Title: The Vegetarian
Author: Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
Series: n/a
Publisher: Hogarth, Penguin Random House
Publication date: August 23, 2016
Pages: 208
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Asian Lit, Adult, Mental Illness
Format: paperback
ISBN: 9781101906118
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My Review:
I had to give this book time to sink in before I could do a full review. There are many issues at play here and to take them all in, takes a bit of time.
This is a story about Yeong-hye, her husband and her family and takes place in Korea. She decides after a disturbing dream to become a vegetarian and gets rid of all the meat in the house, which aggravates her husband and so begins the downhill slide.
While it may seem by the title, that this would be the main subject of the book, it is really about several subjects: mental health, control, manipulation, desire, apathy, mental and physical abuse, sorrow, abandonment and more. It's told in 3 parts but never directly by the main character, Yeong-hye. It's narrated by her husband, her brother in law and her sister, which is an interesting way to tell the story and also in a way I could appreciate it.
If you are looking for story about the ebbs and flows of life and how mental illness and abuse can differently affect everyone in a family, this is a book for you. It was translated beautifully and is a story I will keep on my shelves and reread in the future.
*I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review.*
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