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A review by melcanread
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
2.0
Critical rating: 2 stars.
Vibe check: 2 stars.
I feel like I need to take a shower after that and exfoliate the bullshit off of me.
Winter in Sokcho follows a Korean-French woman who lives in Sokcho, South Korea. One evening, a French graphic-novelist shows up and works on his latest book.
That's it. That's literally what happens. Throw in some body shaming and eating disorders and that's the entire 154 condensed into a short paragraph. The whole novel felt very stagnant and dull, with the most interesting thing being the fact that her mother can prepare puffer fish without poisoning people.
I didn't like the writing style. It was too simple and it didn't feel like any effort was put into the translation at all. I saw this. I smelled this. We went here. I ate this. I regretted it for 154 solid. It was so, incredibly bland, and it made me want to pluck my eyeballs out of their sockets just for something to do.
The main "love interest" (if you can call him that) was a whole demon - and just to jump off of that, the amount of times in this short book I went, "what the fuck?" because one of the characters had just made some random, out of pocket action that made no sense whatsoever. Some examples:
Vibe check: 2 stars.
I feel like I need to take a shower after that and exfoliate the bullshit off of me.
Winter in Sokcho follows a Korean-French woman who lives in Sokcho, South Korea. One evening, a French graphic-novelist shows up and works on his latest book.
That's it. That's literally what happens. Throw in some body shaming and eating disorders and that's the entire 154 condensed into a short paragraph. The whole novel felt very stagnant and dull, with the most interesting thing being the fact that her mother can prepare puffer fish without poisoning people.
I didn't like the writing style. It was too simple and it didn't feel like any effort was put into the translation at all. I saw this. I smelled this. We went here. I ate this. I regretted it for 154 solid. It was so, incredibly bland, and it made me want to pluck my eyeballs out of their sockets just for something to do.
The main "love interest" (if you can call him that) was a whole demon - and just to jump off of that, the amount of times in this short book I went, "what the fuck?" because one of the characters had just made some random, out of pocket action that made no sense whatsoever. Some examples:
"I took off my jumper. I pressed myself up against the window, crushing my belly and breasts to the glass and waited until I was numb with cold. Then I went to bed."
"A spider scuttled into view and started to run up his leg, but he made no move to brush it away. He looked down at his handiwork. In an instinctive moment, he tore off a corner of the sheet and began to chew on it."
Later on, she's cleaning his room and she finds a wad of paper in the bin covered in his spit? What?
Also, genuine question, how does one's breasts tighten? Because yet again someone has written about it, and deemed it necessary to include it and I'm still so very confused.
I think my biggest issue with this book was that it felt very demonising of Korean men and romanticising the white French dude. Both the Korean love interest and the French one were assholes, I'd like to put out there, but it felt very icky, you know?
There was more body shaming in this book than I'd have cared for, and so much talk of eating disorders. Let this be a lesson to you, actually check the trigger warnings of the books your reading, kids. Oh! And graphic descriptions of cutting up and killing fish.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder and Body shaming
Moderate: Animal death
Minor: Vomit