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A review by icedpinecones
Idol, Burning by 宇佐見りん, Rin Usami
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Welcome to my review of 'Idol Burning' by Rin Usami! In short, I found this to be a good story but very misrepresented by it's marketing. The story promises obsession, a view of cancel culture & parasocial relationships but in actuality it's more of a coming of age story exploring the effects of parasocial relationships on a teenager. It delivered on some points, but never touched the rest. Due to this I found myself not enjoying the book, but if you're going into this knowing it's more about an obsessive parasocial relationship not cancel culture you'll probably enjoy!
Now onto the CAWPILE, which is a way of reviewing books! Feel free to scroll to certain aspects you focus on in your books and get the key information you need to work out if you want to read this or not! My social medias are all linked at the bottom of this review if you want to check out my pages! Thank you for reading!!
CHARACTERS
We follow Akari for the majority of this book, and her descent into depression as her obsession with her idol slowly destroys her life. I found her annoying at several points, but in a way I'm sure is relatable to every teenager who had a rough time growing up and just feels embarrassed by how they used to behave. I felt that the aspect of seeing an idol be cancelled from a fans perspective wasn't explored as much as the blurb promised, being that we just see her obsession and blog posting and buying things, it's not really exploring cancel culture through the lens of a fan at all.
ATMOSPHERE
The atmosphere isn't strong in this book unfortunately, it's very all over the place with the general golden thread of the entire story being the depression and obsession NOT the dread of cancel culture. I never felt the sense of dread and desperation Akari was feeling when her idol began to lose popularity. At times it felt clunky having scenes of her at school or work as there was just no consistent atmosphere to convey her life destructing in these scenes.
WRITING STYLE
I found this book a little less smooth than quite a vast variety of translated fiction I've previously read, again the only word I really have to describe it is that it comes across as clunky. I'm unsure if the book became like this in translation, but it just lacks a lot of depth. The book is only 110 pages with the other 20 being interviews and comments from both the author and translator, so I guess it has to be clunky in order to get from scene to scene but I just found it very disjointed.
PLOT
The general plot of this book is occasionally misrepresented in blubs I'd say. The idol assaults someone, and we spend most the book just following Akari and her obsession; I'd of hoped we got more of a push and pull with an idols life being destroyed/the darkness of the idol industry and how it takes advantage of fans too but it just never hit that depth. It felt much more like the plight of a teenage obsession rather than the darker ruthlessness promised. It was more of a coming of age story/exploration of teenage obsession. Cancel culture/an idol burning up is talked about a lot in both the authors note and interviews with the author in the latter section of the book but I found the story itself to focus very little on that. It's a great look into parasocial relationships, but not cancel culture.
INTRIGUE
The intrigue of this book for me was that it promised to look at cancel culture, coming of age, obsession & parasocial relationships. I found it definitely delivered on parasocial relationships and coming of age, but fell short with cancellation & how random reacts to that. I found myself enjoying the book less as it went on, as I had to come to terms with the fact that it's been misrepresented online by it's marketing.
LOGIC
The story jumps in time a lot, spanning over more than a year from the inciting incident of abuse from the idol that our main character follows. The relationships between the characters and their family is juttery and doesn't make sense at times, and the behaviour of the character while she goes to school or works her job is clunkily done and hard to follow. For example, at one point of the book we have the character burn herself out over summer by overworking to make money to buy merchandise and go to concerts to support her idol. Then we jump to the start of her school year, where she is stated to be very thin, have severe acne and poor hygiene due to how she only focuses on her idol. Then shes in the nurses office, then she's back at home, then she's failing school. It all jumps and is hard to follow and know exactly how long it's been since the last paragraph.
ENJOYMENT
While I found the metaphors and journey of the main character to be done well, I just couldn't enjoy the majority of this book while I was waiting on it to deliver a story that never came. I found it reminiscent of reading 'Lemon' by Kwon Yeo-Sun which was also misrepresented (being sold as a thriller/murder mystery when really it's just an exploration of grief), in the way that this book is definitely sold as a darker and obsessive story of a fan dealing with her idol being cancelled it's moreso just a teenager growing out of a parasocial relationship. If it was advertised as that, I'd of still been interested and probably enjoyed it more as it isn't a bad book, but unfortunately the misrepresentation of the book led me to just not enjoy it at all.
