innamorare 's review for:

The Midnight Shift by Seon-Ran Cheon

2.5

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I was so ready to fall head over heels for this Korean bestseller, with its promises of queer vampire romance and a spooky murder mystery set in a creepy Seoul hospital. I mean, vampires! Queer love! A detective with a chip on her shoulder! It sounded like the kind of book I’d clutch to my chest and sigh dreamily over, maybe even stay up all night reading while sipping sweet tea and pretending I’m in a K-drama. But, alas, this book and I were like that one Tinder date where you show up expecting fireworks and get... a damp sparkler.

Let’s talk about the good stuff first, because I’m not a total grump, and there were moments that I enjoyed. The scenes between Violette and Lily? Those flashbacks to 1980s France were everything. I was living for their gothic, sapphic tension. The quiet, yearning moments where Violette, this lonely Korean adoptee, finds herself utterly bewitched by Lily, the enigmatic, barefoot vampire who makes Korea sound like a fever dream. I could’ve read a whole book of just them staring intensely at each other over candlelit dinners, with Lily maybe or maybe not contemplating a quick nibble on Violette’s neck. Those scenes were the sparkly vampire heart of the book. 

But then... the rest of it. The characters outside of Violette and Lily felt flatter than my attempts at baking soufflés. Su-Yeon, our detective, is supposed to be this gritty, lonely cop with a personal stake in the mystery (her grandma’s in the hospital where old folks are yeeting themselves out of windows), but she’s about as compelling as a cardboard cutout of a K-drama lead. I wanted to root for her, I really did, but she’s just... there, brooding and asking questions that don’t seem to go anywhere. And Nanju, the nurse with a secret? Girl, I wanted to empathize with you, but your chapters felt like they were written by someone who forgot to give you a personality. I kept waiting for these characters to pop off the page, to make me laugh or cry or FEEL something, but they were like guests at a party who show up, mumble a few lines, and leave early.

It’s billed as a “fast-paced vampire murder mystery,” but it’s more like a slow-motion train wreck you can’t stop watching. Four elderly patients jump from the sixth floor of a hospital, and Su-Yeon’s the only one who thinks it’s suspicious. Enter Violette, our vampire-hunting queen, who drops the bombshell: “A vampire did it.” But the big reveal about the vampire killings? It lands with all the impact of a soggy paper towel. I was expecting a jaw-dropping twist, something that would make me gasp and clutch my pearls, but instead, I got a half-baked explanation that left me squinting at the page like, “That’s it?” And don’t even get me started on the vampire killings’ connection to Lily. There’s this vague hint that Lily’s tied to the whole mess, but the book just... forgets to tell us how or why. It’s like wanting a nice steak and getting a piece of rubber.

The whole thing feels incomplete, like Cheon Seon-ran had a brilliant idea but got distracted halfway through and decided to wrap it up with a Post-it note that says, “Good enough.” The vampire lore is inconsistent... sometimes it’s creepy and atmospheric, other times it’s like the author forgot the vampires were supposed to be scary. The themes of loneliness and isolation are there, and I wanted to be moved by them, but they’re handled so clumsily that I felt like I was reading a rough draft. I kept waiting for that emotional gut-punch, but it never came.

I will say, the writing itself has a certain moody charm, especially in those Violette/Lily scenes that had me fanning myself. But even that couldn’t save the book from feeling like a missed opportunity. It’s like going to a concert expecting a full-on rock show and getting a local cover band set with half the band missing. It left me feeling like I’d just watched a K-drama that got canceled mid-season. If you’re here for the Violette and Lily vibes, you’ll get a few swoony moments. But if you’re expecting a cohesive, gripping story with characters who leap off the page? Maybe keep swiping left.