Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Beasts of a Little Land

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim

7 reviews

ruthjenkins's review

dark hopeful reflective slow-paced

3.5

This started out so strongly. The prologue and first chapter were captivating. The story opens with a hunter in the Korean mountains, on the edge of starvation and hypothermia, who chance upon the tracks of what he thinks is a jaguar in the snow. When he discovers the cat, and that it's actually an adolescent tiger, he remembers advice from his father: don't try to kill a tiger unless it tries to kill you; and if you miss, you're already dead.

When Japanese officials find him, close to death in the snow, the story starts proper, charting the lives of interconnected characters in Japanese-occupied Korea.

That the prologue and first chapter are still so clear in my mind goes to show their quality. But while there were moments of excellent writing, sadly the book is clunky with exposition and does far to much telling instead of showing. Because of this, I never felt connected to the characters, despite ostensibly seeing some of them grow from children to old age. I wish the author had concentrated just on the main protagonists, Jade and JungHo, spending more time in their inner thoughts and following their lives more closely, rather than trying for a more sweeping saga.

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rieviolet's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The historical context was the most interesting aspect of the novel for me.
I did not feel particularly connected to the characters and that made it difficult to be really invested in their storylines (even more so their romantic plots). I actually liked the portrayal of some of the side characters (Luna and Lee Myung-bo for example) much more than the two main ones.

The writing style wasn't bad but it never particularly struck me. The constantly switching POV was a bit frustrating, especially because we got a lot of scenes from characters that I did not care one bit about as a narrator and many other more interesting perspectives were barely explored.

Overall, I was never really completely absorbed in the narration. The ending was quite bleak but I guess it is quite realistic in showing how the more opportunistic people are the ones that will get ahead in life and never get their comeuppance.

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emergencily's review

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challenging emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

4.25

Historical fiction novel set during Japanese colonization & occupation of Korea spanning multiple decades, through the aftermath of WWII.

The book follows a few different characters' lives, with a central focus on two. One is a young girl sent to train in a courtesan house by her impoverished family. The other is the young son of a hunter from Pyongyang. Because the book weaves so many characters' stories together, it can sometimes feel all over the place and disjointed, especially so in the first half of the book. By the end, the author does a great job connecting everything in ways you wouldn't expect. Throughout the book, the author is setting up these connections. I loved the concept of "inyeon" in the book -- the threads that tie us to people in explicable ways over the course of our lives, and keep drawing us together in unexpected ways.

I also liked how the book engaged so strongly with the politics of the time period and focused so much on the Korean independence movement and resistance against colonization. It pays attention to the multiple different actors across political divisions: communists & leftists, Korean collaborators with the colonial government, rightists clamoring for American intervention. The scene where people come pouring out into the streets cheering when the Japanese surrender and finally begin to leave Korea moved me to tears.

It reminded me a bit of Pachinko because of the multi-decade, multi-character narratives and the similar time period.

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