saramdeuri's Reviews (310)

oh my god this needed like 100 extra pages please i can't go without them for two more months ,, ,

first of all !! absolutely buck-wild plot going on. classic, chinese-style plot exposition with characters milling about talking about what happened and showing what happened through memory devices except this time it's more enjoyable because the sheer gag of what happens here is... it's phenomenal. how could anyone even think of half this stuff, let alone all of it all together.

second of all - most importantly, actually - impeccable romance. continues the discussion on love/lust and guilt and morality... I just love them so much. I need them injected directly into my bloodstream.

fantastic translation work as always!! so excited for the next volume <3

more fun than i remembered it being. if ever my friends have children i am monopolising their bedtime to read them this, cause it seems so fun to read out loud!

this book is everything and more than people have said. absolutely phenomenal, manages to reach each goal it sets out to accomplish and then surpasses them. i honestly don't know what more i could say about this than has already been said. 

the parts about translation were illuminating in just how eloquently they were expressed - i've read academic pieces on translation and this book explained most of what they were saying in a few paragraphs of dialogue. everything else was so well-written, also. 

Kuang really knows what she's talking about, and what she wants to fight for. I will be thinking about this book for a very, very long time.

well. this was... fine! it was fine. it was really very much like reading someone's little fantasy. definitely for the younger side of young adult. Arthur is plucked straight out of a Boy's Love story (so is Gabriel to be honest), very fun to read him go through his arc if you enjoy that genre. Gwen was a little less enjoyable and didn't get enough time to get over her "not like other girls" complex OR to shine on the battlefield like she should have done.

the final battle was fine, if a little boring and predictable, but that's what we all like. I felt like the parents weren't given enough space for Gwen and Gabriel's fears of coming out be adequately believable but alas. I wishe we got a little more post-battle pre-speech also, but that's typical of the genre to skip over the hard political bits.

my one very very large qualm with this book was the chapter where Bridget has bad period pains. not because of the periods, no, as a fellow bad-menstruation-sufferer, but because of her saying she'd seen "doctors" and then having another two male doctors inspect and then cure her. this took me out of the book totally, even though it's only a scant bit accurate to the setting it's trying to convey. not a single woman would ever see a male "doctor" for her "womanly" issues. she would go to her local, female, healer, or simply to other women in her community, and they would share their knowledge and healing between each other. that's just basic knowledge. and you CAN'T make a statement about "male doctors don't treat women respectfully" and then have ANOTHER MAN solve the issue for you?? same thing with

the final battle where Sidney saves Bridget from the Knife. just ruined everything the author had built for her, even if it was a bit tropey it would have been much more satisfying to read.

because of these, as well as the only marginally bearable use of contemporary jokes and language, I can't give it a higher rating.

However!! it is a very very cute romance, if one that doesn't leave you with enough of a satisfying pay-off, you will definitely enjoy their meet cutes.

generally quite interesting. of course, as with all short story collections, some are more intriguing than others, but this collection had a pretty level group of stories, I think. 

I especially enjoyed the titular Cursed Bunny, and the boy-sacrifice fairytale one. Speaking of, it seems like perhaps this collection would have benefited from a more focused choice of genre. it works to flex the authors writing ability, but actually it was very jarring to go from horror-adjacent sci-fi to romantic fairy tale. I did enjoy both, but...

the story I enjoyed the least was probably the one about the house. Just simply not built for a short story, it felt like it deserved its own longer length.

Well translated.

very cute! adorable, atmospheric illustrations. sweet little mystery.

well... it's alright. very slow-going until the last twenty or so pages, which is a pity - the action part is engaging, but the rest of it is... slightly same-same. would probably be better if the slow paced introspective character history bits were interspersed with the action, would've made for a more intriguing mystery also.

I agree with other reviews that say that this book is trying to tackle too many issues at once. societal injustice in a strongly capitalist country is a very, very large issue to touch on, and it's enough without also going through misogyny, crime, police brutality... I understand that all these issues are packed in the same circles, to be honest, but it's not exactly wise to tackle them all in a book of this comparatively paltry size. 

it does feel a little like the author is just pointing these issues out, and doing nothing more, like with Kim Jiyoung. I don't think this is enough, though; everyone who reads this will know what the issues in modern Korean/capitalist societies are. they're not looking for clarification anymore. I wish Cho Namjoo would delve a little more into these issues, if it's what she's passionate about.

the translation was better than Kim Jiyoung's.

such a wonderfully intricate, lively world that the author created! genuinely intriguing to explore. the politics part of it was convincing, and the romance was engaging. the two main characters didn't seem to have been written entirely around each other, instead felt like their own real selves, so it felt just that bit more real to me.
the religion was especially lovely, actually! didn't seem like a blatant rip-off of any real religions. 

길어섴ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

always interesting to see gender discussion from east asia!