Narrator Michael Bow expresses the cynical wit of Korean-American Sunny Dae. A self-proclaimed nerd since middle school, Sunny finds friendship and a bit of fame in the Dungeons & Dragons world—but things change when he meets supercool Cirrus Soh. Bow embodies Cirrus with sarcasm, adding a soft accent that differentiates the two characters and highlights the magnetism of their personalities. Sunny has always hated the pretenses of his community and parents, and he adopts the guise of Gray, his rock-star brother, to impress Cirrus. Soon he has convinced his two best friends, also well portrayed by Bow, to form a band with him. Though addicted to popularity and his new role, Bow reveals Sunny’s true self as he ultimately questions his relationships with Cirrus, Gray, and his parents and finds his own identity. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Super Fake Love Song
Narrated by Micheel Bow
David YoonUnabridged — 9 hours, 3 minutes
Super Fake Love Song
Narrated by Micheel Bow
David YoonUnabridged — 9 hours, 3 minutes
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Overview
“The fun of this engrossing read is that underneath the slapstick lies a finely nuanced meditation on how we perform as ourselves.” -New York Times Book Review
From the New York Times bestselling author of Frankly in Love comes a moving young adult novel about friendship, identity, and acceptance. Perfect for fans of John Green and To All the Boys I've Love Before.
When Sunny meets Cirrus, he can't believe how cool and confident she is. So when Cirrus mistakenly thinks Sunny plays guitar, he accidentally winds up telling her he's the front man of a rock band.
Before he knows it, Sunny is knee-deep in the lie: He gets his best friends to form a fake band with him and starts dressing like a rock star. But no way can he trick this amazing girl into thinking he's cool, right?
Just when Sunny is about to come clean, Cirrus asks to see them play sometime. Gulp.
Now there's only one thing to do: Fake it till you make it.
Editorial Reviews
★ 10/19/2020
Yoon’s (Frankly in Love) endearingly winning coming-of-age novel begins when 17-year-old self-described nerd Sunny Dae, who is Korean American, meets the girl of his dreams: Korean American Cirrus Soh, the well-traveled daughter of commercial real estate developers. After her family moves to Rancho Ruby, a “99.6 percent” white community in Southern California, tongue-tied Sunny doesn’t correct Cirrus when she mistakes his older brother Gray’s room for his, leading Cirrus to believe that Sunny is a budding rock star. Desperate to impress and avoid being caught in the lie, Sunny recruits his best friends to join his fake band, the Immortals. Together, they learn to play instruments and work on perfecting one of Gray’s unperformed songs. But when Gray moves back home, and the bully who has tormented Sunny for years figures out the scheme, Sunny’s plans may all come tumbling down. Through Sunny, who feels conflicted about his parents’ obsession with money and his older brother’s choices to abandon music for a more stable career, Yoon challenges stereotypes and tackles the age-old theme of being true to oneself, whether that self is a rock star or a nerd. Ages 14–up. Agents: Sara Shandler, Joelle Hobeika, and Josh Bank, Alloy Entertainment. (Nov.)
