genre: contemporary fiction/supernatural fiction
When Kyungha's long-time friend Inseon asksa huge favor of Kyungha, Kyungha cannot refuse. This favor, though, requires her to travel to Inseon's island home off the southern tip of South Korea. On Jeju Kyungha will find herself in the kind of storm a person can get lost in, in more ways than one.
This deeply atmospheric book felt like it's own walk through a storm, sometimes bewildering and often disorienting. At its heart are the kind of horrific events whose consequences ripple through generations in the wider culture but more specifically within a family. Kyungha's experience at Inseon's home is a spectre of story and moonlight, of candleflame and bird wings, of bloodlines and mass violence. While honestly I feel like for half of this book I was hovering over it, trying pull the narration together in a way that made sense to me, and then when I let myself just slip into the sort of supernatural dimension where these storytelling conversations could take place, I was riveted. The writing is both luminous and exhausting, forcing me to work so hard to put timelines together in my head, making me read appalling things and acknowledge the ways in which people, whose lives are so far removed from me, have suffered in unimaginable ways.
I was so glad I'd already read the The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. Having that book for context really helped me understand where this book was headed and I needed that.
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