This will hurt me...

Archway, Bruny Island. June 2021. The Vegetarian  by Han Kang My apologies; I am just not interested in mental illness porn. I found the book a turgid crawl through the mundanities of pain and misery. I am not a huge believer in trigger warnings (lest they spoil an invaluable experience), but this is a novel best avoided by anyone with an eating disorder. I can’t be certain if the author chooses to be deliberately strange or something that has been lost in translation is intrinsically and darkly peculiar. Either way, this was not a pleasurable read. ⭐ 1/2

Sunrise. Newell Beach, Far North Queensland. April 2021. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee An old-fashioned epic family tale that spans eighty-odd years in the lives of a small group of the Korean diaspora in Japan. While it felt somewhat contrived in parts, the soap-opera elements did not detract from my enjoyment. While I did find the sudden jumps in time periods or character standpoints somewhat jarring, I appreciate that covering the breadth of characters, events and emotions sometimes requires a little shorthand. Well worth the effort! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

  Breaking the waves. Bellerive Beach, Hobart. March 2021. The Plotters by Un-su Kim (translated by Sora Kim-Russell) This is the silliest book that I have read in a long while. I did enjoy it as the pacing was fine and plenty was happening. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that it read like a far better version of that dreadful creative writing exercise by the Virginia Tech shooter that found itself on the Internet back in the day. The biggest flaw is a common one found in the genre. It is like the author has not really met or spoken with any women, so he's not quite sure how they work. However, he obviously means well and sees women as more pure and worthy in a debased world, which I guess is better than the way that it usually goes in these things. It's an action movie in book-form. I found the pretensions to something more meaningful hamfisted and a bit childish, but nothing worse than anything you'll find in the Matrix or John Wick. I can't quite figure wha...