Yolk

by Mary H.K. Choi

“Sneaks up on you with its insight and poignancy.” —Entertainment Weekly

From New York Times bestselling author Mary H.K. Choi comes a funny and emotional story about two estranged sisters and how far they’ll go to save one of their lives—even if it means swapping identities.

Jayne and June Baek are nothing alike. June’s three years older, a classic first-born, know-it-all narc with a problematic finance job and an equally soulless apartment (according to Jayne). Jayne is an emotionally stunted, self-obsessed basket case who lives in squalor, has egregious taste in men, and needs to get to class and stop wasting Mom and Dad’s money (if you ask June). Once thick as thieves, these sisters who moved from Seoul to San Antonio to New York together now don’t want anything to do with each other.

That is, until June gets cancer. And Jayne becomes the only one who can help her.

Flung together by circumstance, housing woes, and family secrets, will the sisters learn more about each other than they’re willing to confront? And what if while helping June, Jayne has to confront the fact that maybe she’s sick, too?

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Young Adult, Mental Health, Romance, Audiobook, New Adult

Audible Audio

First published March 2, 2021

Reviews

[chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was so raw, authentic, painful & honest. i loved it so much.

tw: cheating, cancer, racism, eating disorders, mental illness, parental abuse

[jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked this! i probably shouldnt have because the storytelling is pretty pretentious and the characters are pretty unlikable, but i surprisingly enjoyed this. go figure.

maybe its because i dont have a sister, so i was fascinated by the broken relationship between june and jayne and the circumstances that brought them together again. maybe it was how they were both so self-destructive that i couldnt help but root for them to grow and get better. maybe its the whole ‘i love NYC even when it doesnt love me back’ attitude that the setting has. maybe its whole korean-american experience that i will never fully understand but learned a lot about. and maybe its because this is actually NA and not YA like i expected.

so i found plenty of reasons for me to keep on reading. i know this definitely wont be a book for everyone (i wasnt even sure it was going to be a book for me), but if the synopsis sounds interesting enough, then for sure give it a try!

↠ 4 stars

[chan ☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

all i really have to say at this point is wow this isn't YA

[Bella · Rating 1 out of 5]

did i read the same book as everyone else

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something about me is that I love to suffer.

Well, okay, I don't LOVE it. Nobody loves pain and anguish and sorrow except Disney movie villains and people who work at the airport. But it is my sweet spot, my comfort place, what I know.

So this book, which is both a) so sad, so filled with suffering, and b) a source of deep and profound confusion to me in terms of what I think about it (and I am someone who cannot feel confused without feeling dumb, and immediately feel angry whenever I feel dumb, in a vicious cycle that makes me seem like an eleven year old boy with a Fortnite addiction and a tendency toward tantrum-throwing)...well, it checks the suffering requirement twice over.

That's probably why I love Mary HK Choi's Emergency Contact so much. There are no two characters in a contemporary YA romance with a cover that sweet and lovely that suffer so much.

This book made me go back and forth a lot. While Emergency Contact is a hard yes from page 1 to page 347, or whatever, this was a yes/no/maybe so constantly and it never changed.

But I love sisters. And I love food descriptions. And I love books set in New York. And as established, I am capable of loving Mary HK Choi and equally inclined to appreciate suffering.

So we'll be kind in our rating this time.

Bottom line: Who knows anything! But I think I liked this.

-----------------
pre-review

lily: i just finished yolk and it could be anywhere between 2.5 and 4.5
me: WHAT that makes no sense
(4 hours pass)
me: i just finished yolk and it could be anywhere between 2.5 and 4.5

review & rating to come! (i ended up on 3.5)

-----------------
currently-reading updates

doing my favorite thing (judging books by their covers)

spontaneous buddy read because i never read anything without lily if it can be helped

[jenny✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

03/02/2021: HAPPY PUB DAY! 🍳

CW: eating disorder

I think the thing that both terrifies and magnetizes me about this novel is how Jayne could be me and I could be Jayne—in some alternate, messier life. Our realities aren’t separated by many degrees, in truth.

Yolk’s protagonist is chaotic, flighty, obnoxious, superficial, and painfully aware of herself at all times. Her life is a hedonistic whirlwind of hot mess after hot mess—it’s all very starving Gen Z artist trying to make it in the Instagram age in New York City.

And yet… Jayne is all the more real for it. Even if I do find her a little despicable sometimes (the way she is with guys? white guys in particular?? kill me NOW). I feel like I’d probably never be friends with her if we existed in the same universe, but I also can’t bring myself to hate her.

To tell you the truth: Jayne Baek makes my heart hurt.

◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️

Reading this book felt like commiserating with a friend. There are certain things—inside jokes and quirks and insecurities—that you only understand if you grew up as the kid of Asian immigrants; this book touched on a LOT of those things. It left me feeling not only seen, but also vindicated. I am reminded, once, again, of the power of representation: I appreciate Yolk for being one such affirming presence for me.

What this book does best, I think, is capture the complex ambivalence that characterizes the love between an Asian kid and their immigrant family.

In Jayne’s case, this ambivalence, a devastating push and pull between loyalty/love/hurt/resentment, borders on dysfunction. Her relationship with her sister, in particular, is fraught with immense love and pain.

Moreover, the book touches on the ways in which relationships with family and culture intersect with our lives as women of colour in the West, as we absorb Eurocentric beauty norms, live with culture clash, and manage cognitive dissonance on behalf of not only ourselves but also (white) society at large. We internalize, to vary degrees, self-loathing.

And this manifests in many ways for image-obsessed Jayne, who grapples with an eating disorder, depression, a crushing need for validation (particularly by white men), and complex love for a sister whose mortality comes into sudden, startling relief.

◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️

It’s hard for me to encapsulate all that this book is. It’s sarcastic and sad and infuriating and validating and laugh-until-you-have-stitches funny. In its chaos, it affords its East Asian characters dimension; no one can be predicted, let alone pigeonholed.

Most of all, the dynamic between Jayne and her older sister June—so reminiscent of Fleabag and her sister Claire—in all of its messy, spiteful, bewildering glory, compelled me from their very first scene together. When together, the sisters never try to masquerade as anyone they’re not, and I think this pretty aptly sums up Yolk, too: I find this story, Choi’s writing, so refreshing because it never tries to be more than it is. I’m not fed saccharine lines about protagonists that I’m clearly meant to love. Yet in all of her obnoxiousness, I find myself loving Jayne anyways, bullshit and all.

Bottom line: Don’t let the Peeps-yellow cover and cute graphics fool you—this book tackles a LOT more than you’d expect.




Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Melanie (meltotheany) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emergency Contact ★★★★★
Permanent Record ★★★★★

i read this in a day and it was heartbreakingly perfect. mary hk choi really is an all time favorite author and no one is writing contemporaries like her. the asian-american experience, the asian-american catholic experience, having your elders be immigrants and knowing how much they gave up for you because they believed they were going to giving you a better life (and feeling the weight of those expectations), seeing your elders get older and feeling so very hopeless, mental health stigmas everywhere (but especially in asian communities), disordered eating and the grip it can have on every aspect of your life, sibling rivalry and devotion, the health insurance options in the us - reading this book makes me feel seen in ways that felt like the most vulnerable secrets being whispered in my ear, and i am so very thankful.

this book also made me crave halo halo for a week because of a cute ube joke, lmao :]

trigger and content warnings: very graphic and descriptive extreme disordered eating, throwing up, cancer / sickness of a loved one, talk of miscarriages in the past, talk of periods and irregularity, talk of hysterectomies, depression, excessive drinking, panic attacks, anxiety depiction, brief mention of domestic abuse, racism, bullying, harassment, blood depictions, mention of cheating, toxic living situations, abusive parenting, grief depiction - this book can be very heavy at times, especially with disordered eating, so please use caution and be gentle with yourself if that is something that could hurt you. there is a line about eating so fast that it doesn't count that truly fucked me up and made me set this book down and just reflect and cry - everyone has different experiences - but this book was the most accurate depiction that i have ever personally read.

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[alexandra]

this book reminded me of what it's like to fall in love with reading. also patrick is so hot i want one.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I found Yolk an immense improvement over Mary H.K. Choi’s first novel Emergency Contact ; I love seeing authors grow in this way! In Yolk, we follow Jayne Baek, a twenty-year-old Korean American woman living in New York with a leech-like deadbeat boyfriend, an illegal housing situation, and an eating disorder that dovetails with symptoms of anxiety and depression. Jayne’s life gets shaken up even more when she learns about her economically and educationally successful older sister June’s uterine cancer diagnosis. June and Jayne launch into one another’s orbit and longstanding conflicts, as well as buried conversations, start to surface for the both of them.

I loved how Choi portrayed these two Korean American sisters with such strong and vibrant personalities, flaws and all. I feel like Asian American women are often reduced into being shy, submissive, and academic or exotified in fetishizing sexual ways in US media. However, both Jayne and June come across loud and clear though in nicely distinct ways: Jayne is neurotic and insecure and a bit image-obsessed whereas June is brash, nerdy, and unafraid to trash talk anyone who gets in her way. Both characters have unlikeable qualities that make them human, and at the same time they both grow toward the end of the novel, especially Jayne. I liked the complexity of both their individual characterizations and their relationship with one another, as well as how June’s struggle with uterine cancer mirrored Jayne’s fight with her eating disorder.

