The character work was so gorgeous and realistic. I sincerely love the gritty elements of each character and how much agency the character has *despite* the many times she felt passive due to the uncontrollable nature of the tragedy. I think I picked it up a book thinking it was a crime fiction thriller - heavy focus on the  thriller aspect because to be honest, the appeal of the book isn't the grand reveal of the murderer. What made the book fantastically poignant was just how much we got to see the effects of a spouse/father who was brutally murdered; how families have to keep together to support each other and overcome grief. To me - the themes of grief and recovery are genuinely well written.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves character study; loves to read about how trauma tears or bonds the family together/apart; complicated daughter-mother relationships can be.

However, I cannot rate it any higher than 4 because honestly -- it missed the mark when it comes to solidifying motivations. While I understood the implications of a child being questioned by the police, I still felt like it was flimsy because the writing did not reflect the actual stakes

(it felt like the author assumed that the audience would just agree that it was more important to protect a child from confessing what she knew about the father's murder! which is absurd because first and foremost, the "confession" did not implicate the actual family in any way which caused Saffron's motivation to be flimsy).

I think Komsoon should have spent more time honing in on the character's motivations to do things.

I do not agree with a lot of the reviews here about how Saffron spent most of the novel waiting for things to happen. I genuinely liked seeing on paper how much patience a mother has for her teenage daughter over things that Saffron has multiple addressed that it would have been easier to just lash out and hurt her daughter - to control her actions but yet we get to witness a mother who is supportive of her daughter in every way she could be. That made the book an amazing reading experience and therefore would recommend it!