I'm not a fan of Kpop, so when I first got this book, I had no idea who Jonghyun was. I had heard of Shinee, but I didn't know any of their music. I bought this book because it had good reviews on every website I could find. After reading it, my unbiased opinion is that the reviews are not at all exaggerated.

This book is a great idea and perfectly executed. It's fictional stories based on the songs he wrote. Apparently the four characters are supposed to be different aspects of his personality/image. The pictures were taken by Jonghyun himself, which allows us to literally see the world from his perspective.

Part of me wishes Skeleton Flower would be translated into English for everyone who doesn't speak Korean, but I think a part of its charm would be lost. For example, there's a page that just has the lyrics of "Maybe Tomorrow" written out. On the next page, there are three pictures of the sky with the words "괜찮아" written three times. 괜찮아 can be translated as "I'm okay," "You're okay," "It's okay," "They're okay," etc, depending on the context. That allows the reader to add their own meaning to the story in a small way. In English, a pronoun has to be attached. Even if you say, "Okay," that has its own separate meaning. So, the translator would have to decide for themselves what context to give that phrase. That's just one example, and an admittedly poor one at that, but there are plenty more throughout the book. This seems like a crazy suggestion, but I would encourage you to learn Korean, even if only to read this book.

From the little amount I know about him now, it seems like Jonghyun desperately wanted to be understood. It's obvious, even for a casual fan, that he poured his heart and soul into everything he did. This book is no different. After reading it, I looked him up, excited to have a new writer/singer to follow, only to find out what happened to him. Absolutely devastating loss of a genius well before his time.