oh dear. oh dear oh dear... a wholehearted sorry to my close friend who gave this a five star review. but we already know our tastes don't match!

this book feels like a dream, in that it's underdeveloped and everyone within it is flat and uninspiring and the main character is you without all of your complexities. the background of this dream is vivid in colour, sure, but as soon as you try to look around the place, at where the dream doesn't direct you, it all merges into indistinct blobs of colour that strain your eyes. I wouldn't buy this dream even if I could get a full refund.

I could not get attached to any of the characters, bland as they were with their singular character trait. the stories that were meant to jerk my tears were emotional, but didn't actually jerk my tears. I think that's a personal thing, though - they were very generic stories and didn't feel personal enough for me to care enough to cry. more time spent with them on the page would've solved this, but I don't think I actually wanted to spend more time in these pages.

why? because the writing is... erm... shoddy. just not very good at all. I took a look at the original Korean, and it wasn't anything much special either, so I don't really think it's 100% on the translation, but it wasn't a particularly inspired translation either, I'm sorry to say. a little more editing might have improved it, but some of these passages were downright yawnworthy or even just upsettingly bad. consider this passage:

'You're here early, DallerGut. And I can see you're not with Weather today,' says Wawa Sleepland, giving Penny a nod.

'Oh my god, I've been a huge fan of yours since I was little! Well, not little, but since my school days, which makes sense, because it's been less than ten years since your debut, right?" Penny is talking gibberish, mesmerised by Sleepland's beauty.

'Long time no see, Wawa. You look well. And Yasnoozz, you look terrific, too.' DallerGut greets them with such ease, like it's just another day.

'DallerGut, did you know my lifelong dream is to have one of their dreams?' Penny exclaims. ... 

'Penny, whose dream would you want to have the most?" DallerGut quietly asks.

"DallerGut greets them with such ease, like it's just another day," is such an uninspired, boring sentence. I literally could not give any suggestion to improve it except to rewrite it completely. then, after Penny has her outburst, we never get to see Wawa's reaction. that's an oversight a good editor would ask the author to rectify. similarly, after Penny tells DallerGut how she'd love to try one of the two's dreams, we get a small environmental description, and then DallerGut responds her by asking her exactly what she just told him. This character is not one without tact, nor has he got his head in the clouds - he's shown to be very observing, almost all-knowing. why the hell is he asking her something she's already said? why's he even saying her name if she's just addressed him? who else would he be addressing? why not say something more specific, like "out of the two, whose would you choose if you could only have one dream?" ?? I am deeply confused as to what happened in the editing process.

I've read children's books written with more care and whimsy than this book claims to have. 

and while we're on that: why is this even considered an adults book? I understand that even adults can read fun, whimsical stories like this, but nothing here tells me that this book was written with an adult audience in mind, except the regular gesturing to "haha, isn't going to the office sooooo boring?!!" which I'm pretty sure children can also sympathise with. this simply doesn't stand up to its own peers. 

so then, stubborn miss saramdeuris, why'd you finish this? why even give it one star, let alone two? because I know how hard translation can be. I respect that this must've taken a lot of time and consideration, but it's just so underwhelming compared to all the glowing reviews and talk I've heard about it. there is so much promise in this book - the premise is excellent, the characters look like good fun and could definitely be given satisfying arcs, the world is intriguing. I just wish it had been delivered well.