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A review by charliereadsalot
One Hundred Shadows by Hwang Jungeun
3.0
3 STARS
CW: death (of loved ones), suicidal ideation
Thank you to NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book was quintessentially Korean and I really enjoyed that, but, at the same time, the serene and atmospheric writing style is not what I usually gravitate towards. Had I not had the expectation that it would be like this, I think I would have been very disappointed but, alas, I had expected a style that is not necessarily my favorite.
Generally, I thought the story was enchanting, you are dropped in when Mujae and Eungyo are walking through the woods and get pulled out at a later point in time at another location and every scene and chapter you read felt dream-like to me. In the beginning, I was constantly trying to figure out why the main characters were in the forest, how had they gotten there but a lot of questions never get answered.
One thing I have to mention is that none of the dialogue was marked with quotation marks which is usually something that drives me insane. I could work with it in this story because it fit this questionable reality / dreamscape where oftentimes I found myself asking who was even saying what and being relieved when a name was mentioned again so I definitely knew who was speaking. Maybe that was the formatting in the eBook though.
All in all, this was a very interesting book and even though I know magical realism is not really my favorite, I did enjoy the book and had many thoughts while reading. Therefore, I'd definitely recommend picking this up if the summary intrigues you in any way.
CW: death (of loved ones), suicidal ideation
Thank you to NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book was quintessentially Korean and I really enjoyed that, but, at the same time, the serene and atmospheric writing style is not what I usually gravitate towards. Had I not had the expectation that it would be like this, I think I would have been very disappointed but, alas, I had expected a style that is not necessarily my favorite.
Generally, I thought the story was enchanting, you are dropped in when Mujae and Eungyo are walking through the woods and get pulled out at a later point in time at another location and every scene and chapter you read felt dream-like to me. In the beginning, I was constantly trying to figure out why the main characters were in the forest, how had they gotten there but a lot of questions never get answered.
One thing I have to mention is that none of the dialogue was marked with quotation marks which is usually something that drives me insane. I could work with it in this story because it fit this questionable reality / dreamscape where oftentimes I found myself asking who was even saying what and being relieved when a name was mentioned again so I definitely knew who was speaking. Maybe that was the formatting in the eBook though.
All in all, this was a very interesting book and even though I know magical realism is not really my favorite, I did enjoy the book and had many thoughts while reading. Therefore, I'd definitely recommend picking this up if the summary intrigues you in any way.