"Stephan Lee is a journalist, author, and multi-fandom K-pop stan. He currently works as Senior Editor at Bustle after a five-year stretch covering books and movies at Entertainment Weekly. At EW, he traveled to Seoul for three weeks to write a feature about Korean entertainment’s world domination, interviewing K-pop idols, filmmakers, and drama writers. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School.
If he’s being really real, Stephan moved to New York because of Sex and the City, went into magazines because of The Devil Wears Prada, and wrote his debut novel, K-POP CONFIDENTIAL, out of his lifelong love of girl groups."
In short, Mr Lee started writing K-pop Confidential entirely for his love of K-pop and I guess we can believe that he has made his own research about the industry while he was travelling to Seoul. As he has confirmed, his story was written based on his research on teenagers working and training in sports industry and of course watching relevant documentaries and videos about K-pop. Now, I don't have anything against anyone who writes about a story without being part of the industry especially when it's a fictional story. The beauty about fiction is that everything can be totally made up yet relevant to the real world and that is the beauty of K-pop Confidential.
The story of this book revolves around the life of Candace Park, who grew up in America like almost every Asian children all over the world - strict parents, all study, fun later in life. Well, Candace can't do well in studies because she is not made for it and that is totally normal. So, after secretly audition for a K-pop Search, she realizes that she was chosen amongst thousands to travel to Seoul and begin her training as an idol to hopefully debut. Majority part of this book chronicles the journey of Candace's training process which involves everything good, bad and ugly.
So what do I think about the book? This is entirely my personal review of the book and just to note, I am not a professional reviewer or writer, just someone who has an opinion about everything in the world. As much as I love reading and I was highly anticipating that this book will be one of those great book that I read, it started off real slow. I believe up until Chapter Four, it was a snooze for me mainly because the story started about Candace and her life in America where there isn't much adventure. Things took a whole new turn that was nail-biting as her training begins. Up until the last chapter, things got really exciting with the story but I have to admit, parts where it was about Candace meeting up with a fellow male trainee that she is forbidden to meet, did not excite me. As a matter of fact, I think at some point, I skipped those parts. No shade but I was more interested to read about her training process and the people that are involved with the process. What made this story interesting is of course Candace herself. Quirky and doesn't seem to fit in at all in any mold which is both sad and good. In America, Candace is considered part of the minority since she is Korean American. After moving to Seoul, in the beginning, Candace felt like she was part of the majority because everywhere she goes, everyone looks similar to her and her family. That was until she started at S.A.Y Entertainment, where she was again not part of norm. You see, as we K-pop fans understands, K-pop idols seem unreachable to many of us mainly because of how we look. Even though they are Asians, they still seem so far away from us and this was beautifully written by Stephan. He may not blatantly put it down but we can definitely read between the lines what he means and that is the standard beauty in K-pop. Where this fact was well written in the story, what was missing for me was the impact, the real tragic it has on those teenage girls that is training to be idols. Moving all the way to the closing parts for the book, I love how Stephan write Candace as a symbol of courage and hope, standing firm in her stance of being herself and breaking the K-pop standard norm where dating and falling in love is prohibited. Well, I kind of agree with the dating thing especially when the trainees are underage but once they reach adulthood, they can do whatever they want. But that's the issue K-pop idols face isn't it? There is this unwritten standard that they have to strictly follow where they can be placed on a pedestal putting them further apart from the norms like us who happen to be their fan. This is the sad reality and I just wish that entertainment company would stop with this tragedy and start making K-pop idols more relatable to their fans.
What I do learn from this book is that, as well put by Stephan in his interview with The Nerd Daily, when it comes to living your dreams, it is both good and bad. Good because you're living your dream and bad because this is the time where you have to put in all the hard work you could think of in order to hold onto that dream. It sounds morbid but what Stephan int hat interview is true - when you love doing what you're doing, no matter how tired and challenging it is, we do it because we enjoy what we are doing. This is what I want in my life right now. I want to enjoy working both the easy and the difficult side of it. I would totally recommend this book to those who love K-pop especially for those young people who enjoys reading. This may not be a great piece for adults although I know some of us would truly enjoy it like I do, but I am sure, young readers out there who love K-pop and some rivalry and teenage love adventures, this is definitely for those of you.
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