Also, can we please talk about how freaking swoon worthy Patrick was? As basic as this sounds, I literally felt blessed by Patrick’s presence in this novel. As a gay man/nonbinary person I generally don’t care too much for heterosexual romance, however I found myself totally immersed in all of Jayne and Patrick’s interactions with one another. Their flirting and coyness and chemistry felt palpable, fun, and attractive. It’s so unfortunately rare to discover a male Asian American character like Patrick who’s cool, confident, kind, hot, and communicative, given the way that Asian American men are often ignored and overshadowed by white men. At the same time, Patrick names some of his own insecurities and messy relationship history too so he's not an unrealistically perfect person. Ugh, thank you Mary H.K. Choi for renewing my hope in men for another 48 hours with Patrick’s inclusion in this novel.

Beyond Jayne’s relationship with June and her relationship with Patrick, Choi tackles nuanced topics such as Jayne’s mother’s complex relationship with motherhood itself as well as Jayne’s eating disorder. Choi developed both of these storylines in the novel well and I connected a lot to the way Jayne used disordered eating as a way to cultivate control, as someone who used to have an eating disorder myself. I felt that Choi wielded Jayne and June’s mother well as a way to explore the intricacies of Asian/Asian American motherhood, immigration and acculturative stress, and gender in Asian/Korean American families. The way all these different threads came together in the last 10% of the novel or so felt amazing – the ending of Yolk made me go back and forth about whether to round up to five stars for several hours.

I have two minor constructive critiques of this novel. First, I slightly wish that Choi had included more of Jayne and June’s backstory from the beginning to the end of the novel, as I felt that she spliced in more of their backstory toward the middle and end. I wish that because at times I felt confused about why Jayne and June disliked each other so much and communicated in such hurtful ways. It seems that other reviewers appreciated this dynamic, as did I, though I think that inserting some of the flashbacks earlier in the novel would have helped. Second, I wish Choi had dedicated even a couple more sentences to interrogating Jayne’s pre-Patrick dating record with white guys. While I’m so happy Jayne eventually kicked her mediocre, problematic-as-heck white ex to the curb and leveled up with Patrick, Choi mentions multiple times that Jayne’s dating history pre-Patrick included a lot of white men. I feel like Asian Americans assimilating into whiteness/white supremacy through dating white people is an important topic, and while I don’t think Choi needed to dedicate a ton of space to this, a more active deconstruction would have been appreciated.

Overall, a fantastic young-adult/new-adult novel I would recommend to fans of realistic fiction overall. Despite her occasionally shallow concerns I found myself relating to Jayne around certain neuroses, especially her feelings toward Patrick, which made me laugh while reading the book. Props to Choi for continuing to grow as a writer and yay 2021 for a superb showing of Asian American YA so far between this book and the splendid When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert.

[Sahil Javed]

[28/07/20) - and then god said to mary "thou shall always have beautiful book covers" and so it came to be.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5

[Kate♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5stars

I genuinely feel bad about this rating. I DESPERATELY wanted to like this book, I desperately want to like Mary HK Choi but after hating 2 of her books for the same reason, I'm gonna say she's simply not for me. This story was beautiful and tragic, but through the eyes of the most insufferable character EVER. the main character Jayne might appeal to some for her flawed nature, but I just simply couldn't stand her. Choi's characters are always pretty awful to me, but written as if they're supposed to be relatable?? But they're not?? I just don't vibe with it and I'm genuinely upset about it. I'm sure tons of other people will enjoy this just like everyone loved her previous two books

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is STUNNING. Just one sharp, fascinating, painful, cut-glass observation after another, on the awfulness of being and dealing with people, on family bonds, immigrant parents, inherited culture, city life, narcissists, bodegas, Instagram, disordered eating, sex, first dates, shitty apartments. Do you remember the Upright Citizens' Brigade episode with the Bucket of Truth? This book is kind of like that. You can learn more about the plot through the publisher's copy up top, to me it's a book to read in part for story but even more to be flattened by an author's ability to skin the world and show you all its beating parts. Definitely read this if you're a writer and want to take notes/be boggled as you watch someone create a kaleidoscopic vision of teeming, sweaty, sometimes sickening life through words. I can see every one of these characters, even if I don't want to.

[Era ➴ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone tell me why I was sobbing throughout the entire last chapter -

trigger warnings: bulimia, binging and disordered eating, body dysmorphia, depression, anxiety, cancer, alcohol, bullying, racism and abuse.

What do I even say about this book?

This book was so relevant and harsh. The storytelling was so modern and fresh but also so emotional, and I loved the themes that played through the plot.

