Amaya Stein writes for Mosaic, her aunt’s online magazine for third culture kids. She has ninety-nine YouTube subscribers, a novel going nowhere, and a breakup she has filed under handled. When her aunt assigns her to cover K-pop, she expects to confirm her skepticism and move on.
She watches one MYNX video. Then another.
In Seoul, Noah Park, MYNX’s Korean American main vocalist, is learning the cost of visibility. Fans have breached his apartment. His manager speaks in corporate calm. The distance between who he is onstage and who he is alone is growing harder to hold.
When Amaya’s coverage catches Noah’s attention, what begins as professional curiosity becomes something neither of them planned for, complicated by an ocean, an industry built on devotion at a distance, and a grandmother in Chennai whose time is running out.
A Star Keeps Its Distance is a novel about wanting things again after you’ve stopped. About the strange intimacy of watching someone closely and being seen in return.
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