Take a photo of a barcode or cover
xvicesx 's review for:
The Rainfall Market
by You Yeong-Gwang
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A bit of a difficult one to rate. It's mostly in line with my expectations, and had a very similar message to "The Midnight Library". I think it would have been very well suited to be a webtoon or a graphic novel, owing to the episodic nature of each of the adventures, but it didn't come across badly as a book.
It's very much an acquired taste, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone coming in with expectations of high stakes and big battles. It reads a bit more like a fairytale, where you meet people along the way during your adventure and the various people and things you collect ultimately come in handy for the big battle at the end.
It's not as whimsical a tale as "Welcome to the Dallergut Dream Department Store," but it does have the same episodic story style, and it's in the same vein of the fairly relaxed, no big stakes stories we've been seeing in translation recently. The "Kamogawa Food Detectives" also comes to mind as a similar story style, and probably "Goodnight Tokyo" and "Before the coffee Gets Cold" although I haven't read either of those two yet.
I agree that the focus audience is probably YA, and the rather broad strokes introduction of Serin and the various characters we see on page is the main reason why I think this would have been well suited to be a graphic novel. We don't go too deep into any of the characters' motivations and nothing generally goes too deep in characterization, but I don't think that was the main goal of the author so I can't quite fault it.
It's a whimsical adventure, a coming of age tale that basically arrives at the conclusion that you alone hold the key to your ultimate happiness, and you alone can improve how it turns out for you. It's just nice and easy going.
It's very much an acquired taste, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone coming in with expectations of high stakes and big battles. It reads a bit more like a fairytale, where you meet people along the way during your adventure and the various people and things you collect ultimately come in handy for the big battle at the end.
It's not as whimsical a tale as "Welcome to the Dallergut Dream Department Store," but it does have the same episodic story style, and it's in the same vein of the fairly relaxed, no big stakes stories we've been seeing in translation recently. The "Kamogawa Food Detectives" also comes to mind as a similar story style, and probably "Goodnight Tokyo" and "Before the coffee Gets Cold" although I haven't read either of those two yet.
I agree that the focus audience is probably YA, and the rather broad strokes introduction of Serin and the various characters we see on page is the main reason why I think this would have been well suited to be a graphic novel. We don't go too deep into any of the characters' motivations and nothing generally goes too deep in characterization, but I don't think that was the main goal of the author so I can't quite fault it.
It's a whimsical adventure, a coming of age tale that basically arrives at the conclusion that you alone hold the key to your ultimate happiness, and you alone can improve how it turns out for you. It's just nice and easy going.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death of parent