The synopsis says this book is about two Korean-American sisters, Jayne and June, and their reconciliation after years of a less-than-happy relationship. Supposedly, it’s about their old and new bonds being rehashed after June is diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

But the version of June I want is the one I sat with at church. The one I grew up with. The one from long ago, before all the screaming fights in high school, and not this one at all.

I found it to be more about Jayne struggling with life, in general. Her struggle with bulimia was probably the biggest conflict, in my opinion -but as someone who is also recovering from an eating disorder, I thought it was so important and powerful.

That was one of my favorite things about this book; the mental health representation was so good.

Jayne struggles with body dysmorphia and bulimia, something that is painfully present throughout the book. It’s not something that’s backed away from. It was so raw and realistic and harsh.

I find that the more I hide, the more presentable I am to the world.

Her mentality about eating and body image and appearance is just so ruthlessly accurate. The constant comparisons, the restriction and planning, the confusion and fear. Reading Jayne’s perspective was relatable in the worst way.

Jayne also mentions depression and anxiety, as well as her family’s lack of support about it. The validation this book gives to mental health and mental health struggles is so strong.

“Who said anything about Mom? I’m the one asking. You’re smart when you focus. I’m tired of people giving you a pass because you’re emotional.”
I stare at her long and hard. She’s like Mom when it comes to mental health stuff. June thinks anxiety is for pussies. That you can banish it with intestinal fortitude. According to her, depression is laziness that can be fixed by high-intensity interval training and caffeine.

The relationships were also such a strong point. Jayne and June’s relationship is…interesting, to put it lightly. They grew up so close and still, during the time of the book, have inside jokes and close talks. There were these natural, inevitable moments where they just clicked together.

But there were also times that were toxic. Some of the things they said and did to each other honestly surprised me - maybe because I’m an only child. Maybe because they were estranged. But still.

Sisters never stand a chance to be friends. We're pitted against each other from the moment we are born. A daughter is a treasure. Two is a tax.

There's this whole theory that younger siblings are spoiled. That we're enfeebled from all the mollycoddling. Soft. That by the time it was our turn to rebel, our parents had already given up. I disagree with this wholly. It's first-borns who can't take no for an answer. Younger kids have iron constitutions. Hardy hides from lifetimes of rejection. A hundred million entreaties for their older siblings to hang out answered by shoves, eye rolls, slammed doors, and stone-cold ditches followed by peals of laughter.

Strangely, I didn’t really feel much of a connection to Jayne or June. Jayne was someone I could empathize with (disordered eating, bad relationship with family, nonexistent mental health) and her perspective was so damn understandable. I couldn’t help but feel for her.

But at the same time, I also thought she made a lot of bad decisions and had some really annoying commentary.

June was harder to know as a character, because the whole book is from Jayne’s perspective, but I feel like I would love her or hate her as a person. Something about how she was so composed and yet awkward, smart and yet oblivious, was so realistic and it resonated with me, but as a person I don’t know how I would feel about her other than the fact that those opinions would be strong.

An element that I thought was really interesting was the views on Asian racism and how the commentary of this book was just really unflinching and fresh.

Jayne and June, being Korean-American, grew up in a rural town where their parents owned a small Asian restaurant. Not Korean or Chinese or Japanese, just Asian (code for American food with rice).

Them growing up with part of their culture detached from their parents’, there was the classic and ever-relatable “Asian-American kid” narrative. And then there was the narrative about the community, the expectations and the experience growing up.

It's crazy how lonely it is to be in a family.

You know how it is, church-folk are all up in your business until that shit actually gets dark. Then, they just think you’re contagious.

One of my favorite quotes that I forgot to write down was something about Jayne and Patrick, her main love interest, having a competition about their experiences growing up. Jayne says something like, “It’s so sick and yet funny that we’re comparing our childhood traumas.” And my reaction was well isn’t that the story of my life.

Basically, this book was shockingly therapeutic. I picked it up expecting some Asian-rep contemporary about sisters bonding, and what I got was a slap to the face. Mary HK Choi did not back down with this.

I know what it's like to want to leave. How it feels when the home you have is a mirage, an illusion. But I know that wherever I am, if June's around, I'll be ok.

And can we just appreciate Mary HK Choi’s disclaimer?

This is a work of fiction that mirrors aspects of my own history with disordered eating, dysmorphia, and bulimia. For those struggling with body image and food, this story might be emotionally expensive for you. Please be gentle with yourselves—sensitivity is a superpower. And please know that there is no such thing as a bad body. Truly. Take up space, it is your birthright.
Love, Mary.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀

tw: eating disorders

“I thought a polished appearance and stellar behavior would be the passport to belonging. And when I inevitably failed at perfection, I could at least wilfully do everything in my power to be kicked out before anyone left me.”

