Details:
- author: Kwon Yeo-Sun
- full title: Lemon
- narrator: Greg Chun; Greta Jung; Jaine Ye
- genre: literary fiction; mystery
- topics: #murder #highschool
- publisher: Recorded Books
- publish date: 12.10.2021
- timing: 3:15:00
My Rating of the Audiobook:
- content: 💙💙💙💙.5
- narration: 💙💙💙💙💙
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| Goodreads |
Excerpt from the Book:
I imagine what happened inside one police interrogation room so many years ago. By imagine, I don't mean invent. But it's not like I was actually there, so I don't know what else to call it. I picture the scene from that day, based on what he told me and some other clues, my own experience and conclusions. It's not just this scene I imagine. For over sixteen years, I've pondered, prodded, and worked every detail embroided in the case known as "The High School Beauty Murder" - to the point I often fool myself into thinking I'd personaly witnessed the circumstances now stamped on my mind's eye. The imagination is just as painful as reality. No, it's more painful. After all, what you imagine has no limit or end.
My Thoughts:
If you expect a typical suspenseful mystery / thriller, this novel could disappoint you. It is a kind of mystery, but not a typical one. Lemon is a story built around a murder. After many years, Da-on still wants to know who killed her sister. But other than that, it’s not a mystery. It is weird and somewhat complicated. And I loved it.
In the end, more important than who did it are the characters narrating the events in years after the murder. It’s more of a psychological character study. The novel doesn’t have a consistent plot and timeline. The story jumps from one character to another and from one year to another.
In the beginning, I had some trouble with the Korean names and distinguishing who is who. Otherwise, I quickly got used to timeline and POV jumps. Lemon is a quick read / listen, and it may not offer all you want to know. But the novel doesn’t have to be long or even answer all your questions to feel perfect and complete.
I liked three narrators: Greg Chun, Greta Jung, and Jaine Ye. I think they did a very good job.
About the Author:
Kwon Yeo-sun was born in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province of South Korea in 1965. Kwon enjoyed a brilliant literary debut in 1996 when her novel Niche of Green was awarded the Sangsang Literary Award. At the time, novels that reflected on the period of the democratization movement in South Korea, were prevalent.
Kwon's work is often unconventional in form and topic and for that reason she sometimes has a reputation for being difficult to read.
Kwon's first work Niche of Green was one of the most outstanding coming-of-age novels to emerge from the South Korean publishing world of the 1990s. Eight years after the publication of Niche of Green, Kwon published a short story collection called Maiden’s Skirt. This collection, a book that Kwon professes felt like publishing a love letter to herself, is about defeated individuals who, though troubled by their tragic fates, come to a place of resigned acceptance. The characters in this collection generally consist of people who are handicapped by relationships that society does not accept, such as extramarital affairs and gay relationships. Unable to overcome this sense of handicap, the characters witness their love collapse. In Kwon's second short story collection The Days of Pink Ribbon, the characters are often people who have failed rather than succeeded. They are generally people with defects in their character or physique. In Kwon's work, characters do not fail because of exterior causes but because of their own shortcomings or due to bad fate.
