Holy Boy

Four women, each fixated on Yosep, a dreamy twenty-one-year-old K-pop idol nicknamed "the boy," hatch a plan to hold him captive. Ahna, in her forties, began seeking out younger men to ease the isolation of following her husband on his overseas trips. After an affluent acquaintance introduces her to Yosep and she spots him on television, she becomes part of his devoted following. She forms a bond with Mihee, a lonely woman in her twenties who shares her devotion, and the two eventually recruit Nami, a young shaman, and Heeae, a former maid in Ahna's household who is also Yosep's birth mother. Heeae gave her son up so he would have a better life, but she longs to be reunited with him.

The five women take the singer to a mansion in the mountains of Gangwon Province in South Korea. Each has a private, desperate reason for wanting him, and together they are prepared to do whatever it takes to keep him there, however coercive or violent. Their shared zeal, however, starts to break apart, turning their alliance into a conflict that pits each of them against the others. The novel is compared to Butter for its dark drives and to Stephen King's Misery for its mounting tension, and it examines objectification, the hidden currents of female desire, and how fragile love can be.

Translated from the Korean by Joheun Lee.