IDOL GOSSIP Book Review
Publication day: September 14, 2021
Idol gossip by Alexandra Leigh Cook
Before I get to the meat of the book, I have a very important announcement: ALICE IS A BIRACIAL BABE! I love seeing half-Asian, half-white characters because I love seeing myself. My heart warmed a bit when Alice cracked an egg into the boiling water for ramen. The smallest moments mean so much.
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When Alice accepts an offer to train at Korea’s Star Academy, the home of the country’s biggest K-Pop stars, she gets a little more than she bargained for. This is more than voice training. She must be a certain size, behave a certain way, and execute choreography perfectly. But the biggest challenge of all is connecting with her new band, A-List, in time for the Dream Concert. That performance could make or break them. Tensions rise immediately when Alice is made co-lead on their song with the main singer, Aria. If only being a K-Pop star, and smoothing this over with Aria, came as easy to Alice as singing…
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I flew through this book!
I needed to know if Alice succeeded, if she smoothed over with her bandmates, if she would finally get out of her own way. I liked her and found her incredibly relatable, especially thinking about my teenage self.
“This weird thing happens everything I sing something I’m really into: it’s like these two polar-opposite feelings fill me up at the same time, this deep melancholy and a total euphoria. The combination completely slays me.”
I could relate to Alice in so many ways: how she feels about singing and singing with people who experience music like she does (though for me, it’s theater); the insecurity that comes when you’re comparing yourself to other performers; the tunnel vision in pursuing a dream, especially the unhelpful version of tunnel vision; the dissecting of text message for meaning in punctuation.
My stomach started to roil uncomfortably along with her. I got defensive when she did. I was embarrassed for her many times. That said, I also got incredibly frustrated by Alice’s own blindness to how her behavior contributes to all the interpersonal tension.
I want to note that I think this is tied to my being an adult reader. I see reflections of my teenage mistakes in Alice’s behavior and have a different perspective being in my thirties rather than my teens. It might grate on some teenagers too, but for others, I think they could really relate to Alice’s struggle to connect with her bandmates without considering her own behavior.
I wish the book had been just a little bit longer. Alice does a lot of learning in the last quarter of the book. There’s a lot on the line for her and her bandmates, so this is absolutely necessary. It’s clear that what Alice does is just the beginning of healing these relationships. I just wanted to see more of it.
Since the book focused so tightly on Alice, I often felt like I was missing bits of the other characters. As it is first person, I could only see what Alice saw, so it makes sense that the people she liked best, like her close friend So-hyun or her crush, boyband super star, Joon, have the most dimension.
The bit that fell a little flat for me were the blog posts at the beginning of most chapters. Written by an anonymous critic, V, these little articles shed light on some of the more toxic parts of the industry and bring in wider context. After all, what is pop music without the fans? (says the former teeny bopper. Jesse McCartney anyone?) I was intrigued by them at the beginning, but by the time V’s blog posts were about Alice and A-List, I had lost interest in them. They just didn’t pay off for me.
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Overall, Idol Gossip is a fun and fast-paced read.
I enjoyed myself and almost went on Youtube to listen to K-Pop. Instead, I just went back and relived my own favorite pop groups.
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When Alice accepts an offer to train at Korea’s Star Academy, the home of the country’s biggest K-Pop stars, gets a little more than she bargained for. … I flew through this book.