The story just isn’t engaging enough to warrant interest from the reader. There’s so much straight statistics that most of it’s just telling, not showing. The book could definitely have been longer to give more exposition and investment in the characters. All of it’s just blah blah gender discrimination, these women have it hard. Ok, but what about Jiyoung? How does she feel? What are the small intricacies of what her life is like being a woman? Show me what it feels like, not just describing it!

The bit I’m most disappointed about is how the blurb emphasized the part about how Kim Jiyoung is acting strangely because of these situations. “In fact”, it only takes up like 2% of the book. I wish we could’ve seen more of how she “loses it” since it really could’ve made a stronger impact and “showed” how bad the situation really is.

There’s this line near the end: “Jiyoung became different people from time to time. Some of them were living, others were dead, all of them women she knew. No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t a joke or a prank. Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person.” I wish the book actually focused on that: that all of these women had similar experiences, on how Jiyoung embodied different people, and not just in a few pages at the start.

I just really hope it’s the translation that dulls down the book because I don’t understand the worldwide hype over it at all.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

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emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

So good, love the intriguing premise. I kept thinking about how silly Klara was to believe in the sun, but then maybe it did work. And the ending was devastating but satisfying.

Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One's Books by Georges Perec

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inspiring reflective

4.5

How to by Michael Bierut

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informative

5.0

Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Lévy, Frederik Peeters

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3.0

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender