If I had your face : a novel

<b>A riveting debut novel set in contemporary Seoul, 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</b><br> <b> </b><br> <b>"Powerful and provocative . . . a novel about female strength, spirit, resilience--and the solace that friendship can sometimes provide."--</b><i><b>The Washington Post</b></i><br> <br> <b>NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY <i>Time</i> * NPR * <i>Esquire * Bustle </i>* BBC * <i>New York Post</i> * <i>InStyle </i><br></b><br> 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.<br> <br> 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.<br> <br> 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.<br> <br> 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.<br> <br> 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.