Toronto rom-com writer shares her love of K-pop and complex Asian characters in new book
Lily Chu discusses her second rom-com novel The Comeback on The Next Chapter summer edition
What happens when you come home to find a K-pop idol on your couch? In The Comeback, Toronto romance writer Lily Chu explores all of the whirlwind emotions that accompany falling into a star-studded world. Chu writes romantic comedies set in Toronto with an emphasis on strong Asian characters. Chu's debut rom-com novel was The Stand-In.
The Comeback is a rom-com that follows Ariadne "Ari" Hui, a type-A lawyer intent on making partner at her exclusive law firm. Her priorities quickly shift when she arrives home to find an attractive man sitting on her couch. Her roommate's cousin, Choi Jihoon, will be staying with them while he gets over a breakup.
Quickly, Ariadne falls hard for Jihoon, but the bubble around their apartment romance soon bursts when Ariadne realizes that being Jihoon's partner means being thrown into the spotlight for the world's consumption. Can their relationship stand up to public scrutiny? Ariadne may not be able to make a simple case to appeal to the masses.
Chu spoke to The Next Chapter summer edition's Ryan B. Patrick about all things K-pop, skincare and representation.
K-pop is such a unique phenomenon. Why do you think people love it so much?
K-pop was so different from anything I had experienced. I liked music but when I was growing up, it was more Depeche Mode, The Cure — those kinds of bands. I was never a big pop music person. It was so catchy, fun and different and there was an element that I wasn't finding in Western music. In K-pop, there's the personalities of the bands, the aesthetic, the makeup, the styling, the choreography — that blew my mind. The performance element, which I hadn't experienced to that extent, is so astounding when you start to look at it. You see the amount of sheer work and effort that goes into it to make something great for the fans, and I think a lot of us appreciate that.
You see the amount of sheer work and effort that goes into it to make something great for the fans, and I think a lot of us appreciate that.- Lily Chu
Let's talk about the main character, Ari. She works in a law firm. She's very buttoned up. She loves routine. What inspired Ari as a character?
I feel that she is like a lot of us, in very many ways, when we get super focused on a specific goal. When we get focused on that goal, we tend to block out everything else in our life that is not related to that goal. In Ari's case, this means a lot of things that would actually bring her joy. She's very into the idea of travelling, but she doesn't want to take time off work because she's worried that if she does she won't be seen as dedicated to her job or that she's going to get behind.
All of what she's doing is focused on making partner in this law firm. I know I definitely have elements of that when I want to reach a goal. In my head, somehow all that other stuff in life is just not as important as that goal and that's not my best me. That is not the me that I think would actually do best in this world but it can be a struggle to get out of that mindset.
Ari is a woman of Asian heritage, and you set the stage in terms of this law firm and some of the microaggressions that she deals with navigating this quote-unquote, white world. What inspired you to kind of illustrate that dynamic in the book?
I think it is difficult for people of colour to live, even in a very diverse city such as Toronto, and not experience those kinds of microaggressions. I set it in law because law is a conservative industry. I don't want to say that's a blanket statement, but in general in my research I found it's very conservative and maybe not as welcoming to people like Ari who are Asian or a woman of colour. Even though it's a rom-com and it's light and it's fun, for me, not addressing that aspect of what that character in real life would have experienced would have done her a disservice because that is something she does experience.
Let's talk about the meet-cute. Ari gets home, she discovers a handsome stranger on her couch. What happens when they meet?
I think when most women find a strange man on the couch it's not the best moment of your life, even if he is super hot. She grabs the knife because I think she has a moment of panic, which I think we all would. She's like me in the sense that there is a moment where you don't know what the next step is. She's like, "I could hide, I could go in the fridge," but she grabs a knife and then luckily her roommate comes in with a text to explain and they end up sorting it out but it does set the the tenor of their relationship at the beginning.
Talk about Jihoon. I love his skincare routine — peptides and stuff like that. Was that something that you did to create that character?
Jihoon as a K-pop idol is a man who is judged on his looks and very specifically on how he presents himself to the world. So he has to look good. He feels he has to look good and part of that is good skin. He has his multi-step skincare routine which Ari does not. But beyond that, he's also just a sensitive and emotionally open guy who is the opposite to Ari.
It is a cool wish fulfilment scenario, where Ari has to make a choice and she has to learn quickly what the world of a K-pop idol is like. What is Ari going through at that moment?
She's come from a life where she hasn't considered K-pop or the performing arts in general as something that's important, it's an amusement. Jihoon does a thing with his life that he's very dedicated to that she doesn't understand. It's totally out of her frame of reference so she's flailing. She's a woman who knows exactly what she wants or thought she knew exactly what she wanted and all of a sudden now all these things are happening to her that are making her doubt herself and her choices. This new person has come into her life with this totally different experience and she's learning more of what she herself could also be.
People can have different perspectives and different experiences, and even if those experiences aren't yours, you can still involve yourself in their story.- Lily Chu
How does your own identity and gender inform your storytelling approach in terms of centring Asian characters within this genre, what's your approach to that?
When I was growing up, there weren't a lot of Asian characters in books. I still remember reading the few that I got from the library. I remember reading The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and thinking, "Oh, wow!" I'm biracial and my first character, Gracie from The Stand-In is biracial – Ari is Chinese. But I just wanted to show Asian characters as people with a broad range of experiences. To show that people can have different perspectives and different experiences, and even if those experiences aren't yours, you can still involve yourself in their story.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
