“This is a fast-paced, captivating inside look at what lies behind the glitz of the K-pop industry. Alice’s road to fame highlights cultural differences, self-discovery, sisterhood, and empathy. The narrative is laced with blog posts that help move the story forward and give background information. Korean dialogue is romanized. An entertaining read unveiling the people behind K-pop glam. A debut novel about standing out and fitting in, dreaming big and staying true.” KIRKUS
After graduating from UC Berkeley in 2007, Alexandra Leigh Young moved to New York City where she ran an audio post-production house called Explosion Robinson. In 2014 she was awarded an artist residency in South Korea in 2014, where she fell in love with a new kind of music: K-pop. After spending a year reporting on South Korea’s music industry, she returned to the US and produced her first podcast episode for Radiolab, called “K-poparazzi”. The episode was the inspiration for this debut novel.
K-pop gets the Gossip Girl treatment when Alice Choy is catapulted into the life of a manufactured popstar at the elite Top10 Entertainment’s Star Academy.
When seventeen-year-old Alice Choy moved from San Francisco to Seoul, she left behind her friends and the regular singing lessons she used to love. Now the only singing she does is karaoke with her little sister in Myeongdong. That is, until she’s spotted by a scout for Top10 Entertainment and invited to attend their Star Academy. But sculpting herself into one-fifth of soon-to-be-launched K-pop group A-List is hard work. It’s rising at dawn for lung-crushing cardio, dancing drills and calorie controlled meals. It’s egos and rivalry and secrets lived outside of the public eye, because if A-list gets on the wrong side of a certain influential blogger and the anti-fans, then Alice’s dreams of being an idol might never materialise.
Alexandra Leigh Young discusses Idol Gossip from Candlewick Press on Vimeo.
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