Review by Booklist Review
In the "big city" of Seoul, love isn't easy to find--even tougher to secure is love that lasts. Young and Jaehee are best friends from university, bonded in their "boundless energy of [being] poor, promiscuous twenty-year-olds." Young is a gay man, Jaehee a straight woman; as adults, they share a studio apartment, their lives driven by meeting men, drinking to oblivion, to be repeated at every opportunity. And then Jaehee marries and moves out. Young's relationships have evolved (a bit), but permanence eludes. Meanwhile, even as his mother succumbs to cancer, she's still asking him about (traditional) marriage. In the midst of his loneliness--perhaps because he's so much alone--Young becomes an award-winning new writer. Despite the usual protestations that "all characters and incidents are fiction," Park's ending acknowledgments seem to reveal notable autobiographical overlaps as a young, gay Korean writer. Self-described queer Korean translator Hur empathically delivers Park's affecting English-language debut to Western audiences. A best-seller in Korea for being a significant (and rare!) gay novel, Park's lost-love(s) narrative is also a universal literary beacon for readers of all backgrounds.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Park's stunning English-language debut takes readers through the wild highs and lows of young adulthood with the story of a gay man, his erstwhile female best friend, and his search for love. Young and Jaehee share a studio apartment in Seoul, where they work odd jobs, spend money they don't have, compare notes on the men they're dating ("His hair is so long he has it in two braids. He looks just like a doll. It's hilarious when we have sex," Jaehee says about one of them). They support each other after heartbreaks and nightmarish encounters, such as an intruder Jaehee lays out with a high kick. After Jaehee moves in with her safe but boring fiancé, marking the end of the pair's "vagabond" years, Young moves back in with his parents and takes care of his sick mother, and the two friends grow apart. Young begins to write short stories as a way to replace his nights of rambling with Jaehee, and, after winning a prize, he embarks on a career as a writer. As his star rises, he meets two men--one is handsome but cold, the other could be his true love--and has to choose. The strength of the narrator, notably his flexibility of voice and expansiveness, carries the narrative to great heights, making this a standout among queer literature. Brilliant, glowing, and fun, Hur's translation succeeds in bringing Park's effervescent voice to English-reading audiences. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT A best seller in South Korea in 2019, Park's first novel (following a short story collection) features an aspiring writer in his 20s with the author's name and follows his quest for love as a gay man. The novel's early pages detail Young's friendship with his best friend and roommate Jaehee, a barista by day and tutor by night. The two share a passion for life and exchange unabashed tales of their numerous sexual conquests, but events take a turn when Jaehee settles down to marry her fiancé and Young must seek out a life of his own. What results is a lightly comical and insightful tale of a man, now in his 30s, who cares for his highly religious, strong-willed, but frail mother as she battles cancer; Young meanwhile seeks to better understand himself and to trust others enough to find happiness in life. VERDICT Centering on relationships (or the lack thereof), this work offers readers honest characterizations of flawed individuals from different walks of life who are all looking to find contentment regardless of their circumstances. Park's writing is introspective and relatable, and the broad-ranging themes make this a good candidate for book group discussions.--Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A novel, told through relationships, about navigating life as a young gay man in Korea. In a series of long vignettes, the narrator, an unnamed man referred to occasionally as "Mr. Young" and "Mr. Park," recounts his relationships: with other men; with his ailing, acidic, evangelical Christian mother; with his best friend. He meets Jaehee when she catches him kissing a man in a hotel parking lot. The two of them, both 20 years old and French majors in college, quickly become confidants, sleeping around with men and swapping stories about their escapades; eventually, they move in together. Now in his 30s, the narrator attends Jaehee's wedding and feels a pang of loss. In another section, the narrator, now 25, is in the midst of an intense relationship with a man 12 years his senior while juggling caretaking duties for his mother, who is confined to the hospital with uterine cancer. Five years later, after a wounding and sudden breakup, the man gets back in touch with the narrator--raising the possibility that he might finally introduce his mother (whose cancer has returned) to his old flame. The bulk of the book, though, is dedicated to Gyu-ho, the bartender with whom he has a long-term relationship complicated by the narrator's HIV-positive status. The novel skips freely around in time, lending it a sense of propulsion and instability that feels entirely intentional. It's anchored, however, by the narrator's irresistible voice, which alternates between earnest, heartfelt emotion and likable wryness: He names his virus Kylie, after Kylie Minogue, and sees, at a park, "a middle-aged couple so tightly arm in arm that one seemed to have placed the other under arrest." The prose is dense with fine-grained characterization: Of one boyfriend, the narrator says, "Conversations with him at his house sometimes gave me the feeling that he was reciting lines from a Greek tragedy or an absurdist play, or even an eighties movie." Despite an ending that drags just a bit, this book will sweep readers up in its sheer longing. An addictive, profound novel. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
