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A review by jassmine
The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-mi Hwang
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I just really let myself be mislead with this one, it's not that the blurb is inaccurate really, it's just that this is a children's book with a very cute cover about a hen and I took that to mean that this would be a cozy read set in Korea that would be good to listen to when I need to wind down.
WRONG!
(slight spoilers from now on)
I can't stress enough how wrong that presumption is. This book is about a hen who is shut up in a coop, not allowed to come outside laying eggs that are subsequently taken away from her. Which makes her depressed, lose the appetite and as a result she is deemed sickly and culled. Ensue several attacks on her life. The other animals are mean to her,her only friend dies and she ends up raising up a duck.
Where the messages are concerned this isn't a bad book. A large portion of the book is about the difficulties Sprout (our hen) encounters because she doesn't want to confirm to some of the societal expectations and because her baby is of different species. There was one pretty strong scene in the barn that I thought commented on migrant experience in interesting way. But at the same time the only purpose in Sprout's life is motherhood which made me personally uncomfortable and some passages were just bordering on gross (because of the value that is placed on persons who can't / don't want to have children, which is a bit absurd considering that Sprout's son is adopted).
Then there is the topic of Weasel which irritated me for most of the book - portraying him almost as pure evil for being a carnivore. There is shifts toward the end thoughwhere Sprout begins to understand some of Weasel's motivations and empathises with him.. I honestly don't know how I feel about the ending, on one hand it solved some of my problems and I liked it for that but on the other it reinforced some of the stuff that was bothering me too, so... idk.
Overall, for such a short book this felt extremely long and I struggled to finish it. It was something entirely different than I expected and although I ended up not hating it, I was definitely hating it for good chunk of the book. It's probably not a bad book, but I SO wasn't in a mind-space to read something that turned out this depressing for me...
WRONG!
(slight spoilers from now on)
I can't stress enough how wrong that presumption is. This book is about a hen who is shut up in a coop, not allowed to come outside laying eggs that are subsequently taken away from her. Which makes her depressed, lose the appetite and as a result she is deemed sickly and culled. Ensue several attacks on her life. The other animals are mean to her,
Where the messages are concerned this isn't a bad book. A large portion of the book is about the difficulties Sprout (our hen) encounters because she doesn't want to confirm to some of the societal expectations and because her baby is of different species. There was one pretty strong scene in the barn that I thought commented on migrant experience in interesting way. But at the same time the only purpose in Sprout's life is motherhood which made me personally uncomfortable and some passages were just bordering on gross (because of the value that is placed on persons who can't / don't want to have children, which is a bit absurd considering that Sprout's son is adopted).
Then there is the topic of Weasel which irritated me for most of the book - portraying him almost as pure evil for being a carnivore. There is shifts toward the end though
Overall, for such a short book this felt extremely long and I struggled to finish it. It was something entirely different than I expected and although I ended up not hating it, I was definitely hating it for good chunk of the book. It's probably not a bad book, but I SO wasn't in a mind-space to read something that turned out this depressing for me...