Bursting with sharp humor and insight Yolk is a bighearted and profoundly honest novel. Never have I ever felt so understood and seen by a book. I have become used to eating disorders, bulimia especially, either being made into punchlines or sensationalised (i am looking at you Milk Fed). So, understandably I have become weary of reading books with main characters who have an ED. And then, lo and behold, Yolk.

There is so much to love about this novel. First, our narrator, Jayne Baek. She's a listless twenty-year-old Korean-American college student who lives in an illegal sublet in New York. She shares the apartment with Jeremy, a polyamorous white guy she sort of had a relationship with. Not only is Jeremy scrounging off Jayne—over the course of a few months he only paid his half of the rent once—but he also gets her to help him with his 'projects'. Although Jayne hangs out with other people, she keeps others at length, partly out of fear of being rejected, partly because she doesn't want people to inspect her life too closely. Out of the blue, her older sister June shows up. June has a high-paying finance job, lives by herself in a swanky apartment, and, unlike Jayne, seems to have her shit together. The two sisters are not on the best of terms and in spite of living in the same city they have not seen each other for two years. Although Jayne isn't keen on making amends with her sister, her world is upended by the news that June has been diagnosed with uterine cancer. What follows is a heartfelt tale navigating the fraught relationship between Jayne and June.

Jayne's voice is incredibly authentic. She could be petty, silly, and cold. She's also deeply insecure. Jayne wants to desperately leave her childhood and teenage years in Texas behind and tries to do so by barely keeping in touch with her family. She's never been able to fully transcend the linguistic, cultural, and generational divides between her and her parents, which has caused her to feel at a remove from them. When June barges into her life Jayne isn't all that happy. On the one hand, she finds June dorky, embarrassing even. On the other, she's ashamed—of lousy Jeremy, the crappy apartment she's living in, her 'lack' of success, and her ED. Because of this, June and Jayne's 'reconciliation is not smooth. Rarely have I come across such a realistic portrayal of siblings. When it comes to sisters especially creators/authors usually are rather lazy in terms of their characterization: one of them is good the other one is bad, or one of them is beautiful and the other is a 'plain jane', or one of them is outgoing and the other one serious (you get the gists). Choi does not confine June and Jayne to such narrow roles. They are both struggling in their own ways, they are capable of getting under each other's skin (in record amounts of time) as no other person can yet their shared upbringing, or history if you will, also means that they 'get' each other. The dynamic between them felt incredibly authentic. From their arguments, which vacillated between being playful and serious, to those quieter moments between them. Speaking of arguments, Choi writes some of the most realistic arguments that I have ever read. Usually, arguments in books/tv shows/films have this scripted quality to them (they either don't seem very spontaneous or they seem to build up gradually reaching a crescendo that ends with the people involved going their separate ways or breaking up or whatnot). Here instead the fights between June and Jayne are far more true-to-life. Sometimes they can momentarily defuse the tension between them, or sometimes their arguing reignites after a moment of calm.
Choi excels at dialogues in general. I particularly loved the banter and flirting between June and Patrick.

While the narrative does focus a lot on the love/hate bond between June and Jayne, Yolk is very much about Jayne and her relationship with herself and her body. I really appreciated the way Choi handled Jayne's ED. While readers know that she has an ED, we only know know towards the end of the novel. I thought this was both clever and extremely thoughtful on Choi's part. Clever because it is indicative of Jayne's self-denial. While Jayne knows that has an ED she doesn't want to really think about what this means. I used to rationalize my ED by treating my bulimia as a necessary step towards 'thinness'. I knew deep down that what I was doing was definitely not healthy, but I trained my brain into thinking that it was just another part of my daily routine. So, Jayne's denial really resonated with me. I could also really relate to Jayne's attitude towards perfection as I too have the bad habit of abandoning things if I don't get good enough results.
The romance between Jayne and Patrick was this great combination of cute and realistic. Their chemistry was sweet, and I loved their moments together.
Jayne's narration is full of cultural references which made her environment(s) all the more real. I did struggle with the fashion brands as I happen to be fashion-backwards.

Yolk is a real beauty of a novel. It was funny, moving, whip-smart, and brutally honest.
If you are looking for a more mature YA novel that explores sisterhood, mental health, love, heartbreak, and Korean-American identity, look no further (I just finished this and I already want to re-read it).

Confession time: I actually didn't think that I would like this novel. A few years ago I tried reading Permanent Record but I wasn't vibing with it and ended up DNFing it and writing a high-key mean review (which I have now deleted and feel really shitty about posting in the first place). Choi please accept my apologies. As Madonna once said: Je suis désolé, lo siento, ik ben droevig, sono spiacente, perdóname.

