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mxleigh's review against another edition
5.0
Refreshing to read an artful piece. Nightmarish, but far from unreal.
schomj's review against another edition
That was... a lot. Not even sure what to say.
CW: murder, rape, animal killing, other stuff too but at this point it seems unnecessary to keep listing things.
CW: murder, rape, animal killing, other stuff too but at this point it seems unnecessary to keep listing things.
afternoonweather's review against another edition
2.0
this book is really strange (just read it), it started with a really powerful background story of the man but the more i continued reading it the more i felt bored.. the ending didnt satisfy me at all
ninetalevixen's review against another edition
1.0
I received a free copy of this book through Edelweiss for review purposes. This does not affect my rating or opinions.
1.5 stars.Definitely not because that's the only rating I haven't given out yet this year and I want to even out my book stats bar graph.
Honestly, I never meant to finish this book - but I kept finding myself thinking, Oh, I'll stop after I finish this chapter, just in case something exciting happens, and nothing exciting would happen but for some reason I would keep reading? So I guess it gets an extra half star for making me do that, though I hated the ending. Hated. That's not a word I use lightly: I'm okay with ambiguous/open endings, I'm okay with closure, but I hate when we get neither and the book just ... stops.
I couldn't connect with the main character at all, possibly partly because he was "the man" throughout and never got a name. I have a history of staying emotionally remote from unnamed protagonists; I suspect it's not the namelessness itself but the writing style that often accompanies such a choice: denser, with a lot of figurative language that may not make sense (ravens compared to black fruit in a tree, an apartment building "waiting patiently like a huge dog"), and arbitrary or just really poor decisions being made.
There was a flicker of interest when linguistics came up, because language learning and linguistic theory are really interesting to me, but the discussions in this book didn't feel nuanced enough - just constant incidents in which the man couldn't understand what the people around him were saying, or super-convenient double meanings for certain phrases, or recurrence of the name "Mol."
And there's a lot of objectionable content in this book, which didn't really do anything for me except make me extremely uncomfortable. There's a blunt (if clinical) rape scene - the word "rape" is used several times by the perpetrator, but he feels no remorse and even blames the victim, his wife, for provoking him; there's violence and murder towards rats and other people; and there's just a lot of general grossness with the trash piled everywhere in District 4 and the lack of hygiene among the homeless and the graphic violence.
I can vaguely see the literary value in this kind of book, but it's definitely not my type of read.
1.5 stars.
Honestly, I never meant to finish this book - but I kept finding myself thinking, Oh, I'll stop after I finish this chapter, just in case something exciting happens, and nothing exciting would happen but for some reason I would keep reading? So I guess it gets an extra half star for making me do that, though I hated the ending. Hated. That's not a word I use lightly: I'm okay with ambiguous/open endings, I'm okay with closure, but I hate when we get neither and the book just ... stops.
I couldn't connect with the main character at all, possibly partly because he was "the man" throughout and never got a name. I have a history of staying emotionally remote from unnamed protagonists; I suspect it's not the namelessness itself but the writing style that often accompanies such a choice: denser, with a lot of figurative language that may not make sense (ravens compared to black fruit in a tree, an apartment building "waiting patiently like a huge dog"), and arbitrary or just really poor decisions being made.
There was a flicker of interest when linguistics came up, because language learning and linguistic theory are really interesting to me, but the discussions in this book didn't feel nuanced enough - just constant incidents in which the man couldn't understand what the people around him were saying, or super-convenient double meanings for certain phrases, or recurrence of the name "Mol."
And there's a lot of objectionable content in this book, which didn't really do anything for me except make me extremely uncomfortable. There's a blunt (if clinical) rape scene - the word "rape" is used several times by the perpetrator, but he feels no remorse and even blames the victim, his wife, for provoking him; there's violence and murder towards rats and other people; and there's just a lot of general grossness with the trash piled everywhere in District 4 and the lack of hygiene among the homeless and the graphic violence.
I can vaguely see the literary value in this kind of book, but it's definitely not my type of read.
tinyviolet's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
bookjunkie1975's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
juanita618's review against another edition
5.0
Favorite line: "And being the same as everyone else meant not having to think about your own existence. It meant that, other than becoming infected and having your everyday life ruined, you had nothing to fear."
abookishtype's review against another edition
3.0
The beginning of Hye-young Pyun’s novel, City of Ash and Red, (translated by Sora Kim-Russell), terrified me because it presents one of my worst fears. An unnamed man arrives in a foreign city to take up a job, only to end up without his phone, documents, most of his possessions, and eventually the apartment his new employer set up. He doesn’t speak the language well. All the phone numbers he might call were stored in his phone. He’s on his own. Meanwhile, an epidemic and a garbage strike are making conditions in the city district he’s fetched up in downright hellish...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
ratbaggy's review against another edition
4.0
Ordered this after reading and loving The Hole. It is about a pandemic, with very clear links to the current world situation. From 2010. Many of the same debates about social distancing, quarantining, etc. Also, many of the same deniers.
annmarie_reads's review against another edition
1.0
If you like rats, trash and sewers, this book is for you. Otherwise it is a waste of time.