u/bahbamski

This book is AWESOME !

This was so refreshing because I’ve had a run of so-so books and this one seemed to really shocked me back out of a daze. I know this is an older one (2017) and I’m a bit late to the party but I just kept seeing it everywhere and decided to give it a shot. And I’m so glad I did, because it’s been a while since I haven’t been able to put a book down.

This is an epic multi generational tale of a Korean family living in Japan spanning over most of the 20th century. It explores identity, family, love, success, culture, everything. The characters are so vivid, the history comes alive, it just feels grand in scope and depth. It’s heartwarming, it’s tragic, it’s entertaining, it’s educational. Everything just grabs you.

This was a DELIGHT to read, and one of the top books I’ve read so far this year.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t like it.

I know this book is everywhere. I just took a flight across the US and I saw two people reading it. It’s in all the stores everywhere. It’s #1 on the NYT best sellers right now, and it’s the highest rated on Goodreads for my TBR.

Maybe it’s because I just read ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ and I could be worn out a little on ‘sweet old man-core’.

But this a debut novel and it’s had tremendous success. How do I explain my thoughts on this? This is a very sweet old man who comes to town with seemingly unlimited money and a true heart of gold. As he immediately sets out listening to (and fixing) everyone’s problems, there’s very little conflict.

I also just didn’t like the vignette style of storytelling for the background of each character. Nearly everyone in the town seems to be involved in the arts in some way, so there’s lots of writing about painting and music.

The vibe to me was very much like the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books from the 90s. I know people love this book but I just got too much of a “Live Laugh Love” sentiment from it.

This is a bit of a departure from the novels I’ve been reading lately. This is a thoroughly researched and chilling telling of a true story of a gruesome mass murder in 1959 in Kansas. It’s one of the first example of what I guess you would call ‘new journalism’, like Hunter S Thompson. It’s very good, very well written. Apparently it was very controversial when it came out because it did a very good job of humanizing the perpetrators. Very interesting.

This is just a nice book about a man on house arrest in a nice hotel in Moscow (think Julian Assange living in that embassy). I thought there would be more history to it, but this novel really focuses on this character and the relationships he forms while incarcerated in this hotel. There are some really touching moments and the writing is great.