kaceyyy's reviews
365 reviews

I enjoyed this and it freaked me out a lot … I just think that the feeling of dread etc was done well but I wouldn’t even know how to explain the book to anyone else lol

The only reason this isn’t getting 5 stars is bc there was one story I wasn’t a fan of and all the others were so amazing.

Shokos smile - I really enjoyed this … it sort of reminded me of Norwegian wood in topic.  It was really sad and an interesting take on the relationships between grandparents and their granddaughters.

Xin Chào, Xin Chào - this was such a beautiful depiction of friendship and found family.  It made me so sad, but I feel like it explored cultural politics and differences within similar regions and found community really well.

Sister, my little Soonae - this was such a heartbreaking tale of sisterhood and the repercussions of the divide between North Korea and South Korea.  Devastating but important 

Hanji and Younju - this was such an interesting story on romantic relationships and isolation.  Hit deep tbh

A song from afar - this made me nearly cry, I have a lump in my throat thinking about it.  It was so upsetting and unfortunately relatable in certain ways.  Eunyoung writes about the human experience so well 

Michaela - dece but probably the weakest story (imo) from the whole collection.  I didn’t rlly connect with it very much

The secret - oh god.  This one hurt me.  Hurt me so much.  Fucking hell.  Just so upsetting 

This was just not it.  It was kind of confusing and jumbled up and jumped around a lot.  It also just tried to be too deep which was obvious and I didn’t rlly like … I stuck w it bc i thought it was getting cool and creepy but it just turned out to be some weird symbolic thing and nothing even happened lol

I read this embarrassingly quickly but it was a lot of fun and read like a movie.  The only thing was parts of it were a bit too cringe for me (the riddle??) but all in all it was a fun book - oh and the first 50-100 pages reminded me a lottttt of the hunger games ngl 

Mr right is dead - rlly enjoyed this, it was a rlly interesting exploration of sexuality, youth as a commodity, and the self-loathing and competition felt between young women.  Really interesting and all the men just annoyed me lol, but so did the women too.

Guess who this is - the commentary on fame and the constant need to be relevant.  It also reflected a hollowness in celebrity culture which was interesting.  Also it’s interesting to read where we have AI that can mirror celebrities and their voices.

He can’t be dead, he spoke to me - I didn’t rlly like this story lol … it started off good and then fell off 

Love me, love my dog - Bro killed and stuffed her dog?? So weird but it was an interesting story 

Trompe l’Oeil - this felt like an extension of the yellow wallpaper … really haunting, really magical, and it was one of my favourite short stories in the collection 

Rina the bird girl - LOVE!!! A woman who appeals to men bc they hate their wives and start dating her and she starts dressing and acting like their wives till they fall out of love - actually obsessed 

This was such a good book - I definitely would’ve loved it when I was younger too.  I think it’s my fave Neil gaiman book that I’ve read so far - and it makes me want to read more of his children’s books.  The end surprised me with how sad it was

I thought the first half of this was interesting, but the second half was so convoluted and dragged on a lot - I feel like this could’ve been half its length and still had the same effect 

Good storyline, distinct characters, and ended on a good cliffhanger.  This wasn’t amazingly written but it was high on plot so the writing didn’t need to be anything fancy anyway.  It was also interesting reading a fantasy where the world building is based on East Asian mythology and culture.  Would probably read the other books in the series.

Updated this to 4.5 bc after reading more fantasies over the year I realised how good this was and I want to read the other books for sure.

I just did not like the main character one bit and i sort of lost it when she went skinny dipping in her dead mums pool 

Book club came into a club for 1 so waiting til that starts up again :)