Kim Joo-Young

This book covers the trauma (and healing, kind of?) of a young boy and his mother in a snowy Korean town. They are marked by the circumstances of the boy's father leaving prior to the events of the book. The duo subsists in comfortable, painful complacency until a young girl breaks in and eats the titular stingray.There is a lot to unpack here. Mainly, I would note that nearly everything that happens in the book appears to be symbolic, but it is easy to fly by those symbols. Many of my fellow reviewers noted that it is to be savored not rushed through, but I unfortunately was already in the rushing mindset as it was meant to be my rest book in between the first two volumes of The Story of the Stone. I can wholeheartedly agree that when read at a fast pace, the symbolism and atmosphere get tossed aside in favor of making it to the next page. Furthermore, it is told from the perspective of a young boy, so while all of this symbolism is included, at times the narration was a bit too repetitive for my liking. And too many sentences starting with "and" (yes, I know what I just did). Overall, I would solidly rate this as an okay book. I wouldn't read it again and I wouldn't push it on others, but I wouldn't groan if someone else brought it up. At best, I'm ambivalent about the whole thing. At worst, I was a bit disappointed. I did genuinely enjoy what was done with the narration of the rooster incident, so at least there was that.… (mehr)