saramdeuri's Reviews (310)

a solid story, but that epilogue was so trite it kind of spoiled it for me. would do better without it - the tonal shift was so weird. the characters were all pretty convincing, although I'd have loved to see more of why

she fell in love with Ryu, apart from him just being ... nice to her?? as a pseudo-father figure?? it felt a little bit... iffy to have her fall in love with someone like that, playing into the stereotype that women want men to fill the gap of a father in their lives... just very uncomfortable on all sides and didn't make me sympathize with his death and her mourning. girl, free yourself!

the action scenes were pretty cool, especially the final few. other than that... yeah. just a good book, nothing especially outstanding to me. translation was very well done, I think.

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. 

grim, grim story. a little look into where postcapitalism can take us. not entirely unbelievable. I read this in one day, which says something about how simple a read it is, but I wasn't so invested with the characters or the premise until the excellently executed twists in the second half. deserved the praise it got, I think. the romantic angle wasn't pulled off particularly well, though.

역시... 귀엽네

a real feat! lots of these articles had something new and interesting to say, but a lot of it felt a little surface-level - confined by the limits of such a collection. i would love to see some of these ideas expanded on in full-length papers.

a lot of these were more personal than i thought they would be - some were even nearly entirely accounts of personal experiences and how bts and bts fandom affected them. interesting, still, but not what i was looking for or what i'd expected here.

it was really fun to take a dive back into army culture from another side. i've been a fan since 2015 so i've seen pretty much everything described or mentioned in this collection happen in real-time, which made reading this quite the experience. i would recommend this to any bts fan mature enough to handle some more critical looks at fandom and the group. nothing really critical is said here - a shame, i think - but all the same i know some people are more sensitive than they perhaps might feel. so yeah, it would have benefited from a starker look at fandom culture without such a serious focus on the upsides of it. undoubtedly it's important to emphasise that Not All BTS Fans Are Like That, but some are and it's also deeply important to analyse why fandom culture facilitates such behaviours. it would have at least been interesting to see someone talk about this less-loved aspect!

yeah. next time, a little less biased (ha ha) look at fandom and perhaps more diversity in topics would be beneficial. 

드디어.... 내 한국어 읽기 능력이 나아졌다.... 잘 못 쓴 소설을 알아볼 수 있을 정도까지... 정말요 이것보다 더 잘 쓴 알페스 읽어 본 적 있어. 

셰이커의 전제와 주제는 재미있긴 한데 문체는 너무나 지루한다. 창의적인 부분이 없는 것 같았고 백 페이지에 넘어 아직 시작하지 않은 느낌이 들었는데 계속 읽어도 시작하지 않을 느낌도 들었다. 인물도 별로 좋아하지 않았고 뭐... 그냥 다 지루하게. 이것보다 더 흥미로운 소설이 있어서 이거 놓을게

ohhhh this one was far more heartbreaking than I thought it'd be. maybe because of my inherent fondness for werewolves, because I identified with them a lot as a young girl (that's the undiagnosed autism, probably), their forced loss of what attached them to nature, to their family, to their identity, felt that much more painful. I wonder if this is somewhat of an allegory about colonialism? I'll have to read around it to find out. but a lovely piece regardless.

 I also read another piece in the short story collection named after this, which was so wonderfully atmospheric as well. Russell does a great job at environmental description.

this piece is an absolutely feat of beauty. what sorrow. we've all got to be kinder

quote to remember: 

loved reading this especially because I borrowed my friends lovingly annotated copy so I got to know all its secrets... so much fun to see exactly how the twist is foreshadowed and how obvious it feels. I saw the film beforehand so of course I can't judge it on how good that twist was executed but it did very well describing violence and getting that dread pooling in my stomach! characterisation is super well done, and it's so cool to see Tyler bleed into the narrator. excellent all round! 

a cute little series of short stories, illustrated as beautifully as you'd expect from Shirahama. I'll definitely read the next few volumes! the two of them are so much fun <33