Jessie (she/her)
[email protected]
www.instagram.com/icedpinecones
www.goodreads.com/icedpinecones
https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/icedpinecones
Now onto the CAWPILE, which is a way of reviewing books! Feel free to scroll to certain aspects you focus on in your books and get the key information you need to work out if you want to read this or not! My social medias are all linked at the bottom of this review if you want to check out my pages! Thank you for reading!!
CHARACTERS
We follow Akari for the majority of this book, and her descent into depression as her obsession with her idol slowly destroys her life. I found her annoying at several points, but in a way I'm sure is relatable to every teenager who had a rough time growing up and just feels embarrassed by how they used to behave. I felt that the aspect of seeing an idol be cancelled from a fans perspective wasn't explored as much as the blurb promised, being that we just see her obsession and blog posting and buying things, it's not really exploring cancel culture through the lens of a fan at all.
ATMOSPHERE
The atmosphere isn't strong in this book unfortunately, it's very all over the place with the general golden thread of the entire story being the depression and obsession NOT the dread of cancel culture. I never felt the sense of dread and desperation Akari was feeling when her idol began to lose popularity. At times it felt clunky having scenes of her at school or work as there was just no consistent atmosphere to convey her life destructing in these scenes.
WRITING STYLE
I found this book a little less smooth than quite a vast variety of translated fiction I've previously read, again the only word I really have to describe it is that it comes across as clunky. I'm unsure if the book became like this in translation, but it just lacks a lot of depth. The book is only 110 pages with the other 20 being interviews and comments from both the author and translator, so I guess it has to be clunky in order to get from scene to scene but I just found it very disjointed.
PLOT
The general plot of this book is occasionally misrepresented in blubs I'd say. The idol assaults someone, and we spend most the book just following Akari and her obsession; I'd of hoped we got more of a push and pull with an idols life being destroyed/the darkness of the idol industry and how it takes advantage of fans too but it just never hit that depth. It felt much more like the plight of a teenage obsession rather than the darker ruthlessness promised. It was more of a coming of age story/exploration of teenage obsession. Cancel culture/an idol burning up is talked about a lot in both the authors note and interviews with the author in the latter section of the book but I found the story itself to focus very little on that. It's a great look into parasocial relationships, but not cancel culture.
INTRIGUE
The intrigue of this book for me was that it promised to look at cancel culture, coming of age, obsession & parasocial relationships. I found it definitely delivered on parasocial relationships and coming of age, but fell short with cancellation & how random reacts to that. I found myself enjoying the book less as it went on, as I had to come to terms with the fact that it's been misrepresented online by it's marketing.
LOGIC
The story jumps in time a lot, spanning over more than a year from the inciting incident of abuse from the idol that our main character follows. The relationships between the characters and their family is juttery and doesn't make sense at times, and the behaviour of the character while she goes to school or works her job is clunkily done and hard to follow. For example, at one point of the book we have the character burn herself out over summer by overworking to make money to buy merchandise and go to concerts to support her idol. Then we jump to the start of her school year, where she is stated to be very thin, have severe acne and poor hygiene due to how she only focuses on her idol. Then shes in the nurses office, then she's back at home, then she's failing school. It all jumps and is hard to follow and know exactly how long it's been since the last paragraph.
ENJOYMENT
While I found the metaphors and journey of the main character to be done well, I just couldn't enjoy the majority of this book while I was waiting on it to deliver a story that never came. I found it reminiscent of reading 'Lemon' by Kwon Yeo-Sun which was also misrepresented (being sold as a thriller/murder mystery when really it's just an exploration of grief), in the way that this book is definitely sold as a darker and obsessive story of a fan dealing with her idol being cancelled it's moreso just a teenager growing out of a parasocial relationship. If it was advertised as that, I'd of still been interested and probably enjoyed it more as it isn't a bad book, but unfortunately the misrepresentation of the book led me to just not enjoy it at all.
Jessie (she/her)
[email protected]
www.instagram.com/icedpinecones
www.goodreads.com/icedpinecones
https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/icedpinecones