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A review by monkeelino
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
3.0
I probably would not have read this had it not been part of a Booker package offered by Tilted Axis Press. I wanted to try both the press and the 2022 International Booker Prize winner and if you're going to have books shipped overseas you can't just choose one, can you? I mean, that's gotta be bad for the planet or something... (the number of justifications I come up with for purchasing books is countless)...
I thought I might have more to say about this book if I waited to write the review, but I really don't. I liked the energy of it and the way Park seems to capture the uncertainty and yearning of youth. It felt like an important book, by which I mean a book that gives both voice and representation to a Korean gay culture that hasn’t had that sort of exposure and artistic/public acknowledgement in the past (at least, that’s what I’m assuming). It started out as two short stories that Park connected to two more short stories to create something larger, but, presumably because of this, it had a very uneven feel to me. It excels at capturing vulnerability and longing, evokes a kind of nostalgia for coming-of-age hedonism, and does really well to depict the kind of outed closetedness still at play socially. Probably its most memorable aspect is the book's narrative voice which effectively combines insecurity and ascerbic wit. Interestingly, now that I'm reflecting on it, I found Young's relationships with the females in his life (his best friend/roommate and his mother) much more interesting than his romantic ones.
I would say I respected this book more for its cultural/symbolic significance than for its literary merit and entertainment value.
I thought I might have more to say about this book if I waited to write the review, but I really don't. I liked the energy of it and the way Park seems to capture the uncertainty and yearning of youth. It felt like an important book, by which I mean a book that gives both voice and representation to a Korean gay culture that hasn’t had that sort of exposure and artistic/public acknowledgement in the past (at least, that’s what I’m assuming). It started out as two short stories that Park connected to two more short stories to create something larger, but, presumably because of this, it had a very uneven feel to me. It excels at capturing vulnerability and longing, evokes a kind of nostalgia for coming-of-age hedonism, and does really well to depict the kind of outed closetedness still at play socially. Probably its most memorable aspect is the book's narrative voice which effectively combines insecurity and ascerbic wit. Interestingly, now that I'm reflecting on it, I found Young's relationships with the females in his life (his best friend/roommate and his mother) much more interesting than his romantic ones.
I would say I respected this book more for its cultural/symbolic significance than for its literary merit and entertainment value.