The Vegetarian

After finishing this masterpiece, I was reminded of a film reviewer on Letterboxd who used to say that the interpretation of a piece of media, once it reaches the stage of public consumption, does not solely lie in the hands of the creator. In terms of that, you could make numerous interpretations of this novel, and all of them would fall short of capturing its essence – that's how open to interpretation The Vegetarian is.
Asides from the obvious metaphors of alienation, and stigmatisation when people don't stick to societal norms, there's a study in contrast to how various characters live their lives. Yeong-hye lives in flights of fancy; near the end she feels detached from her mortal shell to the point that she believes she can survive on sunlight. Mr Cheong lives a mundane existence and does not want to overthink his sense of purpose and seeming mediocrity – he just is.
In-hye lives a mundane existence, but she tries to find peace in being a beacon and always being a receiver than a giver. She assists her sister because it is the right thing to do, even when her parents abandon Yeong-hye. I found In-hye's husband the most fascinating, as well as the most repulsive. There is no sympathy you should feel towards his heinous actions – but because humans are predictably irrational, I did so anyway. He makes astounding leaps in logic because he wants to act out on his desires for the worse, but then again – who doesn't?
There's a lot more to talk about for this particular novel from my end, but since it's not even two hundred pages long – I'd strongly advise anyone who's not already read this to devour this whenever they can. Sure, it can be (understandably) divisive – but where's the fun without minimalist and yet seemingly full writing?