A review by thisisstephenbetts
Shelter by Jung Yun

3.0

Strangely frustrating book. The main theme is of a 2nd generation immigrant dealing with distant, strict and traditional parents, but there are a lot of trauma and crises to push those themes to breaking point. The main character is dislikable and somewhat annoying, but I was able to have some sympathy due to the difficulty of his upbringing. I thought the tension and frustration felt when a strict parent becomes an indulgent and doting grandparent was interesting and well described. But unfortunately some of the characterizations and dialogue were just so badly done. A few, slightly spoilerish, examples (all paraphrased) — the wife of the protagonist, training to be a councillor (with a course book on her lap) responds to a difficult statement of the protagonist's feelings with "how can you say that? That's terrible". Maybe counseling isn't her calling. A policeman, seconds after the family discover the theorised suicide of one character the night after an argument with another says to the family "it's not entirely his fault". Also, in that possible suicide another character was deliberately killed — and no-one in the book seems bothered in the slightest that this person was apparently murdered. It's basically not mentioned. Things like that were really jarring, and for me totally undermined an interesting book.