Imagine that one day you wake up a changed person. The Vegetarian by Han Kang attempts to answer the question of why. Enter Yeong-hye. When she suddenly wakes up a vegan, her only explanation being that she “had a dream,” her unremarkable life is delineated as something unthinkable. Her meat-loving…
“Mine has been a life of much shame. I can’t even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.“ While I’m not one to be against reviewing autobiographical works, there is always an underlying feeling of uneasiness. Imagine this feeling when No Longer Human…
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken. In the world of Jane Austen’s novels, Emma is up there as having one of the most misunderstood of the Austenian heroines. Beautiful, rich, and witty…
I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life. The Great Gatsby is the quintessential American novel of glamor, irony, and social class. A profound exploration of the American Dream, the novel presents the timeless themes of wealth, class, and love in the most…
Persuasion is my second Jane Austen book after Pride and Prejudice. Stylistically, there are some major differences that I can assume make these books appeal to different groups. If I had to sum it up simply, it would be that while Pride and Prejudice excels in wittiness and character development, Persuasion embraces more of…
“The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of. So that’s why I need to be cured. Unless I’m cured, normal people will expurgate me.” Convenience Store Woman is one of the books whose titles reflect the contents of…
I looked up because of the laughter, and kept looking because of the girls. Emma Cline, The Girls It is 1969, and 14-year-old Evie Boyd is thrust into a cult-like group of girls. Evie, being the child of recently divorced parents and scurrying for acceptance from her peers, finds herself…
As much as I enjoy classics, I haven’t picked up Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein until around last month. The work spans about 300 pages, making it a fairly short novel. I got through it pretty quickly. Of course, it was interesting reading Frankenstein as how it was intended to be written. I’ve realized that retellings…
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee — international bestseller, book club favorite, proclaimed the best book of the year 2017. This book has consistently received stellar reviews and has even become an AppleTV drama. Reading this, I really wanted to enjoy it as much as others seemed to have. But it…
Paradais by Fernanda Melchor, masterfully translated by Sophie Hughes, is an absolutely entrancing, visceral read. It spans just over a hundred pages and is densely layered with complex themes written in Melchor’s pitiless prose, from ideas of classism, racism, and misogyny to the macabre acts of rape and murder. This…