[Kevin (Irish Reader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

TW: Cancer, Eating disorder

My first Mary H.K. Choi book and I can say I definitely enjoyed it! I really liked these characters and they felt so real with how realistic their dialogue and interactions with one another were. My main love for this book comes from the relationship between the two sisters. It was very complex and dealt with a lot of complications but in the end the sibling love is there. It was truly stunning to watch that relationship grow throughout the book. The romance was one I wasn’t convinced on initially but by the end of the book I did enjoy it.

Read this for my Patreon Bookclub and did a spoiler filled reading vlog on it for my Love, Kevin patrons. You can check it out, (if you’d like), here: patreon.com/irishreader

[Katie Colson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary HK Choi didn't have to do me like this.

💛F🖤A🤍V💛O🖤R🤍I💛T🖤E🤍

The writing is S T U N N I N G.
I love how she describes people in experiences instead of adjectives. For example, we meet a girl who is supposed to be so pretty it makes the main character uncomfortable in her own skin. Instead of saying she's attractive or describing her features, the main character says she is the kind of girl that the first thing you think when you see her is "I wonder how many Instagram followers she has" and I loved that! That painted a whole picture for me. I conjured up my own idea of this 'perfect girl' and it brought the feelings that the main character is supposed to have. This kind of writing allowed me to inject my own personnel insecurities into the story. AMAZING.

I related to this in a gut wrenching way that I did not anticipate.
I can't wait to reread this physically and annotate the absolute SHIT out of it.

Favorite quotes:
"You're only as sick as your secrets"
"It's easier to watch myself be sad than actually be sad"
"I could lie, say I like it like that" - Billie Eilish (intro page)
"This story might be emotionally expensive for you" (trigger warnings)

[Jananie (thisstoryaintover)]

don't mind me just sobbing over here 😭to say this was incredible is an understatement. Mary H. K. Choi writes with needle sharp precision and such immense rawness and vulnerability. Definitely a new all-time fave 💗 full reading vlog coming soon!

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

TW for eating disorder and cancer

Let me start off by saying that I'm not the biggest fan of character-driven novels, especially when those characters are extremely flawed and unlikable characters. I had a really hard time getting into this book because I just did not like Jayne. She made not the best decisions and self-sabotoged all the time. I had a hard time understanding her and why she was doing things that she knew wouldn't end well. I found myself more frustrated with her and wanting her to make better decisions or just talk to people and ask for help. I know why she wasn't talking to people or asking for help, but it still frustrated me I had to go through this whole book watching her act that way, especially with her family.

That being said, I actually really enjoyed the ending and wish we had more focus on that. I started to understand Jayne's character and wanted more of her growth there instead of the whole book focusing on her flaws to have a blip of her learning more about herself and what she was going through at the end. And I felt so unsatisfied with June's story's end! But like I said, I'm someone who needs a plot-driven story and this one felt too slow for me.

[Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just didn’t like it

[Anna Avian · Rating 1 out of 5]

A difficult and uncomfortable read that was hard for me to follow.

[Monte Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

We're going to acknowledge the elephant in the room, and it's simply that I do not think that Mary H.K. Choi is capable of writing a book that I view as bad. I cannot imagine living in a world in which I cannot relate to the characters that she has crafted. It is simply not fathomable to me. I do not wish to live in that reality, and here once again Choi is masterful in her character work; which is something that is the core of what I love most about her works.

Sibling connections and books about siblings are things that I definitely love in books. Which might be hard to believe if you go perusing through some other reviews I may have written. But Jayne and June and their relationship were at the core of what I enjoyed about this. That reconnection is at the core of what makes this book work for me as well as it does. [ Though Jayne's side romance with Patrick was also very nicely handled. It brought moments of levity in an otherwise very impactful story. ]

September 2021 reread

I didn't think I'd be rereading this book so soon, but let me just say it was just as good the second time around. Jayne and June are two of my favorite characters. I love to see it. I will carry them around with me for the rest of forever and I loved getting to have another peak back into their lives.

There really isn't a lot to say about the book because so much of it is the sisters and the journey they go on. I will say that the identity theft aspect of the book did not play out as I had expected it to, but I think that I liked it more. I think that the way it happened really strengthened both characters and the overall story being told.

Do go in knowing that the book heavily involves aspects of disordered eating, dysmorphia, and bulimia as noted by Mary at the start of the book, and June is diagnosed with cancer and so aspects of that as well as discussions of fertility are brought up in relation to that diagnosis and readers should keep that in mind as they go in.

Again, for me, Choi continues to top herself and Jayne and June are going to be living with me for as long as I live. Truly cannot imagine my life without the Baek sisters.