Praise for Super Fake Love Song:
An Amazon Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A YALSA Best Fiction Pick For Young Adults
"The fun of this engrossing read (I found myself laughing out loud and admiring Yoon's wordplay) is that underneath the slapstick lies a finely nuanced meditation on how we perform as ourselves. The real surprise is how many of our perceived shortcomings are part of a self-imposed narrative... Through romance and failed romance, passion projects and fake passion projects, Sunny and the people around him learn that being true to yourself, once you figure out what the heck that is, is the most important thing of all." —The New York Times Book Review
“While this is the classic (YA at its best) story of a boy and his first high school relationship, at its heart Super Fake Love Song is also the story of an even more important relationship: the one you have with yourself. It’s a big-hearted novel full of delightful, funny, empathetic characters.” —NPR Book Concierge
“Sweet and funny.” —PopSugar
“Brimming with nerdy humor and warm feels… the perfect rom-com to snuggle up with... an absolute delight to read! This is a funny, heartwarming story about friendship and family, and it is guaranteed to make you smile.” —The Young Folks
“Don’t miss this sweet rom-com about identity and belonging.” —HelloGiggles
“This real-life role-playing-game YA novel addresses being true to oneself in a funny, heartfelt way…. Yoon's colorful language and careful plotting enhance an effective, meaningful story about self-acceptance.” —Shelf Awareness
"[S]weet and pointed story of a nerd out of his depth….David Yoon explores the cost of toxic masculinity and the price to young adults when parents give up everything to chase the American dream." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
★ “Yoon captures the humor, the heart, and the universal anxieties—and possibilities—of trying on new identities in high school . . . A clever, hilarious, and empathetic look at diverse teens exploring authenticity, identities, and code-switching.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
★ “Yoon’s (Frankly in Love) endearingly winning coming-of-age novel . . . challenges stereotypes and tackles the age-old theme of being true to oneself, whether that self is a rock star or a nerd.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “Readers will be drawn in by the sweet romance and Sunny’s hilarious narration. But in a novel filled with excellent writing, strong characterization, and abundant positive messages, perhaps the greatest strength of all is the emotional openness of the male characters. VERDICT Yoon’s sophomore follow-up to 2019’s Frankly in Love is charming, witty, and inspirational. Highly recommended.” —School Library Journal, starred review
“With this delectable comedy of errors, Yoon reaffirms his place in the pantheon of authors crafting smart, satisfying romantic fare for teens… [It] offers a more complex melody by mixing in running commentary on diversity, culture, and class. . . A worthy read-next for fans of Jenny Han, Nicola Yoon, and David Yoon’s Frankly in Love, it’s a novel that strikes all the right chords.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
"The novel is a joyful one. . . For nerds—and those who love them—this is a fitting tribute.” —The Horn Book
“[Sunny’s] voice, unique and wry, is gripping. Fans of Yoon's Frankly in Love—and there are legions—will enjoy this follow-up that similarly tries to reconcile romance with identity.” —Booklist
★ 11/01/2020
Gr 7 Up—Most of the time, Sunny Dae is OK with being a nerd, despite the bullying and casual racism he experiences at school for being Korean American in a mostly white community. He has two close friends, and together they run a successful DIY cosplay video channel. But Sunny is jealous of his older brother, Gray, a musician living in Hollywood. When his parents' colleagues bring their teenage daughter, Cirrus (also Korean American), to Sunny's house, Sunny makes a split-second decision to pretend that Gray's bedroom is his own and that he is the one in a rock band. And something amazing happens: Cirrus thinks Sunny is cool. For several weeks, Sunny carries the lie further by wearing Gray's clothes and convincing his friends to actually form a band with him to play in an upcoming talent show. With his new persona, Sunny begins to experience what it's like to feel cool for the first time in his life. Predictably, Sunny's lies soon alienate those close to him, and eventually he must come clean and make a decision about who he truly wants to be. Readers will be drawn in by the sweet romance and Sunny's hilarious narration. But in a novel filled with excellent writing, strong characterization, and abundant positive messages, perhaps the greatest strength of all is the emotional openness of the male characters. VERDICT Yoon's sophomore follow-up to 2019's Frankly in Love is charming, witty, and inspirational. Highly recommended.—Liz Overberg, Zionsville Community H.S., IN
Narrator Michael Bow expresses the cynical wit of Korean-American Sunny Dae. A self-proclaimed nerd since middle school, Sunny finds friendship and a bit of fame in the Dungeons & Dragons world—but things change when he meets supercool Cirrus Soh. Bow embodies Cirrus with sarcasm, adding a soft accent that differentiates the two characters and highlights the magnetism of their personalities. Sunny has always hated the pretenses of his community and parents, and he adopts the guise of Gray, his rock-star brother, to impress Cirrus. Soon he has convinced his two best friends, also well portrayed by Bow, to form a band with him. Though addicted to popularity and his new role, Bow reveals Sunny’s true self as he ultimately questions his relationships with Cirrus, Gray, and his parents and finds his own identity. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
★ 2020-08-28
Fake it till you make it?
