gigireadswithkiki 's review for:

Skinship by Yoon Choi

1.25

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This felt like a book that was trying too hard to be deep and multi-layered but ended up just being fairly one-minded and depthless. As with any short story collection, there were stories that were stronger than others but overall, the cohesion between the stories simply wasn’t there, resulting in a disjointed miasma of randomness.

 I decently enjoyed the reflections on motherhood but the enjoyment collapsed upon the final reflection wherein the housewife remarks how her life is so much more full than her childless sister’s, a thought that felt shoved in as an afterthought but perhaps one that reflects the author’s true feelings. 

I also felt like the chapter that touched upon a case of lice that infests a classroom was bizarre, in a “racism against Koreans are bad but wow look it’s so much worse against Black and Brown bodies” that swung too close to microaggression and guilt-tripping for comfort.

Overall, the writing is decent and some of the stories were interesting, but frankly there are much better short story collections out there, Bliss Montage by Ling Ma would be a much better option to read.