Reviews - 속초에서의 겨울

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속초에서의 겨울 by Elisa Shua Dusapin, Elisa Shua Dusapin

3.69k reviews for:

This book was extremely atmospheric and not too much else. The eeriness of Sokcho in winter and the constant impact of the ongoing war with North Korea is beautifully conveyed to create a cold coastal city which stands in contrast to the rich foods and neon signs described. Like our protagonist it feels like a city which is still fighting for its identity and independence free from the history which defines it.

That being said I didn't love the romance between the narrator and Kerrand. While the idea of his artistic view obscuring her true self is strong the execution of this idea was in my opinion sloppy. There were very few actual meaningful conversations between the two and by the end of the book the ending felt very empty as the love affair remained unresolved and rushed.

Therefore, while Sokcho in the book (and the romance to some extent) beautifully show what it is to be undefined and divided between two expectations of oneself and two differing cultural and national identities, I just found the book felt it had something missing within it. Whether this could be resolved by lengthening the book allowing the author to go into greater depth and built the human relationship aspect of the book is worth considering. Nevertheless as always here are some of my favourite lines:

---> "I didn’t want to be his eyes in my world. I wanted to be seen. I wanted him to see me with his own eyes."

---> "Our beaches are still waiting for the end of a war that’s been going on for so long people have stopped believing it’s real. They build hotels, put up neon signs, but it’s all fake, we’re on a knife-edge, it could all give way any moment. We’re living in limbo. In a winter that never ends."

---> "He’d never understand what Sokcho was like. You had to be born here, live through the winters. The smells, the octopus. The isolation."

cobblestonethoughts's review against another edition

3.75

fast-paced

Read this in June, which is the first month of winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Very atmospheric

fonda's review against another edition

4.0

mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mzgreads's review against another edition

1.5

strange how unmoved i was by this compared to the pachinko parlour. i think firstly and probably most importantly, i didn't care for the french man nor did i understand why she was so obsessed with him (or he with her?) the contrast of Old World mysterious traveller with the tawdry glitz and superficiality of her plastic-surgery-obsessed model boyfriend was... there but idk, it didn't leave me feeling anything at all, really. & especially when we aren't actually given any understanding of why south korean korean society is like that, it amounts to just being told over & over that in south korea people are so intense about self-modification and image that it can even help you get a job if you get surgery. like okay yeah we get it... and....? except all we get is more repetitive scenes and flat dialogue and this fuckin annoying french guy who won't even eat korean food. there's a lot of alienation in this book and it isn't balanced by any real tenderness or poignancy. i found the descriptions of the conflict between south korea and the dprk to be disappointingly 2-dimensional. also, as a personal thing, i don't really like reading depictions of eating disorders so that was kind of tough for me