Romance writer Lily Chu shares how her love of K-pop inspired her new book 'The Comeback'
A Toronto lawyer falls in love with the world's most popular K-pop idol in 'The Comeback'
While most fans get into K-pop by hearing a song on the radio, Toronto writer Lily Chu says it was partly driven by the YouTube channel “Bad Lip Reading.”
Although she had started taking interest in the genre in 2019 after watching a Blackpink music video, it was only when she watched the hilariously bad — and inaccurate — lip reading of one of BTS’s music videos that caught her attention.
The video, titled “SAMPLE OF MY PASTA”, sounds absolutely nothing like the hype EDM-infused hip-hop track that is “Idol.” Still, it was enough to make Chu dive in further and learn more about BTS.
“I watched it and I’m like, ‘This video is amazing. But also, that cannot be the song!’” Chu said in an interview with Bunni Pop.
From there, Chu was down a rabbit hole into discovering other K-pop bands. Her growing fascination and love for the musical genre soon became the premise of her latest romance book The Comeback.
Set in Toronto, The Comeback follows a lawyer named Ariadne who thrives on routine. She has everything in her life planned down to the minute. After all, she needs to stay focused at all times in order to make partner at her law firm.
But one day, Ariadne finds a gorgeous man camped out in her living room. He’s come all the way from Seoul in order to mend his broken heart.
It’s not long until sparks fly between the pair and a relationship between them begins. Though little does Ariadne know that the man she’s seeing just so happens to be South Korea’s hottest K-pop idol of the moment. Ariadne is soon left to decide on her heart, sense of self and what her future looks like after she becomes the centre of romance scandal.
The Comeback marks Chu’s second book after her 2021 novel The Stand-In. (Fun fact: the audiobook versions of both books are also narrated by Hamilton’s Phillipa Soo!)
I recently chatted with Chu about writing The Comeback, learning about the K-pop industry and where she’d take the members of BTS if they are ever in Toronto.
Congratulations on the release of The Comeback! How did your love of K-pop inspire the premise of this story?
When I get into something, I like to absorb as much content on that thing as possible. And because I'm a big reader, I really like to read books about it as well. And when I was looking for a K-pop romance, most of them are actually in the young adult space. They tell the stories of people in their teenage years, and the groups are about to debut. So it's just a very different set of emotions and decisions and issues that the characters are facing.
I wanted something more adult. I couldn't really find it. K-pop to me is such an amazing topic for celebrity romance. There's the secrecy. What if the idol is not really allowed to date, or the more toxic elements of the fandom don't really like it? How do you reconcile the wild work hours in the amount of effort that you need to put in to be successful with a relationship? How do you meet people, even?
“I deliberately wrote the book so that if you love K-pop, hopefully you would have fun reliving and relearning your favourite band again.”
What research went into learning about the K-pop industry?
I had so much fun because where I started was watching hours of music videos and concert performances. K-pop performances and videos are incredible. I read English language interviews, but then also watched Korean reality shows, vacation shows and their V-lives.
During this time period, [the audio social media app] Clubhouse got super, super big. I was addicted to it. I was listening to it for hours a day. There were actually quite a lot of K-pop songwriters and producers on it who would just talk about their experience. I listened to hours of that as well just to get a sense of what it’s like on the production side, what it’s like in the industry.
Was there anything that surprised you when you were doing the research into the book?
Almost all of it surprised me, honestly. I grew up in Canada, so all of my musical experiences were with western bands. So, the K-pop trainee system…I had no idea how regimented some of the entertainment companies are. Even at first, I couldn't understand why groups did the same choreography for the song every single time they did it. You know, it wasn't really the tradition that I grew up in.
K-pop isn’t so much the song, but the aesthetic, choreography, the fan chants that go with it and just that element of engagement with the audience. I think we’re getting closer to that in the west now because of social media. But to me, it’s still nothing like what we see with K-pop groups.
The band in your book is called StarLune, which I know you say in your book is not inspired by any particular band. But I do feel there are a lot of similarities when it comes to the bands that are popular today. Which bands did you find yourself listening to while writing The Comeback?
