The Band is a brutal and unfiltered discussion of fandom culture and the obsessive entitlement fans feel toward those in the public eye. It's satirical and rightfully critical, dealing with mental illness and cancel culture through a lens that demands attention.

I want to speak concisely when talking about this book because it feels important to do so. Not only do I believe that anyone who considers themself a fan of a K-pop idol or group should read this, but anyone who labels themself a fan of any celebrity. Christine Ma-Kellams touches on individual issues within the K-pop sphere but also finds herself delving into conversations that any fan can relate to and/or understand.

There is something beautiful about this novel in that it feels as if it were a self-insert fan fiction, and I mean this with the utmost love as it adds to the story. When speaking of the narrator and the author's life, they blur between the lines of fiction and reality, crossing paths when necessary. There is something to be said for the way she can create a character modeled with the same career, race, and language abilities (I have gathered this much from the about the author section) and bring forth a story that so clearly is meant to negate this very ideal.

And trust me, I can find the irony in combing through her Goodreads before writing about public obsession.

While the synopsis of this story contains what you need to know about The Band before reading it, I want to clarify that it is much more than what you can fit into a few paragraphs. In all honesty, I feel that it could be much more than what the author fits within the small page count (according to Goodreads, 224 pages).

While the heart of the story is about Duri and the narrator's relationship and lives outside of one another, we see glimpses of The Band's producer, nicknamed Pinocchio, and his first attempt at gaining riches and fame through a girl group, while also getting The Band's perspective on Duri's unexpected departure from the group. In seeing the different lives of these characters you are able to see how they deal with fame and their circumstances, all wanting nothing more than for their dreams to become a reality.

The way Ma-Kellams deals with our narrator's savior complex teeters on the line of bizarrely inappropriate while finding yourself questioning whether you would do any different if placed in her position. The hints at having an intimate relationship with Duri and never directly saying so allow you to consider if you are truly any better than the obsessive fans she is describing or if she herself is one who balances between telling the truth and altering it slightly to sound more appealing and to feed her delusions.

K-pop and America
A moment that I find myself drifting back towards is the fictional group's appearance on an American talk show wherein they undergo a stressful situation that is foreign to them even more so than being in a foreign country. The members find themselves scared for their lives because the comedian host believed that she was surprising them. Without giving spoilers away, I wanted to mention this moment in the novel for the sheer reflection that it brings forth when speaking of America and its inability to see how it is perceived outside of its borders.

This section of the book brought a memory back from a year or so ago when Stray Kids were performing in the US on the fourth of July. I remember seeing jokes online about them not recognizing the holiday and the fireworks, believing that they were gunshots. In all honestly, I didn't think much about those jokes again until reading that talk show scene in the novel.

There is something to be said that I can't find the correct words for when speaking about America's belief that other countries and their citizens understand our lifestyles. As Ma-Kellams states in the novel, "America is a land so free—or perhaps so addicted to the idea of freedom—that its people can gun each other down in broad daylight with weapons they can find at the same place a man can get condoms." While some may gain no new knowledge from this moment in the novel or others for that matter, I do feel that there are times for readers to reflect deeply on their actions and/or beliefs.

Mental Illness
The last piece of The Band that I want to talk about is how it deals with mental illness. As it's a close subject to myself, going into this book I wanted to pay attention to how the author allowed the characters to approach that conversation.

We see Duri, who for the first time in seven years, isn't directly under a microscope. He finds himself struggling to cope with living when the world that knows him believes he needs to be canceled for his most recent music video. The metaphorical microscope lens is cracking, threatening to shatter on him.

Throughout the story, Duri finds himself struggling to keep afloat. It's a truly beautiful and simplistic approach to the discussion of depression and specifically how it pertains to those in the public eye who are treated as robots instead of humans.

Conclusion
In the end, I found The Band to be the perfect blend of satire and fiction. It never diverges from its initial path and keeps you from finding lackluster moments as there is so much to this story squeezed into the small page count.

Anyone who has ever considered themself a fan of someone in the public eye should pick this up as I truly believe that you can gain something from this novel. And for the K-pop fans, I will eternally recommend them to pick The Band up whether they read consistently or rarely. This is a book for them when it comes to learning and educating themselves about K-pop and Korean culture, while still being entertaining, funny, and heartwarming at moments.

A big thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for providing an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

I received an e-ARC of this book from Atria in exchange for an honest review. This book was… interesting. I’m not one who is super into K-Pop, so I definitely don’t think I am the target audience. However, I was able to learn a lot about the culture behind K-Pop fame, various Asian communities, and the pressure that comes with fake.
Again, I am not super into K-Pop so I found myself being slightly confused through parts of the book, and for sure think it would be more enjoyable to read in physical form. There were a lot of footnotes that were harder to follow in e-book form, but I appreciate the author added them in to explain certain aspects of the book, character, culture, etc. I also was a bit confused with the changing POV’s, timelines, etc at points and wish that the shifts were done more clearly with more purposeful intent.
Might not have been the book for me, but I know anyone who enjoys K-Pop would LOVE this book and it’s characters.

Thank you Atria Books & NetGalley for the ARC!

The Band was an interesting book. I found the writing to be a double-edged sword: it was lyrically written, but then on the other hand it was hard to understand. I enjoyed the story, but found it a little wordy and hard to follow at times.

Thank you again for the ARC!

I really loved the highbrow/lowbrow mix here, of both k-pop and academe-speak. It is slow in the beginbut once it starts to come together, it really sings.

