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" “Hello there, it’s your first time with Bangtan, right?��

here’s the thing about books like this⸺we don’t really get to have a critical opinion on them, because it’s simply someone else’s life, and what right do any of us have to speak on people who have already gone through endless hardships? so, no, I don’t personally have a lot to tell you about this wonderful book besides for the fact that it’s a masterpiece, but the members themselves have a lot to say:

╰┈�� RM ��

“The members were just good people. Very good people.��

“Bad things have to happen for there to be good things.��

“The history of the struggle for recognition. We wanted to be recognized. To prove ourselves.��

“Lots of things were happening, which overlapped with things like our standing at the time, and I think I was trying to hide. Inside my shell.��

��(...) and I felt an extreme emotion, that in some ways everything I had done up until then had been worthless. Looking back on it now, I wonder how I managed to stand it.��

“The only way to truly heal and grow is by facing our own pain and struggles.��

╰┈�� JIN ��

“I do like to try different things. I figured I'd be able to have a variety of experiences if I were an idol and an actor at the same time. Reality had other plans.��

“After about three months there... I finally realised why they had to come live the way they did. On days when we had a lot of rehearsals, we’d be working fourteen hours out of a twenty-four hour day.��

“I had to do a little better, but I didn’t have the ability, but I still wanted to do something.... that’s what it was like at the time.��

“We really had almost no days off. So, at the time, I wondered whether it was right for a person to live life as exhausted as this.��

“I am so thankful to the members for getting our acts together, and I want to say how thankful I am to ARMY for always loving us.��

“At the end of the day, BTS has seven members. I believed the team couldn’t stay together if even one of us left.��

╰┈�� SUGA ��

“Not that we were doing it for the money necessarily, but I wonder if we should’ve at least been paid enough to buy a meal, and a lot of times we weren’t paid even that.��

“I was worrying my head off as to whether I could continue my life as a trainee. It was really hard for me, the act of living itself.��

“I try not to think about those times if I can help it. Because ultimately, we’re the ones who won and ended it.��

“When you do this work, you feel a big disconnect. Separate from my idol career, I was nothing at that age. I would have been nothing if I hadn’t ended up doing music.��

“Apart from those who loved and supported us, everyone else felt like an enemy. We were really worried about how much criticism we’d get if we put even a foot out of line.��

“I couldn't be glad in the moments I was supposed to be glad, and I couldn’t be happy in the moments I was supposed to be happy.��

“I think they’re the reason for my existence, these people.�� (referring to ARMY.)

╰┈�� J-HOPE ��

“I was so scared. It was Christmas Eve and the streets were full of cheerful people, but I couldn’t get my bearings at all.��

“When people kept asking us when we were debuting, to a trainee that’s really... that question is like a knife to the heart.��

“It was the first time I felt that “so many people are listening to our songs�� and it was thrilling. I also thought, “This is what we made music for.”��

“Once we did something, we did even more, we didn’t do less.��

“With each album, new things came up that I had to address, to overcome. “Wow. There’s so much I didn’t know. So much I have to learn.�� And I’ll have to keep doing it in the future.��

“Actually, I don’t think we were people who lived life thinking about so many things. In fact, if we had thought a lot, it would have been harder, and because we were just seven really simple people, maybe that was what made it possible.��

╰┈�� JIMIN ��

“No one cared... you could be eliminated after any of the tests they would put us through time to time, which was scary.��

“For me, I got the impression that, if I looked back on my life later on, I wouldn’t be able to explain it without this part I did together with these people.��

“There was a strong sense of being rewarded. That we’d done something together as a group⸺I was overwhelmed by that feeling, I think.��

“I think you could call it “the power to change hearts.”��

╰┈�� V ��

“We were working on LOVE YOURSELF (album), but we couldn’t love ourselves.��

“I was just happy to be a trainee by their side.��

“I like my old self too. It’s because I went through all that that I’m the person I am today.��

“The way I see it, all of us members are ridiculous. We’re quite feral and therefore stubborn to the end. I love it because in this group, no matter how much our hearts break, we only love the stage even more. “So I fell down, no big deal,�� that kind of sentiment.��

“We worked together so much and talked with each other so much that little by little, we really did feel we were becoming a team.��

“I’ve bet my life on this group, I can’t just decide something based on my own individual opinion.��

“When we get lots of awards like that... it got ridiculous. Because we’d said only the things we thought we could never achieve, and then we achieved all of them. I think it’s strange.��

“There are groups above us when it comes to popularity, and groups below us, too, but I don’t think there are any groups like us. BTS are in a position unique to BTS.��

╰┈�� JUNGKOOK ��

“Until now, the biggest blessing of my life is meeting these hyungs (his members).��

“It was like, this was the beginning. Our beginning.��

“Man, we went through a lot.��

“I think I grew a lot, in a lot of ways. The members didn’t teach me specific things, but I can see them in the way I talk and act. SUGA’s thoughts, RM’s words, Jimin’s actions, V’s unique style, Jin’s cheerfulness, j-hope’s optimisim... things like that all came into me one by one.��

“We just had to do a good job at what was handed to us, and then leave the stage.��

“We work together, and this is a business... right? However, it’s more than that for us. I can’t think lightly of them, they are so precious to me... and I’m thankful for these people, I came to realise that really strongly back then.��

╰┈�� OTHER QUOTES (THAT KILLED ME):

“BTS is me, and I am BTS, that’s how I see it.��

“Even among new artists, BTS were outsiders, practically stranded on an island of their own.��

“A team spearheaded by a group of underground rappers that included a middle schooler who had just started lessons needed more than just cohabitation to cohere into a group⸺they needed some form of alchemy.��

“Whenever they came down from the stage, it wasn’t glory but tears that piled up.��

“In this respect, BTS and Big Hit, without even realising it themselves, were in the process of tearing down boundaries.��

“BTS’s relationship with ARMY, formed thanks to the internet, became their unintended path to salvation.��

“I knew Bangtan would win. No matter what anyone says, Bangtan is going to win.��

“If history books are the answer sheet to the present, then our sunbaes (seniors) who did music before us are our answer sheet, right? However, with us, we had to deal with an additional something else.��

“Now, however, no matter what the world might say, BTS are BTS. They no longer need any other word to describe themselves.��

╰┈�� BOTTOMLINE: BTS has a beautiful story to share with us, and if you’re a fan, someone curious, or simply an enjoyer of biographies, I recommend this book with all my heart.