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ioanna_reads06 's review for:
Winter in Sokcho
by Elisa Shua Dusapin
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."
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."