Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Shoko's Smile: Stories by Choi Eunyoung

4 reviews

towardinfinitybooks's review against another edition

Feel very detached and ambivalent about the stories I read so far. They all feel very one note. The narrators in the first two stories play an active role in their storylines, unlike the third narrator who seems to be more of a third party recounting what she was told by her mother, yet everyone sounds the same. I can't tell if this is related to the translation. I did notice that of the three stories I read, the narrators spend a lot of time telling instead of showing - 90% of the time, we are in their thoughts and there is very little that is left to be understood between the lines. Unfortunately, this wasn't for me. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief

Minor: Suicide and Violence

heatherjay94's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

So much pain.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Child death, Terminal illness, Torture, and War

Minor: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

garynoplastie's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse and Grief

Moderate: Cancer, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Violence, and War

Minor: Animal death, Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Vomit, Medical content, Alcohol, and Classism

Boat accident, war related trauma

thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

this is a beautiful collection of short stories, each distinct yet threaded w/ a commonality of bittersweet reflection thats tinged w/ melancholy.

shoko's smile both squeezes and fills my heart w/ its perceptive meditation on life and - perhaps most astonishingly - its mastery in capturing and somehow succinctly articulating all the subtle ways ppl drift from one another, the oft confounding how's and why's relationships - even and esp dear ones - tense, transform, and taper off over time. it's both life's tragedy and happiness that ppl can find so much solace and love in one another, yet nothing can ensure that any of it will endure.

i also admire how choi brings up and explores so many underrepresented and maybe-taboo topics in her stories - esp considering her home country's social and political climates - some of which include korea's own little-known war atrocities abroad; disability; state violence and unjudicial repression; feminism and local rigid age-based social hierarchy; and ofc, the sewol tragedy. and they're all examined thru various types of relationships as well, be it friends, families, lovers, neighbors, those from other cultures, etc.

the book's overall calm, sparse feeling + writing, and melancholic yet a lil hopeful rumination on life strike a chord with(in) me, even reminding me of my lifetime fav kitchen, and this has for sure become another fav, albeit a bittersweet, heartrending one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Cancer, Sexism, Terminal illness, and War

Minor: Child death, Death, Racism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, and Toxic friendship