I love reading books, and I could say that it was one of the things that made me start writing books.
Throughout my life I have read plenty of books and as any other book lover I have my own list of favorite books.
So after my last post I was thinking very hard what my next blog topic would be. After a bit of thought and after seeing a lot of people doing this I decided to give it a shot as well.
Thus today’s topic will be reviewing a book I have read.
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Recently I happened to see a lot of comments regarding a book of a Korean author, Won Pyung Sohn, called “Almond”.
Some of you might have even heard about this book already as from the time few members of BTS have read this book.
Honestly, I had my thoughts and doubts about it in the begging, as I am having with most books that I happen to come across. But I decided to not judge a book by its cover’ and give it a shot.
So I downloaded it on my E-book and started reading it.
I can say that I got caught up with the whole plot and the way it was evolving. Honestly I got fully addicted with this book and I was reading nonstop, and it’s something that very rarely happens to me with a book.
But let’s break it down in sections.
Firstly the plot. The plot was very interesting and intriguing from the very beginning and it kept the whole excitement and intriguing up until the very end.
The whole story was written in such a beautiful way that it wasn’t making the reader get bored at all, on the contrary it was keeping you interested all the time. It might seem to you that 75 chapters are way too much and that you probably won’t manage to read it all the way to the end but believe me they are easily read.
Then we have the structure of the book and of the chapters. The way the whole book was structured it was very easy to read, what I mean with this is that the chapter weren’t huge in order to be tiring in the eye of the reader. Each chapter would be around 3-4 maximum 6 pages, and that for me personally was something very nice, because sometimes the long chapters are making you feel bored. But this one was soo awesome and so pleasant to read and I really enjoyed reading it. This was a surprisingly fast read, but immensely thought-provoking.
Now the cover. The cover at first sight might not be eye catchy or anything of that matter, it’s more of a much simple and minimal type of a book cover. I definitely can say that it wouldn’t need anything else or something much, anything more than this would be too much in my opinion. In the beginning you might not get actually what the whole cover pictures shows, but trust me once you get into the whole books and its plot it would get clear to you.
Then we have the dialogues. There are not much of a dialogue in this book and I know this might be discouraging from some of you, who love to dive straight into the dialogue part of a book and ignore the narrative part of the book, in my opinion a lot of dialogues wouldn’t fit for this book. Maybe it’s because I liked it the way it is, but I can say too many dialogues probably would slow the easy reading thing and it wouldn’t be nice as well. The few dialogues there are, are just perfect and there was no need for anything more, the whole story its awesome and with less dialogues.
Honestly it’s the only book, so far, with non to few dialogues that I have read and I had enjoyed to the core, because like most book-worms out there I love to read the dialogues and a lot of times I might also skip few pages just to read the dialogues.
Lastly let me tell you a bit about the book and what it is about. It's about exploration of love's effects on children - how it can both soothe, and destroy. In very simple prose, it tells the story of Yunjae, a boy born with Alexithymia - a brain condition that restricts his ability to identify and express emotions. Even as he endures unspeakable tragedy, Yunjae is simply unable to feel anything.
Then Yunjae meets his exact opposite: Gon. While Yunjae cannot emote, Gon almost feels too much - he is constantly angry, provocative, and seems to have more feelings than he knows how to handle. The two strike up an unlikely friendship, and their dynamic is explored in the rest of the novel.
Sohn aimed to discuss the transformative effects of love, but I felt that Almond was more generally an exploration of emotion, both as a source of beauty/humanity, but also as a major handicap. Yunjae’s lack of emotion hinders him from understanding many of Gon's experiences. But Gon’s 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺-𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 state is also very destructive, and impedes him from a better way of life. Also what I liked in this book is that even though Yunjae wasn't able to understand any kind of emotion and what they meant, let alone feel them, his friendship with Gon made him in some terms comprehend and get a brief idea of how each emotion is and tried to make sure to understand it well if he wanted to get along with Gon, understand him and see the world through his lenses.
For a novel about a lack of a lot emotions, it’s amazing how many feelings this stirred up in me. The incredible writing, in which harrowing, shocking events are described very matter-of-factly and very simply, reflected how Yunjae himself processed things, I found that delightfully immersive, and made me feel more for both Yunjae and Gon. It also reminded me just how big a role emotions play in story-telling as well as how important and necessary emotions are in our life and what a huge role they play, and how many nuances are lost and how dangerous once life could turn without them.
Above all, they're just two kids trying to find their way through bad circumstances, and somehow find anchors in each other. I loved their relationship and how oddly pure it was. Fair warning - it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, especially towards the end.
So seriously I would 100% recommend everyone of you to read this book, and believe you won’t regret it. In such situations I’d wish to be able to erase from my mind a books plot so I could read it over and over and over again.
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If you liked this book review, lets me know down in the comments and tell me which book you would like me to do a book review the next time.
That's All She Wrote
Laura Melkonian
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