I was so deliberate in how I tried to make sure StarLune was not a reflection of any particular band. But I was listening to BTS, EXO, NCT, ATEEZ, ENHYPEN and Stray Kids. Mostly third and fourth generation. And Big Bang, of course.
(Lily Chu attending the Seventeen concert in Toronto in September 2022)
What was the allure of making a love interest a K-pop idol?
I really liked the idea of a K-pop idol because I feel that we have a lot of misconceptions about the K-pop industry and idols. Even “idols” is not something we're used to using for musicians in Canada. Like, it's a very evocative term for a performer.
Your book also goes deeper into the more challenging, darker aspects of being an idol like burnout, feeling stifled creatively. Why was that important to the story?
Jihoon, the K-pop idol character I wrote, is in his late 20s. He’s been in the industry for over a decade. To me, it would be weird to expect someone to be the same person when they’re 20 as when they’re about to hit 30. Yet in some ways, idols are very much expected to maintain that. Their fans fall in love with a particular persona or aspect and they want that to continue. We’ve seen that through the scandals of idols who are getting married or having kids or making changes to how they approach things.
So how I pictured him, he would be a guy who was chasing artistically what he could do. And at the same time, unsure like, “Am I good enough? Or is it just that my fans believe in me?” I just had this idea that you get to the point in your career when you're really, really successful that you do start to wonder, “Are they just going to love everything that I put out?”
[That’s] what Jihoon is doing throughout the book and he really wants to grow as an artist, as a producer and as a songwriter. But, he’s really worried about it because once you reach a level of success, it can be hard to make changes from that. Like say, an entertainment company who are dependent on maintaining that level of success. They might not be supportive of any changes you want to make.
There’s parallels in some of the things that we saw, especially with BTS and their anniversary dinner last year. They also talked about such themes like creativity, writer’s block, burnout.
Yeah. When you’ve spent your formative years — your 20s — being told you are a particular person and you do a particular thing, you haven’t had a lot of chance to grow and figure yourself out.
Your rom-coms are all set in Toronto. What makes the city so alluring for the set of a story? And also the fact that you know…maybe a K-pop idol would randomly, mysteriously show up in the city?
Toronto is great because it’s big, but not too big. It’s very diverse. There’s lots of cool neighbourhoods. So as a writer, it offers a lot of settings you can put your characters in to explore a place while they’re exploring themselves, having conversations.
On an absolute selfish level, I live here, so it makes research a lot easier! It’s also just more fun to share the things I love about the city. It's fun to be able to write about little bookstores or cool places to go.
The part about Jihoon being able to come in and no one recognizes him… when I first got into K-pop I was thinking like, “Wow, these people are so recognizable to me now!” Last year, I could have walked down the street and they could have bumped into me. I would have had zero idea. It just really made me think about there's just so much in the world that you don't know.
What do you want readers to take away about the K-pop industry when they read your book?
First, I want readers to have fun and be entertained. That's the number one goal. The second is, I deliberately wrote the book so that if you love K-pop, hopefully you would have fun reliving and relearning your favourite band again.
And if you didn't know anything about K-pop, you would be able to experience it along with Ariadne. Because when the book starts, Ari knows nothing about K-pop. Ideally at the end of it, readers who haven't had a lot of exposure to K-pop, might be intrigued. I've had people DM me saying like, “I wasn't into it before I read your book. And now I'm going to my first show”, which is absolutely fantastic.
(Photo credit: Sourcebooks)
I know your favourite band is BTS. So if you were a tour guide for them in Toronto, where would you take each member?
RM, I would take him to the Museum of Contemporary Art. They have very cool exhibits. That actually that featured in [my first book] The Stand-In as well.
Yoongi [Suga], I would take him somewhere quiet. I will take him to The Monkey’s Paw because it’s a cool antiquarian bookstore. I think he’d have a cool time poking around at stuff.
Jin, I would take him out on Lake Ontario. There’s fishing there. I think he’d like that.
V, we’d grab his camera and we would go to Scarborough Bluffs because there’s lots of interesting things to look at. Then, we’d probably hit an art gallery. Just so he can do both — create the art and experience the art.
Jimin, I feel like he likes shopping. I would take him thrifting but in consignment shops. I would take him down Ossington and we would go thrifting there.
