecting on the relationships within families; between sisters, & mothers & fathers & daughters. On how immigration to the United States so deeply affects families throughout generations. On the coldness of our healthcare system here, in its structure of costly reaction vs caring proactiveness, both towards the physical & mental. On how microaggressions & stereotypes become such a fabric of life, you forget how much damage they really do. Choi’s writing in this starkly reminds you of these things, while also peppering in small details I loved - a constant attention to characters taking off shoes while home, a consistent peek into the characters’ refrigerators, a fleeting moment of open pride from family.

Publication for Yolk is March 2021 - keep your eyes peeled for this gorgeous cover & let me know if you do read this, bc I’d love to see your opinions!

Post incoming at https://www.instagram.com/bookedwithemma/

I enjoyed Yolk immensely, just as I did her previous two YA realistic fictions. One of the things that strikes me about the way Choi writes her characters is that they are so well-rounded; they're not perfect, in fact, sometimes I dislike them, but that's what makes them so real. It's not so much that you are rooting for them, but you are following them on their journeys. I love that Yolk included relationships both romantic and familial. Having a sister myself, I thought their banter was written so well - you can go from insulting each other to crying about each other's pain in the same conversation.
Whether in audio or print, I love Choi's books and I will always look forward to the next!

I didn’t know what to expect from this book but it certainly wasn’t to feel seen in a way that I don’t often feel in books. Obviously I am not a Korean woman so in that sense the experiences are different, but her depiction of life in New York, the relationship with food and body image and a constant feeling of inadequacy spoke to me in so many ways. I am an only child but I wish I had a sister like June or Jayne, these two women who through a lack of communication or having the words to communicate keep them from really seeing each other. This book was beautiful and painful and hopeful and is a must read.

*Review will be posted on my blog on 2/15/20, nearer to publication date*

I Liked:
*Mary H.K. Choi is a must-read author for me because her stories are complicated and real. Also she just knows how to really get into the scary, vulnerable places of her characters’s mind.

*World Building: this book is an ode to New York City and a little bit of Texas too. In her last book Permanent Record and now Yolk, New York City is a character. Jayne is enamored of all things New York City, but is struggling to make ends meet there.

*Characters: Jayne is hurting herself. She is a bulimic. Jayne is trying to run from events in her past and the story shows flashbacks of what happened that could have started her eating disorder. June is her older sister who is smart and successful but now she has cancer. These two sisters have such a tense history. I thought it was funny how they fought, because…siblings fight dirty sometimes! But it was also painful to see because you know they both love each other.

*This is about Jayne and through her we see New York City, we see how lost she is about school and her goals for the future. Jayne is traumatized by her past: uprooting from South Korea to move to America, her strained relationship with her mother, growing up Korean in America, and trying to figure out how to attain all the riches and dreams of New York City – her ideal American dream. Right now her dream is unattainable.

Random Notes:
*Triggers: cancer, bulimia

*Obviously, there are hard topics in this story with Jayne having bulimia and June having uterine cancer. So proceed with caution – this is not a happy story. Some parts are funny, but for the most part, it’s heavy reading.
There is a little bit of romance but it’s definitely not the main thing about this story. It was realistic too and it didn’t dominate the story.

Final Thoughts:
This story is dark, complicated, emotional, layered and real. I was hooked and yet scared for Jayne as she went through her life lost and in pain but hiding it so well. But one person sees through her mask, her sister June. I loved how these crazy sisters fought, because siblings fight – and I love how New York City comes to life through the author’s words. When everything comes to a clash: Jayne’s past, her present, cancer, family and bulimia – that’s when the hard work starts as these sisters grind through the surface of their tense relationship and find the love that’s been hiding under there all along.

Major thank you to Simon & Schuster and to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. Yolk is a beautifully heartbreaking and complex novel that explores the complexity of sisterhood and family, and the concept of the American Dream. This was a really heavy read, but an important one, and I could easily see it having a film adaptation.

Trigger warnings for: cancer, disordered eating

I loved this book so much. It’s smart, funny, real. I could easily imagine it being made into a film I would watch repeatedly. Choi’s earlier books are already a hit with my independent readers, and I expect this one to be much beloved as well. And I can’t wait to get a copy for my mom.

I haven't read any of the author's previous work; this seemed a little too mature for young adult.
The major twist wasn't what I expected at all. It would be interesting to see the long-term effects of the twist. The future is hopefully better for the troubled protagonist, who is not very likeable.
Well-written.