너의 유니버스

While I wasn't particularly impressed with this story, I did enjoy the reading experience: the language is simple and straightforward, which makes it a relatively quick and easy read, but it's also a book book (as opposed to a picture book or graded reader) which makes the ease of reading rather satisfying. If you can overlook the issues with the plot, I'd definitely recommend it as a nice stepping stone between easier content aimed at children or language learners and full-fledged novels.

지훈, stressed from all the pressure he's under to perform well at school, decides to skip going to his 학원 and instead stalk his friend 람, who claims to be a time traveller from the future. When his parents find out he's been skipping, he's thrown out of the house, and he ends up staying with 람 for a few days. They go to school, wander around the neighbourhood, and watch movies together. During his stay, 지훈 wakes up to discover one of the walls of the room gone, and in its place a large window. Through the window he sees 람, surrounded by futuristic gadgets. He wakes up the next morning, confused as to what he may have seen (or dreamt), but doesn't mention it to 람.

The rest of the story is crammed into the last few pages of the book. 람, who is leaving, has a strange conversation with the homeroom teacher which 지훈 is privy to. We gather that the homeroom teacher is actually 람's grandfather (he is a time traveller!), and 람 is making sure the teacher leaves a note for his daughter (람's mother) before he is killed in a car accident (람 has already mentioned that he can't change events, otherwise there will be catastrophic consequences). Sure enough, the teacher is struck by a car and dies, but luckily he made sure to write his note with a pen that wouldn't bleed in the rain, so every cloud and all that...!

The absurdity of the scenario raises so many questions (why would you travel through time and space and spend months undercover just to remind someone to write with waterproof ink?) but I feel comfortable just chalking it up to this being a children's story. However, there are so many more issues:

• I didn't enjoy the pacing, as most of the story drags along, then suddenly everything happens right at the end. I think the author was trying to orchestrate an exciting denouement but failed to leave enough breadcrumbs for the reader to follow, so the ending feels rushed and as though revelations have come out of nowhere.
• Although we're told the two boys are friends, we aren't really shown much of their relationship beyond them being in the same place at the same time; the lack of connection and emotion makes it difficult to relate to the characters or care about them.
• 지훈's story feels greatly overshadowed by 람's; the former's storyline resolving quietly in the background midway through the book, while the latter's suddenly swells to an almighty crescendo at the end, making the story feel unbalanced (particularly since 지훈 is ostensibly the main character).
• The story feels a bit disjointed, and different aspects of the story don't seem to gel particularly well: for example, the boys' stories don't appear to be thematically related, so again it feels as though the only thing connecting the characters (and the events they experience) is their proximity to each other.

I don't want to give the impression that it's terrible; I personally just found it a bit dull and poorly written. It's unfortunate, because I think from a language learner's perspective it's actually a very enjoyable read, due to the simple language used.