A review by bluejayreads
The Good Son by You-Jeong Jeong

dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

For a thriller based around the protagonist being unsure if he actually committed the murder, this book is remarkably slow-paced. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it was reasonably interesting. I'm not much of a crime fiction reader, but it was interesting enough. My problem was the ending - it may sound weird to say, but too many questions got answered. I thought the one big underlying question
(whether Yu-jin was born a psychopath or made into a murderer by his aunt's "treatment")
was going to be left ambiguous and up to the reader's interpretation. You could make a solid argument for either answer to the question, and leaving it unresolved would make it more of a theme that the book explored. But the very end of the book just straight-up answered the question. Suddenly that big underlying philosophical question wasn't a theme or something I could think about after I finished the book, but just another question to be answered by the end of a mystery book. What could have been a book that was not particularly my thing but interesting nevertheless lost all appeal with an on-page answer to the big question. And that really ruined the whole book for me. 
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