If I Had Your Face

Summary

A riveting debut novel set in contemporary Seoul, South Korea, about four young women making their way in a world defined by impossible standards of beauty, after-hours room salons catering to wealthy men, ruthless social hierarchies, and K-pop mania “Powerful and provocative...a novel about female strength, spirit, resilience - and the solace that friendship can sometimes provide.” (The Washington Post) Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Time • NPR • Esquire • Bustle • BBC • New York Post • InStyle  Kyuri is an achingly beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a Seoul “room salon”, an exclusive underground bar where she entertains businessmen while they drink. Though she prides herself on her cold, clear-eyed approach to life, an impulsive mistake threatens her livelihood. Kyuri’s roommate, Miho, is a talented artist who grew up in an orphanage but won a scholarship to study art in New York. Returning to Korea after college, she finds herself in a precarious relationship with the heir to one of the country’s biggest conglomerates. Down the hall in their building lives Ara, a hairstylist whose two preoccupations sustain her: an obsession with a boy-band pop star, and a best friend who is saving up for the extreme plastic surgery that she hopes will change her life. And Wonna, one floor below, is a newlywed trying to have a baby that she and her husband have no idea how they can afford to raise in Korea’s brutal economy. Together, their stories tell a gripping tale at once unfamiliar and unmistakably universal, in which their tentative friendships may turn out to be the thing that ultimately saves them.

©2020 Frances Cha (P)2020 Random House Audio