Unlike Gray, his aspiring rock star older brother, camera-shy Korean American teen Sunny Dae loves sharing his nerdy hobbies of live-action role-playing Dungeons & Dragons and designing cosplay props with his best friends, Milo and Jamal, despite the bullying he receives from a school jock. Milo is Guatemalan American and Jamal is Jamaican American, and the trio have bonded in their Southern California town that is over 99% White. Then Sunny meets Rancho Ruby High School’s newest student, the beautiful, worldly, music-loving, Korean American Cirrus Soh. Soon, he finds himself doing things he’s never done before, like pretending his brother’s band is actually his. Yoon captures the humor, the heart, and the universal anxieties—and possibilities—of trying on new identities in high school while also exploring microaggressions, toxic masculinity, bullying, parachute parenting, and classism. The book cautions readers against judging character based solely on outward appearances. Part of its brilliance lies in how it shows the ways Sunny’s and Gray’s desires for acceptance and popularity reflect what they see as their parents’ own efforts to keep up with the Joneses. Dungeons & Dragons fans will appreciate the symbolic parallels between Sunny’s story arc and the fate of the paladin figurine he made in middle school.
A clever, hilarious, and empathetic look at diverse teens exploring authenticity, identities, and code-switching. (Fiction. 14-18)
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940177728612 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 11/17/2020 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Gray’s door was always open, because that’s how Gray liked things. The door to my room was always shut, because that’s how I liked things.
My door was blank and unadorned. My door could have led to anything—a linen closet, a brick wall, an alternate universe.
You only get one chance to make a first impression, Mom liked to say. It was characteristically shallow advice, but there was a truth to it that I only now realized.
I followed Cirrus, heading left into Gray’s room instead of right into mine.
Cirrus had already made herself at home in Gray’s salvaged steel swivel chair. She drummed her fingers on her thighs, as if eager to be introduced to the room’s history.
I started to say something, then stopped.
I started to say something else, then stopped.
I started to—
Cirrus eyed me with growing concern.
“So are you—” she said.
“These are guitars,” I said suddenly. I craned my neck back to look at them. I stretched, sniffed, did all the things amateurs do when gearing up for a big lie. “They’re my guitars.”
Cirrus brightened. “Wait. Are you in a band?”
“Phtphpthpt,” I said with a full-body spasm. “It’s just a little band, but yes: I am.”
Cirrus looked at the guitars again, as if they had changed. “Very cool.”
I heard none of this, because my lie was still busy pinging around the inside of my big empty head like a stray shot. Shocking, how easily the lie had slipped out.
“You’re more than cool,” continued Cirrus. “You’re brave. Most people barely have hobbies, if they bother to try anything at all. Most people let the dream starve and die in the kill-basement of their soul and only visit the rotting corpse when they themselves are finally on death’s door wondering, What was I so afraid of this whole time?”
“Jesus, you’re cynical,” I whispered.
Cirrus spotted something behind my guitars [Gray’s guitars]: the torn Mortals flyer. “Is that you?”
I cleared my throat, which was already clear. “That’s, uh, my old band,” I said. “We split up. I’m working on a new thing.”
“Cool-cool,” said Cirrus, nodding blankly.
Then she flashed me a look.
Not just any look.
The Look.
I recognized the Look from when Gray was still at school. The Look was a particular type of glance Gray got often—a combination of burning curiosity barely masked by bogus nonchalance. Everyone badly wanted to know Gray; everyone pretended they didn’t.
The Look was the expression people gave to someone doing something well, and with passion. It was an instinctive attraction to creativity—the highest form of human endeavor—expressed by emitting little hearts out of our eyes. It was falling a little bit in love with people who were fashioning something new with their hands and their imaginations.
I had always wondered what it would feel like to get the Look, and now I realized I had just found out.
The Look was pure deadly sweet terror, and it felt incredible.
I instantly wanted another.
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