I am not going to publish this review. To be honest, I tried to read this. I got about 50 pages in and quit. I found the writing absolutely unreadable. The sentences were tortuously long. The descriptions were flat. I couldn’t really even follow what little of the story I read because the writing was so very unclear and tangled. My apologies.

I was extremely excited for the opportunity to review THE BAND! As soon as I saw the description on NetGalley, I knew it was something I had to at least attempt to get my hands on-- I've been involved fairly heavily in fandom culture throughout my young adult life, and the sociological dynamics behind it fascinate me. While I"m not a KPOP fan myself (and believe my perception of this book would be drastically different if I was), I observe the fandom implosions from afar with equal parts shock and intrigue.

THE BAND is an intellectual deep-dive into such parasocial relationships and infighting, told through the lens of a jaded Chinese-American psychologist. MC lives a perfectly stable and utterly unsatisfying life in a California McMansion with her negligent husband and interchangeable children. When she runs into Sang Du-ri at H-mart, a member of the international megahit The Band on the lam after facing internet cancellation, she shelters him in her home and begins a tumultuous and complicated relationship. The narrative flips between the narrator and Du-ri, The Band's manager, and the members of his failed girl group.

I found the beginning somewhat slow, and struggled to become fully invested in the story. I felt that it flipped a bit too frequently between perspectives and took a bit too long to really delve into the narrator's POV, which made it difficult to emotionally connect. However, I really enjoyed the opportunity to view the inner workings of the industry from various perspectives: band members, managers, fans, and outsiders, Korean and American outside. Once I reached a certain point, however, the narrative streamlined and the pace of events started to pick up, and I started to read at a much quicker pace, with more dedication. The hanging threads of the extraneous characters started to tie together and I found myself pulling out my phone between meetings and classes to keep following them.

Some characters in THE BAND were more fleshed out more than others, but the main narrator was in my opinion the most unique and most unexpected. The tone and voice of the book strikes a peculiar balance between detached and personally overinvested, academic and colloquial, cruel and compassionate, analytical and understanding. The style feels almost like a blend between a nonfiction report and a personal essay narrative, which sounds strange--- and it is--- but works for the tone of the story. The writing is wonderfully rich, extremely well-informed and well-researched, but still maintains humor, levity, and voice. I have to agree with one of the blurbs that THE BAND couldn't have been written by anyone else; Ms. Ma-Kellams possesses a unique talent for both prose and journalism that lends itself excellently to the bizarre and compelling nature of the story. The book delves into some dark and fascinating subject matter regarding the parasocial, toxic, and all-consuming nature of the fan-idol relationship, the exploitation within the industry, and the psychological phenomena behind it--- mirrored in smaller scale by the narrator and Du-ri's relationship. I would be remiss if not to mention the footnotes that pop up throughout each chapter. On my e-ARC, tapping them brought me to an index at the end of the chapter. I can't tell how I feel about them as a stylistic choice: on one hand, they inject both additional voice and supplemental information, but I also found them distracting and jarring. If I were reading on a physical book, I think flipping back and forth would have been a bit frustrating and would have removed me from the narrative.

THE BAND wasn't what I thought it would be, but I'm glad it wasn't; it's hard to think of a book quite like this one. I can see this blowing up upon its release due to the subject matter, but I can also (ironically) see the possibility of backlash from fans expecting something lighter. All in all, I look forward to Ms. Ma-Kellams' next release, and commend her for the achievement that is THE BAND.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t think I’m the right person for this book. I’ve read some K-Pop books before but they were romance, reverse harem books which is completely different from this. The writing style was interesting but didn’t keep my attention for too long and I ended up dnf ing at 60% because the story hadn’t made me care about any of the characters. Flipping back and forth between groups to try to show the different dynamics in the media and fans between male and female pop groups was interesting.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

Interesting and complex. The writing was stellar, and it opened my eyes to the toxicity of the music industry that I never would have imagined it being. We hear it all - but we are not deeply intertwined, all we see is the black and white. You don’t have to be a fan of K Pop to fall into this dark, sultry and heartbreaking book.

I am not a K-Pop fan but I enjoy books about bands and the relationships among the singers and dancers. This had some of those things! I just didn't love how it was written. I struggled to get through it. Perhaps it's just me? I do want thank NetGalley for the ARC.

DNF at 10%: This book is just not for me, unfortunately. The prose and the dialogue in particular were rough to get through. I do think fans of Esther Yi's Y/N would enjoy the book though, since its style and themes surrounding fandom and obsession are similar.

I wasn’t sure I was the target audience for this, not being a K-pop fan. The synopsis sounded interesting though so I thought it was worth a shot. It was definitely a good choice.

I liked the characters, even though if you ask me, no one was particularly likable. There’s a lot of things I wouldn’t have understood if it wasn’t for the footnotes, kind of like Crazy Rich Asians had. There’s an entire culture in K-pop that is very strict and has to be just impossible to thrive in. This book digs into it in a way that shows just how hard it is. No one is perfect, but in K-pop, you need to be.

The American angle wasn’t particularly good. So much psychology and so little depth or humanity in that part. I wanted to feel like that part was a lot more of a character based than psych file.

I’d recommend this, but it’s better to go in blind. Enjoy!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, all opinions are my own.

I was pre approved for this book and its SO good. Like I read horror and thrillers. If it wasn't pre approved for me I may have never picked it up. But I was and I love this. If you are on the fence then let this be what makes your decision. Read it.