This approach is both surprising and successful in fact, the sheer amount of information given about Jayne in the book's 400-some pages is more than is needed for it. While visiting her sister early in the novel, she casts a critical, unhurried eye over June's swanky high-rise residence: 'There are tasteful sitting areas and hardcover art books on the coffee table that are ripe for stealing by anyone other than the people who can afford to live here.' When the doorman asks if she is June's sister, Jayne remarks, 'Feels racist even if it's true.' Despite the significance of her sister's cancer diagnosis, most of the novel is about how Jayne's everyday concerns have been shaped by her past, a focus embodied in her frequently difficult relationship with June.Ĭhoi's main agenda doesn't seem to be answering the questions posed by the story so much as seeing them through to a stage where they can be gracefully abandoned, leaving the reader to reflect on the larger issues they raise. Instead, Yolk settles into an absorbing and relaxed portrayal of Jayne, who as first-person narrator makes astute and often humorous observations of herself and the physical world around her.

One might expect these story elements to all neatly resolve, even if in tragedy. Beneath the central current of the plot lies Jayne's continual struggle with an eating disorder, as well as her prospective romance with a childhood acquaintance from the sisters' hometown in Texas, Patrick, who now also lives in NYC. Along with this secret, June wishes to keep her illness from the girls' parents entirely. In order to pay for her treatment, recently unemployed June adopts Jayne's identity so she can use her sister's school medical insurance - a narrative touch that critiques the American healthcare system, adds a minor thriller element to the story, and leads the reader to wonder whether June will be caught in an act that, however necessary, constitutes a crime.

Jayne's older sister, June, learns she has uterine cancer, and the question of whether she will recover lingers over the course of the novel. Choi's young adult offering Yolk deftly maintains several plotlines running through the life of main character Jayne, a Korean American college student in New York City. An impassioned but leisurely coming-of-age story about illness, secrets and the struggle to build and preserve an identity.

Yolk choi