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A review by mikarala
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I didn't know much about this book going into it, and at the beginning I felt a bit apprenhensive about it. The prose is so short and choppy, and there's not much seemingly happening. Our MC is a somewhat apathetic, somewhat bitter woman in her earlier-mid twenties, working at a run-down guest house in a summer resort town. It's winter, and the town is nearly devoid of visitors. Along comes a mysterious Frenchman, Kerrand, who our MC fixates upon, being half-French herself. It turns our Kerrand is a comic book writer, and as we slowly learn more about his artistic creations, new sides of our narrator are revealed as well.
This book does take some time to simply establish the mood and setting, with a forlorn atmosphere made up of wind-whipped waves and run-down, family-run businesses. While it did so, I really wasn't sure where the story was going and I felt a bit ambiguous towards this novel. However, about a third of the way through the novel, the author starts to reveal more about the narrator's struggles and proceeds to use the surrounding setting and events as a physical manifestation of what is going on with her. The author only reveals snapshots of the narrator's inner feelings, leaving the reader to make connections between her mental state and everything else that is described within the novel. As a sucker for very atmospheric and mysterious stories, this made me fall in love. The final 20-30 pages of this novel had me in a chokehold, and afterwards I couldn't help but give this story anything other than 5 stars.
This book does take some time to simply establish the mood and setting, with a forlorn atmosphere made up of wind-whipped waves and run-down, family-run businesses. While it did so, I really wasn't sure where the story was going and I felt a bit ambiguous towards this novel. However, about a third of the way through the novel, the author starts to reveal more about the narrator's struggles and proceeds to use the surrounding setting and events as a physical manifestation of what is going on with her. The author only reveals snapshots of the narrator's inner feelings, leaving the reader to make connections between her mental state and everything else that is described within the novel. As a sucker for very atmospheric and mysterious stories, this made me fall in love. The final 20-30 pages of this novel had me in a chokehold, and afterwards I couldn't help but give this story anything other than 5 stars.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder