The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. This book is mediocre. I thought the idea and basis of the book was fantastic and it was really well written, but I couldn't really get into it. The book starts of with a little bit of background about the protagonist, Pak Jun Do, and then immediately into events where Jun Do and some other charterers are kid napping random citizens from Japan. So right from the start I thought the book was kind of weird. As I continued to progress through the novel it continued to be weird. I truly realized how different the DPRK is from the United States. Especially when the Korean characters in the book go to Texas. The book jumped around a lot and it was hard to follow what the author was trying to say.
I would recommend this book to someone trying to find a fictional book that portrays North Korea well, but only if they have good reading comprehension. Also I'm sure there are other books that someone could read if they wanted a story about North Korea.
Another reason I think this book was not super engaging to me was Jun Do's lack of identity. Something Adam Johnson probably did on purpose is the similar sound of Jun Do to John Doe which is the name given to people who have no identity.
I'm very partial to this books. I don't love it and I don't hate it.
No comments:
Post a Comment