Hobi (J-Hope), I feel like he’s got a really good sneaker collection. There’s a cool sneaker store on Queen Street so we’d go there and then walk over to Parkdale.
Jungkook, we will go to High Park so he could bring Bam to run around the dog parks.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Click here for more information on The Comeback and where to purchase a copy. You can follow Lily Chu on Instagram!
EXO members Chen, Xiumen and Baekhyun resolve contract dispute with SM Entertainment
EXO’s Xiumen, Baekhyun and Chen have decided to maintain their contracts with SM Entertainment, following a legal dispute.
Xiumen, Baekhyun and Chen had previously alleged SM had put them in excessively long contracts and claimed the agency lacked transparency in financial statements.
Meanwhile, SM Entertainment refuted the claims, saying their contracts were fair and justified.
"This company and the three artists resolved their differences caused by misunderstandings and reached a mutual agreement based on smooth communication," Xiumen, Chen and Baekhyun and SM Entertainment said in a joint statement on Monday.
"Both parties have decided to continue pursuing EXO's activities more actively and consistently while acknowledging and maintaining the contracts," they said, adding that parts of the contracts were modified to align with each other's position.
This development comes as EXO are expected to drop its seventh full-length album Exist on July 10.
NewJeans to make comeback with new EP ‘Get Up’ on July 21
NewJeans are back! ADOR announced the girl group will be releasing a new EP Get Up on July 21.
The EP will feature six new tracks, including “New Jeans,” “Super Shy,” “ETA,” “Cool With You,” “Get Up,” and “ASAP.”
The first track “New Jeans” will also be in collaboration with the popular cartoon show The Powerpuff Girls, in celebration of its 25th anniversary. (Wow, it’s that old already?!)
“New Jeans” and “Super Shy” will also be pre-released as singles on July 7.
Wanna see K-pop stars? Just go to a Bruno Mars concert
"Bogosipeoyo.”
That phrase alone was enough to make all the celebrities attending Bruno Mars’s concert this past weekend in Seoul swoon. And I don’t blame them! Bruno Mars is so suave and charming!
Some of Korea’s biggest stars who attended the show include:
BTS’s RM and V
Monsta X’s Shownu, Hyungwon, and I.M
Blackpink’s Lisa, Jennie and Rosé
NCT’s Taeyong, Taeil, and Jungwoo
LE SSERAFIM
JYP
Song Hye-kyo
Park Seo-joon
Seventeen’s Mingyu, The8, Woozi, Hoshi Dino, Vernon and Hoshi
TXT’s Beomgyu, Taehyun, Huening Kai, Soobin and Yeonjun
There are so many more celebrities to count, so I’m just gonna stop there. But it’s nice to know idols are just like the rest of us. They are whipped for Bruno Mars. I love seeing them experience post-concert depression because that’s how we feel after a K-pop concert.
ICYMI: Bunni Pop interviews GreatGuys!
'Let's make new memories together': K-pop group GreatGuys on new single 'luv luv luv' + dreams for the future
(Photo credit: DNA Entertainment) While working together for six years can come with its ups and downs, K-pop group GreatGuys say they’re still able to find ways to have fun and even relive the joys of childhood with each other. On June 18th, the group released its fifth mini album
On June 18th, GreatGuys released its fifth mini album RECORD OF YOUTH EP. 1 DESTINY with a fun and refreshing synthwave track called “luv luv luv.” The new release come as the eight-member group marks six years together.
GreatGuys recently chatted with Bunni Pop about their new single “luv luv luv”, their goals for the future, and what the last six years has been like together as a group.
I recently chatted with Ethan Horton from K-pop Bangsong about journalism, K-pop and the world of Asian entertainment. It was a fun chat, and it was nice to connect with a fellow fan and media professional over in the UK! When I started this newsletter less than a year ago, I really just wanted a platform to combine things I'm passionate about. Give it a listen if you can, and follow Ethan's work!
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Accountability is important to me, so please address corrections and concerns by sending me an email at bunnipopnewsletter@gmail.com. Continue the conversation by following Bunni Pop on Instagram and Twitter.
Love this interview. I have The Comeback on audiobook already, excited to listen to it!