“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.”
Mary H.K. Choi, Yolk
Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi is a contemporary novel following Jayne Baek as she struggles through fashion school in New York City. When she discovers that her older sister June had been diagnosed with uterine cancer, her life flips even more upside down. The two siblings have an innate dislike toward one another, but are brought together by June’s illness. Content warning: the main character has an eating disorder (bulimia) that is mentioned throughout the book, a detailed scene in chapter 45.
I won’t say I’m proud of this, but I judge a book by its cover nearly every time I think of reading one. Something about that first impression is really what makes me want to read a book, and sometimes I’ll even remember the cover better than I do the plot. And Yolk is no exception. I barely glanced at the synopsis before picking up this book because I knew it was one I just simply had to have.
And I will say that I briefly regretted it. The characters were unlikable, the storyline was confusing and just boring, and I struggled to find something that made me want to keep reading. But I did keep reading, and I’m so glad that I did because by the end I was sitting on the floor with tears streaming down my face, unsure of whether I would ever be able to part with the devastating book that I had become so hopelessly attached to.
I think that Yolk is definitely one of those books where, to maybe truly be able to appreciate it, you have to read it twice. Or three times. Or seven. But with each time you love it more and more until eventually it becomes your favorite book. So far I’ve only read it once, and I’m hesitant to read it again because frankly I’m not sure how many more favorite books I can respectfully have.
It does have its faults though, of course. I felt like many of the details were underdeveloped, like the identity switch that June pulls so that she could have health insurance for her surgery, or Patrick’s (Jayne’s love interest) briefly mentioned girlfriend in the peace corps. The book also seems somewhat wrongly categorized as young adult, when the main character is well out of high school and the descriptions are much less filtered than I’m used to in YA books. I would have definitely assumed it was new adult if I hadn’t found it in the YA section.
Though I had difficulty getting into it, I did really enjoy reading this book, and I recommend to anyone with the patience and desire to read a heartfelt and painfully realistic coming-of-age story.