Reviews

The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun

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jess_mango's review

4.0

Yona is in her early 30's and has worked at the same job for 10 years. Her job is as a travel program coordinator at Jungle, a Korea-based travel company. Jungle specializes in trips to areas that have been impacted by climate change or natural disaster. Want to visit that city that recently experienced a devastating earthquake so you can gawk at the rubble and the survivors? Jungle has the travel package for you!

Yona doesn't love her job and realizes her job is in danger when her supervisor starts sexually harassing her. Jungle makes a deal with Yona, she can pick from their list of least popular travel packages and go on a business trip as a tourist to review and assess the package. Yona opts to go to Mui, a small island that experienced sinkholes in the past. Yona and the rest of her tour group are seriously underwhelmed with their stay on Mui. While on the island, Yona learns of a plot by the resort to fabricate a new big disaster to bring in bigger disaster tourism crowds.

This was such a clever, quirky read. I really enjoyed it and it only took me a couple of hours total to read. It brings up issues like #metoo, the impact of tourism on small island destinations, the fascination many have with disasters. The story is satirical and contains many moments of biting humor.

This is the author's first novel translated into English and I would definitely check out more of her books if they became available in English.

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

sunflower_martha's review

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2.0

More like 2.5

dembury's review

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1.0

This felt like sooooooo much to be shoved into book of this size. Maybe I'm missing something in translation, but overall the story felt very erratic and messy to me. The themes bounce around from sexual harassment, tourism and travel culture, the exploitation of Mui, and the fascination people have with disasters, and I felt none of them were tied together in a way that evoked much feeling beyond "Yeah, this stuff is all bad". The pacing is poor and goes from dragging out a day or a scene to several pages to skimming weeks in a sentence. I thought Yona was a fine character at times, but honestly she's just robbed of most of her agency throughout the book and is constantly being played by others; I can't for the life of me understand why this book is being sold as a story with "fierce feminist sensibility". It's just not there. The ending only heightened my dissatisfaction in this respect.
All in all, it's a Will Not Recommend from me.