Specs
Reviews
(3.50/5)Juwon is a reclusive teenager who struggles to leave his apartment and relies on his family to bring him groceries. Worrying about his future and knowing he can't keep going this way forever he decides he needs to make a plan to change his life. This sets him on a path to meet other people who similarly want to reconnect with the world they've shut themselves away from, including Yumi who has a special gift for magic.
This is pretty perfect for language learners because a lot of the vocab is extremely high frequency. It starts off describing in detail the day to day rituals of people who never leave their homes. As the characters start to venture further out into the world they experience and struggle with a lot of what would otherwise be mundane activities for the first time.
Towards the end of the book the plot takes a turn and the stakes are suddenly raised, I wasn't expecting the ending based on the first 2/3 of the book but while it was a bit heavyhanded it wasn't unenjoyable.
Overall I enjoyed how positive a read it was. The characters have all experienced hardship but are on individual journeys of self empowerment throughout the novel.
Slow and unresolved
I liked the beginning and watching the characters in the club work on themselves. The last 40% was just too boring and YA-coded. And none of the following were explained: Why does the male MC think he recognizes the female MC when they first meet? How does the female MC's magic technically work? Is it an optical illusion or does she literally rewrite space? If she rewrote space, why did the people she rescued from the upper floors of the mall not fall down and die? What is the origin of the female MC's magic? Why does she lose it when she becomes an adult? It felt extremely lazy that the author dropped in that she will lose her magic when she reaches adulthood and said that it was written at the end of her grandmother's letter, WHICH WE READ IN THE FIRST 20% and it was missing that. I just have no tolerance for this kind of lazy YA with unexplained fantasy elements just for the vibes.
Enjoyed the first 70% of the book, which was about the characters overcoming their fear of meeting people. There was a dramatic tone shift in the last 30%, and it almost felt like I was reading a different book. There were many plot threads that were left unresolved, and by the end I lost interest in the characters and had to force myself to finish the book.
I did really love the first part of the book though, and it was perfect for language learners. The sentence structures weren't too complicated, and the characters were challenging themselves to do things like leave the house, go to the convenience store, start a conversation, etc. I'd recommend this to people who want to learn or reinforce their knowledge of high-frequency, useful vocabulary.