The Vegetarian

eBook, 185 pages

English language

Published Jan. 31, 2016 by Hogarth.

ISBN:
9780553448191
ASIN:
1101906111

View on OpenLibrary

3 stars (3 reviews)

Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.

2 editions

Just absolutely not for me

1 star

I did not like this at all. Everything I don't enjoy in literary fiction shows up in this book. Tedious unpleasant people acting in bizarre, unfathomable ways while nothing much really happens, and the ending is supremely unsatisfactory.

I find these kinds of books utterly opaque, and I know it's not the book, it's my brain. Yet, I struggled through it, and actually finished, but I really shouldn't have, I despised every sentence.