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A review by mariahistryingtoread
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
4.0
This was a doozy. I'm still not sure how I feel about it and I've been ruminating all day.
Basically, Yeong-Hye is a mentally ill woman who spirals further into her psychosis after she stops eating meat. And for some reason the fact that she doesn't eat meat has some pretty steep repercussions for the people around her.
Something to note is that this book masquerades as something it's not. The description presents the book as some kind of psychological horror/thriller. In reality it's just a character study. We see the affects of Yeong-Hye's illness on her husband, her brother-in-law and her sister over a couple years. It's really engrossing because technically none of these characters is healthy, but on the outside you would think that they are. Yeong-Hye is a catalyst for some of their behaviors yet the entire novel really makes you question whether or not it all was inevitable regardless of her.
That being said, there were some weaknesses that kept this from being 5 stars. While the choice to just barely touch on Yeong-Hye's POV was an implicit indication of the very little control Yeong-Hye had over her own life (she wasn't even allowed to tell her own story) there was a randomness to the POV choices that I didn't like. The husband made sense, but following the brother in law and sister did not as there was no particular connection to Yeong-Hye. Jumping POVs was also confusing after the first segment because it was never especially clear what kind of timeline we were working with. Years pass over the course of the novel, but it's really difficult to tell within the segments when events would be happening and how they related to past events.
The atmosphere of the novel is really murky, and while it's not super thrilling it does have an edge of suspense. But, that does mean that there was a lot that would be thrown out there that got no development at all. It added to my idea of what was going on, but nothing was ever confirmed. It's a minor gripe, as it did keep me thinking, but there were so many cool threads that I wish we could have followed one or further explained something. I think it would have really helped to have a small part actually be devoted to Yeong-Hye later on to really see what she was feeling.
Overall, really good book. A nice quick read if you're into introspection.
Basically, Yeong-Hye is a mentally ill woman who spirals further into her psychosis after she stops eating meat. And for some reason the fact that she doesn't eat meat has some pretty steep repercussions for the people around her.
Something to note is that this book masquerades as something it's not. The description presents the book as some kind of psychological horror/thriller. In reality it's just a character study. We see the affects of Yeong-Hye's illness on her husband, her brother-in-law and her sister over a couple years. It's really engrossing because technically none of these characters is healthy, but on the outside you would think that they are. Yeong-Hye is a catalyst for some of their behaviors yet the entire novel really makes you question whether or not it all was inevitable regardless of her.
That being said, there were some weaknesses that kept this from being 5 stars. While the choice to just barely touch on Yeong-Hye's POV was an implicit indication of the very little control Yeong-Hye had over her own life (she wasn't even allowed to tell her own story) there was a randomness to the POV choices that I didn't like. The husband made sense, but following the brother in law and sister did not as there was no particular connection to Yeong-Hye. Jumping POVs was also confusing after the first segment because it was never especially clear what kind of timeline we were working with. Years pass over the course of the novel, but it's really difficult to tell within the segments when events would be happening and how they related to past events.
The atmosphere of the novel is really murky, and while it's not super thrilling it does have an edge of suspense. But, that does mean that there was a lot that would be thrown out there that got no development at all. It added to my idea of what was going on, but nothing was ever confirmed. It's a minor gripe, as it did keep me thinking, but there were so many cool threads that I wish we could have followed one or further explained something. I think it would have really helped to have a small part actually be devoted to Yeong-Hye later on to really see what she was feeling.
Overall, really good book. A nice quick read if you're into introspection.