A review by femmenova
The Vegetarian by Han Kang

dark medium-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.0

I was so in shock when I found out that this was written by a female author because I was cringing at how the male and female characters were written. Every male character was either a rapist or an abuser - from the protagonist's rapist husband to her abusive father. Every female character was either so submissive or unloved yet independent. The only redeeming part about this book was how the sister-in-law immediately yelled at her husband for raping her sister - she knew that her sister who was mentally ill cannot consent to the sexual advances that he made. The bond between the sisters was also interesting to read about, though I wish it was developed from the beginning and not just from the middle part. The entire part about her husband which is in part two could have easily been scrapped away, it was unnecessary violence to me. 

Maybe I'm just tired of reading schizophrenic people being abused and hurt and vilified as a schizophrenic person myself. Maybe that's just why this book is just a generous 2 star or me. Objectively, the writing was not bad. The pacing was fluid. There was just so many things to dislike about the plot that I simply cannot rate it higher than that. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism and Rape

If you have a psychotic mental illness as I am, this book can be quite triggering at how they treated the main character. She is raped twice by her own husband and her brother-in-law, throughout the book. She is then abused by her father and abandoned by her parents.