All the accolades I have read about Kang’s skills as a writer are justified. The writing is unique, the perspective highly unusual.

If it hadn’t been for the writing I wouldn’t have made it through the first two stories, or chapters (because the stories are connected). Perhaps scenes would be a better way to describe them.

However, the topic of a particularly brutal massacre of a student uprising in South Korea (1980) is horrific. Kang’s skill in bringing the emotions straight to the reader made it explosively powerful.

It was too much for me to read any more than those two chapters. Tragic. Kang has won my respect as an author but that was all I could read.