The Forest Called You is a Korean dystopian love story between an idol who performs in virtual reality and a high school student who can’t use VR. In a Korea of the future in which people have mostly retreated inside their homes due to viruses and dust, Yichae is one of the last remaining ‘real’ idols, an actual person rather than virtual perfection. She struggles with having the image expected of her, especially when she is suddenly required to film a music video at her former high school, with a cast of current student extras. Soop is one of the students at the school, bullied and treated as an outcast due to having VR rejection, meaning she cannot use VR devices, but she loves Yichae’s music. When the two meet, their very different worlds collide.
This book is a queer coming of age story that has a dystopian setting, rather than being a full dystopian novel. The focus is on how the characters interact and exist in this world, rather than the how and why things got to where they are, and the narrative moves between the perspective of the two protagonists, offering the ability to see their very different lives but also the assumptions other people make about them. The relationship between the characters, though brief, is built up from both perspectives, which gives a lot more context to it than you’d get if it was only from one perspective.
The story is quite simple and the book itself is a nice quick read, making it ideal when you want something that isn’t too taxing, but still engages with some darker stuff (which is a combination of real world issues like disordered eating, alcohol abuse, and bullying, alongside the virtual reality and fictional virus elements). The ending is perhaps a bit quick compared to the pace of the rest of the book, but it manages to explore quite a lot in a short space.
Fiendfully Reading 
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