Review by yukirarin - The Vegetarian

yukirarin 's review for:

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

4.0

challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

This book lowkey confused and upset me deeply. Also TRIGGER WARNINGS ALL AROUND. Please look them up before starting on this book.

“I was convinced that there was more going on here than a simple case of vegetarianism.”

The Vegetarian, as a title in itself speaks to me as I have a father who has been vegetarian (recently turned vegan) for the past 11 years. I know it definitely wasn’t an easy change for him at first, and even my mom questioned why he would take on such a big change in his life and even thought it was a stupid decision at first. Things have changed now and we’ve all gotten used to his vegan diet and we all have vegan meals together on occasion, whether my dad is the one that is cooking or if we decide to go out to a restaurant. But still, the line above makes me think about how my father was thought of as an inconvenience at times due to his new diet, and I being young at the time didn’t really try understanding why he decided to make the leap to vegetarianism.

A lot of the plot though centres around how the men in the protagonist’s life are determined to possess her, seeing her as either simply a submissive wife gone bad or an object of sexual desire. As someone who has grown up in asian culture with all the patriarchy that comes with it, I can see how it reflects many of the ugliness we can see in our own misogynistic society, though in a more extreme form. I have to say that a lot of the passages were difficult to get through, and may be extremely abstract at times. Bodily autonomy is disrespected and violated many times in this book, and mental health is also right at the forefront of this story. I urge any reader looking to pick this up to really make sure that you are aware of all the triggers in this book.

Content Warnings