Scan barcode
A review by olivekmc
K-Pop Confidential by Stephan Lee
1.0
"We're no better than any of you. We 'idols' get lonely, hungry, tired . . . We fight, we curse, we fart, we gain weight, we want love. We're human, and I'm tired of pretending I'm perfect."
Though overall I didn't enjoy this book but there are definitely things I enjoyed. I liked seeing the trainee life and that it really showed the struggles of being a K-Pop idol. And through that, I think the author did well with pointing out and criticizing the issues present in K-Pop. However, towards the end, the message about the problems in K-Pop was diluted a bit because of Candice's speech.
Candice, our main character, gives off strong y/n vibe. It read more like fan fiction because of it. Several of Candice's decisions are poor and stupid. But she's 15 years old and I can definitely say that many decisions I made at 15 years old were pretty stupid too. So that wasn't my issue with her decisions. But the way everyone else treated Candice bothered me. Literally in all of her performances she pulls a last minute change that makes her stand out from the team. She does a different choreo from the rest of the group and decides to sing a different song last minute. Instead of being criticized for being a poor team player, everyone loves it and praises her for it because of her "charm". It totally makes sense why Helena dislikes Candice because she does this and EVERY PERFORMANCE.
Though I think the life as a trainee was portrayed realistically, Candice's specific experience definitely did not feel realistic. Her being a trainee only for the summer and then debuting? Yes, there are K-Pop stars with extremely short trainee time but most of them have unimaginable talent that makes up for it. We know that Candice is great at singing (which is interesting because she has no training whatsoever and her prior practices are singing not above a whisper) but absolutely horrible at dancing. The expectation that she could possibly debut over a single summer break definitely was just unrealistic. It also felt like she wasn't as desperate for debut compare to the rest of the girls, which made it harder to believe she improved and practiced enough to debut in the most anticipated girl group.
The romance was definitely a weak aspect of the book. Her romances with One.J and YoungBae both felt rushed and underdeveloped. I think it would have been better instead of doing a love triangle, just have one love interest.
This is a minor thing that bothered me in the book and that is the use of Korean. If you don't know, I'm half Korean, born and lived in South Korea for 14 years, and I speak Korean fluently. A couple of times the Korean word or phrase had the correct meaning but wasn't conjugated properly to the sentence. It didn't happen all the time but when it did happen it really took me out of the story.
Overall, if you are a K-Pop fan and want a glimpse of the trainee life, this would definitely be a fun read for you. This just isn't the type of story that I personally enjoy a lot and I'm not really the target audience for it so please take my review with a grain of salt.
Though overall I didn't enjoy this book but there are definitely things I enjoyed. I liked seeing the trainee life and that it really showed the struggles of being a K-Pop idol. And through that, I think the author did well with pointing out and criticizing the issues present in K-Pop. However, towards the end, the message about the problems in K-Pop was diluted a bit because of Candice's speech.
Spoiler
With Candice blurting out that she is the one who kissed One.J and that the person she really loves is YoungBae, it felt like it took the focus away from the criticisms of K-Pop.Candice, our main character, gives off strong y/n vibe. It read more like fan fiction because of it. Several of Candice's decisions are poor and stupid. But she's 15 years old and I can definitely say that many decisions I made at 15 years old were pretty stupid too. So that wasn't my issue with her decisions. But the way everyone else treated Candice bothered me. Literally in all of her performances she pulls a last minute change that makes her stand out from the team. She does a different choreo from the rest of the group and decides to sing a different song last minute. Instead of being criticized for being a poor team player, everyone loves it and praises her for it because of her "charm". It totally makes sense why Helena dislikes Candice because she does this and EVERY PERFORMANCE.
Though I think the life as a trainee was portrayed realistically, Candice's specific experience definitely did not feel realistic. Her being a trainee only for the summer and then debuting? Yes, there are K-Pop stars with extremely short trainee time but most of them have unimaginable talent that makes up for it. We know that Candice is great at singing (which is interesting because she has no training whatsoever and her prior practices are singing not above a whisper) but absolutely horrible at dancing. The expectation that she could possibly debut over a single summer break definitely was just unrealistic. It also felt like she wasn't as desperate for debut compare to the rest of the girls, which made it harder to believe she improved and practiced enough to debut in the most anticipated girl group.
The romance was definitely a weak aspect of the book. Her romances with One.J and YoungBae both felt rushed and underdeveloped. I think it would have been better instead of doing a love triangle, just have one love interest.
Spoiler
Also the fact that YoungBae doesn't seem to be bothered at all that she kissed One.J felt weird. A lot of the things happened in the end but for all YoungBae knows she kissed One.J while there were things going on with her and YoungBae. Idk just felt weird.This is a minor thing that bothered me in the book and that is the use of Korean. If you don't know, I'm half Korean, born and lived in South Korea for 14 years, and I speak Korean fluently. A couple of times the Korean word or phrase had the correct meaning but wasn't conjugated properly to the sentence. It didn't happen all the time but when it did happen it really took me out of the story.
Overall, if you are a K-Pop fan and want a glimpse of the trainee life, this would definitely be a fun read for you. This just isn't the type of story that I personally enjoy a lot and I'm not really the target audience for it so please take my review with a grain of salt.