dnf @ 11%

i have tried for days to read this book and get some sort of grasp of what’s going on but i literally can’t. the author’s writing style is extremely confusing to me and the addition of footnotes didn’t help.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began reading this book. Very unique and quirky at times. I recommend giving this on a shot. It’s very entertaining.

It took me forever to read this short book because the chapters kept dashing around and the footnotes were distracting.

On the plus side, I feel ready to hold down a conversation with some kpop stans now

This was not what I expected.

In a good way? Yes, I suppose.

It's a well-written and scathing look at pop culture (especially cancel culture, pop music, and social media).

In a bad way? Yes, that's also true.

It's dark and gritty, and it's weirdly focused on a YA audience but written for adult consumption.

There are a lot of side notes, historical footnotes, and cultural references mentioned and explained throughout. That was odd.

Who is this book for? Probably people like me, with kids obsessed with K-pop, or maybe into psychological mysteries. But it doesn't work. It can't decide whether it hates or loves its own message. Leaving me to wonder if I liked it enough to hate/love it.

"Things that don't belong show up all the time and go unnoticed unless someone's looking for it."

"...perhaps you do not understand that to arrive at global domination, a person's primary, if not only, joy must be work. Ask yourself: when was the last time you reached the pinnacle of anything?"

Sang Duri is the eldest member of a Korean pop boy band. While rising to stardom and fans obsessing over the band, it becomes difficult to manage the fallout after Duri’s solo single causes unintentional controversy.

To spare his bandmates from any potential fallout, Duri hides out in a “McMansion” of a woman he meets in an H-Mart.

This novel was challenging to read, and the characters were hard to love. With the pacing and style reminding me of an academic journal article, the story fell flat for me. With that said, I sadly could not finish what I thought would have been an intriguing story.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wise and darkly witty. An interesting read.
Many thanks to Atria and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. I am not a Kpop fan, but the premise was intriguing and I learned something new. There is a lot going on in this book. Because of the short length, I feel like some things were glossed over. I found myself rereading a lot. I can't tell if I was trying to catch all the nuance, or if the cadence of the language was making it hard to grasp. That said, I felt like the author captures the culture of academia and I suspect gets that of K-pop as well. The book is fairly short and the topic is a band, but it isn't lite reading (there's footnotes!) That said, if I was going to invest that much thought, I wanted a bit more depth. Because so much was going on, nobody really was a complete picture and events seemed more like snapshots. For me it was worth the read, but if the subjects aren't ones you are excited about, it might not be worth the effort.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, & to NetGalley for the Arc!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Unfortunately this was a DNF for me. I couldn’t get into it.

The Band follows a Chinese-American psychologist who offers shelter to Duri, a recently cancelled K-pop idol. Where The Band shined was its exploration of obsession and toxicity in K-pop stan culture, showing the "dark" side of parasocial relationships. As I read, I thought about the extent that K-pop idols have to cater to their fans: Since their success is driven by their fans, do K-pop idols have a "duty" of some sort to make their fans happy and if so, to what extent?

Where The Band fell short was its sequence and character development. The chapter on the music producer’s earlier years felt out of place and the characters felt flat. I wanted a psychological study of the characters, but this ended up reading like a thriller instead, despite the psychology references.

I’ll be honest and say I really don’t know much about K-pop. This sounded like a way for me to learn more and the description seemed interesting. At only 224 pages, I’m sorry to say it took me at least 30% of the book to feel like I had any clue what was going on. That probably is just a reflection of my lack of understanding, so don’t judge the book based on me.
Once I reached that 30% mark though, I found the story started to grab my attention. Once the jaded psychologist entered the story, I actually started page flipping. Part serious and part humorous I’m glad I stepped out of my usual thriller box to give this a try. I will admit, I still don’t totally understand K-pop but I definitely know more than I did before I started.

Tried really hard to get into this one but unfortunately wasn't my cup of tea. I think this was mainly due to the writing style; it sort of dragged on and the main characters themselves lacked a bit of depth. I wish there was a bit more development or maybe I just had too high hopes going in.

This one sounded like it would be an interesting read but it ended up feeling more like a collection of short disjointed stories. It didn’t read like a cohesive novel at all. There are three or four storylines all tied together, but with multiple points of view and timelines that switch constantly. It was a mess really. I spent more of this book confused and trying to figure things out then it should take. What a frustrating book

I could not finish enough of this book to be able to leave a comprehensive review, but I hope it finds its audience and I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

this felt more like a collection of short stories about a group of people than a cohesive novel, I couldn’t tell what the central plot was, how these characters felt and what it meant to them as a group

1.5 stars. I knew going into this book that it was going to be a hit or miss, just based off of the fact that I only heard about it through a random NetGalley marketing email. But why not, I thought, it sounds interesting, and maybe it'll surprise me. Unfortunately, The Band majorly missed the mark for me. The book seems to be a combination of three or four different storylines, all ostensibly tied together but with POVs and timelines that switch constantly - and so often that none of the characters felt more than one-dimensional except for, perhaps, Sang Duri. The characters fell flat, the plot felt genuinely cartoonish (has the author actually engaged in the k-pop fandom since 2010?), and the entire book felt suffused with a kind of cynicism that put me off. The tone is confusingly equal parts irreverent and pretentious and it's almost impossible to separate the author's voice from that of the female main character (although I hesitate to use the word "main," because of how often the POVs switch). In fact, I couldn't really understand what the point of the FMC was at all, except perhaps to serve as the author's self-insert and mouthpiece. I could not understand what the point of this book was at all, to be quite honest - if it was supposed to be an academic study of the parasociality of k-pop or a satirical story about fandom and its sometimes not-so-harmless fun or just a thinly-veiled self-insert BTS fanfiction. In trying, in some way, to be all three, The Band fails to be a good version of any of them.

A K-Pop star disappears and hides out with a Chinese-American he meets in H-Mart.

This was a slow read for me and very hard to get into it. It reads like a non fiction, especially in the first half of the book. About 100 pages in, it is a bit easier to read. The format and pacing doesn’t change, but you get into the story and start to understand the plot that becomes entertaining. The cultural aspect was interesting to me and I learned a lot from the read.

“The more powerful a person is the easier it is for the team to simply Will their plans into existence, come what may.”

The Band comes out 4/16.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to like this book, but it wasn't for me.

I struggled with the style the book was written in. It's told through multiple perspectives and jumping between the manager of The Band in his life before The Band and a psychologist in the US. The book started slow and felt almost academic, like a journalists' nonfiction take and there's a lot of teasing of some terrible past action that takes a long time to reveal. I had trouble connecting with the characters because I felt like I didn't really get to now them, but did get to know things about them. To me the book felt like a very slow buildup to something that happens very suddenly and quickly at the end that left me feeling more confused than anything.

I can see why fans of mysteries or hardcore kpop fans might enjoy this book even if it wasn't for me.

Well written literary fiction,,a novel about fandom and entitlement.This is a unique novel thoughtful and humorous we’ll rounded characters.I was drawn right in and enjoyed.#netgalley #atria

DNF at 30%

The disjointed narrative didn’t work for me. I never connected to the characters and lost interest.

This is a very uniquely written story about a very interesting topic. Sadly, it'll work for some people, specifically Kpop fans, but I don't think it'll work for everyone. Not that you have to be a Kpop Stan to get the story, the footnotes are great and super helpful, but I think you get more out of the story if you are in the know already. Overall, a very interesting read.