A review by jayisreading
I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories by Kim Bo-young

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

3.75

This was an unusual short story collection, in that it wasn’t really quite a short story collection. Instead, it read more like two entirely different novellas (of sorts)—with one being oddly separated—that somehow ended up in a book together. I want to say what connects all four stories/two “novellas” to one another (and, as a result, was why they ended up in one book) was this particular focus on the resilience of humans. Despite everything, the human characters in these stories pushed forward, driven by some force that fueled their determination.

“I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way” (i.e., the first and fourth stories) focused on star-crossed lovers who coordinated their respective journeys across time and space to try and arrive back to Earth simultaneously in order to marry. There was something so tender about these two stories, and as cheesy as the overarching message was (love is timeless and can overcome all challenges; you know, that sort of thing), I enjoyed how the stories panned out through letters from each lover’s perspective. As I discovered from the notes in the back of the book, these two separate yet connected stories were actually written for a couple getting married that the author knew, and I think the realization that there was something deeply personal about these stories left a more lasting impression on me than expected.

“The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life” (i.e., the second and third stories) were harder to understand for me, and I can’t deny that this was where I really struggled. I wish I had read all the additional information in the back of the book (author’s notes and appendix), because I think that would have helped me somewhat better understand these two stories. There were more philosophical and mythological elements in these middle stories, and it became apparent to me that I was reading something that heavily turned to worldbuilding to slowly reveal the plot, characters, and themes. Unfortunately, this didn’t quite work for me, but I also don’t think I was in the right headspace for a story structured in this fashion. With that said, I did find the translators’ notes for these two stories particularly interesting, especially with regard to how they approached gender, especially given that English and Korean have very different approaches to gender, grammatically speaking: Korean doesn’t need gendered pronouns to form grammatical sentences (and the resulting ambiguity is something that these two stories rely on), while English requires them.

Even though I struggled through one of two sets of stories, I did find this book compelling enough that I want to check out Kim’s other works. I still wonder if it was the right decision to put these two story pairings together, since the tone and style were so different to the point that I found it jarring. I think your mileage may vary, depending on what you’re in the mood for. I still think this is a book worth checking out, especially if you want more exposure to Korean science fiction.
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