A review by maketeaa
The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho Yeeun

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

they who looked so much alike that it was almost scary, they who hugged each other so closely that there was no space for another.

this was more literary than horror, imo, and definitely the kind of read where you need to go through your annotations again afterwards before you can totally figure it out. a mysterious figure at new seoul park hands out free samples of pink jelly, claiming that whoever shares it will stay together forever, only for the entire theme park devolving into a grotesque jellied massacre of pairs of loved-ones once the sun had set. we're taken through the events before and after the massacre through varying point of views, learn of the gritty lives under the cheery theme park mascots, one man's obsession with money, and the murderous conflict between two users of a devil-worshipping forum who insist that they are the one that has been entrusted with the real words of their deity. albeit in a disjointed, and sometimes incohesive manner, we explore the consuming nature of love, and, most of all, the inherent horror of allowing oneself to be blended and mixed with another person, along with its inevitably when you wish to belong to something -- whether that be a parent to a child, or a girlfriend to a boyfriend, or a follower to their deity. however, the last few chapters makes us question whether it is better to be totally separate from the ones we love in order to avoid such a blending, and whether life is worth living without it. i think the overall theme of this work was very interesting, especially with the aspect of horror added to the bonds of love between people, but honestly it felt like so much was going on that i didnt really know what to focus on all the time