Ratings1
Average rating4
"A highly anticipated debut novel from 5 Under 35 National Book Foundation honoree featuring a Korean War refugee who emigrates to Brazil to become a tailor's apprentice and confronts the wreckage of his past"--
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It's not that I didn't like this book. I did. It's a short, quiet narrative that I was quite interested to follow. But I am puzzled by it, too. It is extremely quiet. Very little happens, at least not in the present, which is what forms the bulk of the story. And the language is surprisingly static, perhaps on purpose. (Start counting the instances of the verb “to be” and you'll quickly lose track, there are so many.) There are also some odd shifts of point of view that I thought were unnecessary, and there's not a whole lot of dialogue, either. In general, it's a story that feels “told” as opposed to being “shown,” and as a result, I just can't say that I love it.
See my full review here: Review of Snow Hunters