[Lily (LilyCReads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Books with Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far one of my favorite reads of the year 🤍

[J (Midnight Book Blog) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yep, that did break me, but not in the way I though it would.

Plot: The narrative style itself was really interesting. It almost came off like stream-of-consciousness, and for the first half seemed a little slow. But once I got used to it, it was actually really amazing how present I felt in the story.
Characters: I feel like it is so hard to write complex characters without making people hate them, and these characters were pure art. The sibling rivalry to love journey was very well done, and I had to try really, really hard not to cry while reading in the dining hall.
Overall: I think this was a very emotionally heavy book, but also one that felt really important to read.
Content warnings: I don’t usually do a long content warning section, but book deals with some heavy topics. Jayne suffers from an eating disorder, and while it is touched on more subtly in the first part of the book, toward the end it is very present. And though I cannot speak to the to accuracy of this mental health rep specifically, I will say it was absolutely heart wrenching. She also talks about some tumultuous family experiences, as well as her experiences as a Korean immigrant (which includes racism).

Click here for the full review on my blog!

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7/10/21: ok I'm not ready to cry, let's see if this breaks me (:

*ARC received in exchange for honest review

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This book was heavy. Much more heavy than I anticipated and on so many levels. First off, let me say that Mary H.K. Choi is a true wordsmith and her words are always well crafted. I think she is such a strong writer and I love that she writes about topics that aren’t easy. What I loved about this book was the familial aspect, specifically the sibling relationship.

This book was specifically hard for me and I know the blurb alludes to some issues, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was trigger warnings for: bulimia/disordered eating, cancer, identity theft, mental illness.. It was just really hard for me. I wanted to love it, it was well written and impactful, but it wasn’t my favorite from Choi and was just too difficult for these too close to home topics.

Audio book source: Libby (library borrow)
Story Rating: 3.5 stars
Narrator: Joy Osmanski
Narration Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Contemporary (new adult)
Length: 13 hours and 6 minutes

[Katy O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn I love this book. Messy, dysfunctional, raw and real young adulthood combined with one of the best sister stories I’ve ever read. Jayne is a hot mess with so much hope, I just want to bring her home and give her a hug.

Librarian note: The MC in this book is in her 20s and I’m actually confused as to why this is categorized as YA. Not a YA book for middle schools. Sex, drugs, alcohol, lots of adult themes in general. Brings me back to the whole question of what IS YA anyway? So much of it is written for 12-15 but then there are books like this for 18+.

CW: eating disorders and cancer

[Romie · Rating 5 out of 5]

some books feel like they've been written just for you, and this is exactly how this book felt to me. the relationship between Jayne and June felt so close to the one I have with my own sister. Jayne's struggle with her eating disorder was painfully relatable. the way she feels so lonely and sad, trying to make connections, was a punch to my heart. this book simply spoke to me on so many levels.

[minh ☾･ﾟ · Rating 4 out of 5]

trigger warnings: bulimia(graphic), bingeing and disordered eating(graphic), body dysmorphia(graphic), cancer, alcoholism, bullying, racism, mental health depictions(anxiety and depression), and abuse

yolk by mary h.k. choi is marketed as a book about two sisters and their journey towards reconciliation, but its more than that.

jayne does not have her shit together. living as a broke college student in new york city, a place notoriously known for having a high-as-fuck cost of living, jayne struggles with an asshole boyfriend(?), shitty friends, an eating disorder, and an estranged family. basically, she's THE sad hot girl living in NYC, consumed with misery.

june, on the other hand, is on her girlboss shit. living a cushy life in a high-rise apartment funded by her salary from her finance job, she is what all millenials aspire to be.
their broken dynamic is jolted when june lets slip that she has been diagnosed with uterine cancer.

dun dun dun...

if i were to describe this book in one word, it would be real. while this book is marketed as being about two estranged sisters, i found its focus to be more on jayne and her struggle with bulimia and her eating disorder. in her disclaimer, choi mentions that parts of the book mirror and are derived from her own experiences with disordered eating, which make me appreciate the attention to detail in the storytelling, because everything from jayne's constant comparison and negative self-talk, to her obsessive restriction and planning about everything she consumes, is so harshly an experience that young people experience every day. while not having experienced an eating disorder myself, reading this book was like experiencing all of the most raw, painful moments. 'yolk' does not shy away from exposing the grimmest, darkest truths about today's skinny culture and bringing them to light in the experience of a character who might as well represent all women.

jayne's struggles are further invalidated by her family, and this ties in her anxiety and depression. i found that this book portrayed mental health with the gravity needed. in no way was jayne's mental health a villain or demonised, but rather, explored in a way that felt respectful while keeping the real details intact.

