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.
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