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asparklingzombie 's review for:

Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi
4.25
emotional reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Choi is a talented, eloquent wordsmith. The first-person narrative resonates with a strong, rhythmic voice that flows seamlessly from sentence to sentence, even when fragmented, which I feel is uncommon. I can't recall a time during the read that I stumbled over structure.

The tone is kind of gritty with grey characters and sisters who maybe don't have the healthiest relationship but still care for each other on some level. I dig these kind of elements, personally.

The plot is pretty slow. Choi favors a literary style of storytelling with Yolk, so the focus is a little more on the characters than the plot, with flashbacks or other little characterization scenes interspersed between the plot points. I'm not too big on this style of novel, so I did lose patience and start skimming more than halfway through until the last 2-4 chapters. That said, this is one of the few instances where I walked away from such a novel having overall felt good about the experience.