the poignancy and intimacy with which choi details the asian american experience was something that rightfully should've been included in the synopsis and marketing. littered with anecdotes about jayne and june's small-town korean-american church community, racist incidents that the characters experience, the confining expectations and suffocating pressure, and idiosyncrasies so unique to asian americans, this book felt like a love letter for them. i myself am not asian american, but rather asian australian, and while i might not have had the first gen immigrant experience, or been smothered by a chuch community, i relate almost painfully to all the experiences of jayne's childhood.

an acquiescence regarding the book's characters: initially, i had given this book a 2.5 star rating, due to equal parts frustration regarding the pretentiousness of jayne's character and thus inner monologue. while i empathised with jayne, and felt violent emotions on behalf of the two sisters, there was a sense of detachment of which i approached the story. the characterisation was underdeveloped to the point where i understood the character's archetypes and personalities, and their significance in portraying certain messages and ideals that the author included within the story, but i didn't feel attachment to them on a deeper level. as someone who enjoys and prefers character-driven stories, its not that i found this book impersonal because i couldn't form an attachment to the characters(although i did relate to them), its that my enjoyment was deterred because i would get annoyed at some of jayne's monologues and dialogue, and that made me resent her.
now that i reflect, i relent that it is ok if i didn't connect deeply to jayne or june, but that i connected to the story, and its portrayal of issues relevant to youth in todays society. a read i would recommend to anyone who is able to handle stories with graphic depictions of disordered eating. and when i saw graphic, i more so mean the detail in the descriptions and monologues of the main character, as they reflect a mindset that some people may feel triggered from.

[lexi ✨ · Rating 1 out of 5]

1-1.5
t/w: eating disorders, mental illness, cancer

it was so messy, so real, & very hard..
this book was heavily character based & focused on showing jayne's life & her experiences with an eating disorder, anxiety, depression, self hatred, family issues & her sister june's life & her experiences losing her job & having cancer.
when i say this book is heavy, i mean it is HEAVY. it is not an emotionally easy read.. it will rip you apart.

let's start with jayne.
jayne is so mentally ill, she assumes the worst of everyone & assumes how they’ll make her feel & will essentially hate someone like her sister june for scenarios & assumptions she makes up & how she believes they’ll react.
she craves recognition & it’s sad she just wants someone to want & choose her. she does go as far as sleeping with holland hint knowing he has a girlfriend & has a goal of wanting holland hint to like her more than his gf, & then there’s jeremy who literally uses her & treats her horribly.

i did like how mary h.k. choi revealed how horrible men can be & how she didn't choose to incorporate a fluffy romance because in reality a lot of people do not have good intentions, & make very hurtful choices.
i will admit i was surprised at how much i liked patrick & jayne’s “relationship” as messy as it was

back to jayne,
i did noticed her train of thought is very harmful to her & others.
she wanted to appear “easy” & not high maintenance.
she had expectations for people & how they should act & if they don’t act in accordance to what she wants she gets angry.
she could never fully be herself & she was holding on to A LOT of anger.
she had an eating disorder as well & it was hard to read especially near the end. she was so calculated in how she dealt with her relationship with food & i don't think i've ever read a story about a woman with an eating disorder that was as detailed, graphic & difficult to get through like this one was.

it really broke my heart to see jayne in her self hatred, but she still kept going she still tries to power through everything & i’m honestly stunned at how real her character felt.

i like june i think at times she enforces reality within jayne even though she never wants to face it.
i liked jayne & june’s dynamic i think mary h. k. choi really grasped the reality of sister relationships & how nasty & thoughtful & loving yet hating they could be. .

love is shown in many ways & i guess jayne & june’s mom has her own way of showing it which june understands & notices she’s not very good at it, but jayne has a bit more trouble processing & realizing people are not always going to act the way you want them to. plus jayne is just as bad at showing people she loves & cares for them.. i mean she literally avoided her family before june found her. sibling relationships & family relationships are rollercoasters in general & i liked how real it was. you can see how jayne & june deal with their mom who has her own ways of doing things.

after a lot of thought i realized i didn’t enjoy reading this book.
even though i liked how it reflected real life through jayne & june's dynamic & problems with men & family, i did not have fun reading about someone who was in constant pain.
from the beginning of the book up until right before the end you are taken on jayne & june's agonizing journey. if you're looking for a fun fluffy read this is not it, this is a graphic, revealing & upsetting.
i do believe this book would help many with starting conversations about eating disorders, showing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel & that it is entirely possible to have an understanding circle with people who do care & will motivate you to get better. i think this book shows how mental illness can take over someone's life. but damn this was triggering af & i've read triggering books before, but this one was a bit too much for me & it didn't leave me feeling good.

- arc provided via netgalley in exchange for an honest review