The Vegetarian

 Book Title: The Vegetarian

Author: Han Kang

Translator: Deborah Smith

Date Started: December 17th 2021

Date Completed: December 28th 2021

Genres: Contemporary, Magical Realism

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

The Vegetarian is perhaps the most well-known novel to come out of South Korea in recent years, at the top of many reading lists and recommended relentlessly - as it should be. But, oof, it's a heavy one.

I'd read a short story by Han Kang before, and while I remember enjoying it I couldn't say I could recall it very well. What I do remember was her writing style (translated by Deborah Smith), and the imagery of this novel brought it back to me as being both beautiful and shocking.

I thought that the parts of the book were perhaps separate stories for a bit due to the lack of names until I realised they're of course the same family unit. This is in some way deliberate though; even those connected have absolutely unique experiences and perspectives. The difference in gendered experiences is obviously the biggest gap here.

I actually find this book hard to talk about because it hit me on a very personal level, and yet some parts of it remain frustratingly elusive. It is one of those books that throws you into a void for a little bit after finishing, and perhaps that's a good thing.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess

 Book Title: Daughter of the Moon Goddess

Author: Sue Lynn Tan

Series: The Celestial Kingdom Duology #1

Date Started: December 10th 2021

Date Completed: December 17th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Adventure

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Ultimately, Daughter of the Moon Goddess wasn't for me, and the cutesy romance was not enough to keep me around. I made it 19% of the way through and had been considering giving up from very early on. I wanted to give it a chance and see how the early story developed, but more and more I realised most of my problems were with the writing style and general storytelling decisions which weren't going to change. I don't think it's a bad book, but its style is not something I want to invest more time into.

This book reads like middle grade, probably aspiring to jump into teen themes a little later in the series. There's so much inner monologuing (with a protagonist who collects information pretty slowly) and little actual drama in the outside world. Xingjin really didn't seem that bothered by anything happening to her, including what you'd imagine are some pretty traumatic experiences.

I'm also slightly sad that the worldbuilding is a little sparse. We get some little tidbits of what I believe to be Chinese myth (apologies if I'm a little off), but considering this is literally set on the moon there's very little description or aesthetic inclination to help us build what I imagine must be a fantastical empire on a celestial body - a really cool and unique thing to this story.

The reason I gave up where I did was the lack of direction in the actual story. Xingyin is supposed to get somewhere to escape the events at the beginning of the book, but she isn't very rushed to do so. I sort of forget she had that goal. Every obstacle she faces on the way to that goal is also very easily tied up without much input from the protagonist herself.

As I say, I don't think Daughter of the Moon Goddess isn't worth reading, it just isn't for me. I was expecting something aimed at a higher age range, whereas this reads very middle grade to me - nothing wrong with that, it just wasn't what I was expecting and lends itself to a few of my pet peeves that just makes reading it not as enjoyable an experience.

Warcross

 Book Title: Warcross

Author: Marie Lu

Series: Warcross #1

Date Started: November 27th 2021

Date Completed: December 10th 2021

Genres: Sci-Fi, Romance, Action, Mystery

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

I knew going in that Warcross was unlikely to be my favourite thing ever but I was hoping it would be entertaining. This was exactly what I got, so I shouldn't really complain - ultimately I just wasn't super convinced by anything or anyone in this book so while it was perfectly fine while reading it's certainly not going to stay in my memory for long. Its setup is quite familiar, the tropes are well-trodden, and its twists are predictable from the start (yet still dissatisfying when we got there).

Overall, my feelings are just that the book was... wishy-washy? The relationships are given a lot of importance towards the end with very little actual build-up throughout the book itself. The whole thing felt a little vague in general, with the timeline skipping chunks of events to progress the story faster, but leaving the development of side characters in the dust in the meanwhile.

The rules of the game was a little confusing and ended up inconsistent (each player has a 'role' in their team; for example, our protagonist Emika is an architect who is supposed to manipulate the level they're in to favour her team - yet all the actual rounds just end up as a race to collect power-ups? And then the black market is selling illegal power-ups that give people that ability to manipulate the level they're in?? What???). These action-heavy sections were then quite hard to follow though, honestly, the competition felt obsolete anyway, being used just as a framing device. We only properly see two rounds, with others skipped over and summarised, and the drama happening outside of them.

Warcross is a perfectly entertaining read if you don't mind not having a super fleshed-out world and story. I will say that, while you don't have to go into specifics of worldbuilding all the time, in a technologically-advanced worldwide game championship with rules that are being broken by the antagonist, it's sort of important that the system holds up so the reader can follow what's happening.