I read this book in English. It is to be taken into account that any inconsistencies, or differencies in the narration, you might find when reading the same book in a different language are probably due to a translation issue.

SYNOPSIS

This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster. 

One of the monsters is me.

Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say “thank you,” and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.

Then on Christmas Eve—Yunjae’s sixteenth birthday—everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world, leaving him alone and on his own. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until troubled teenager Gon arrives at his school and begins to bully Yunjae. 

Against all odds, tormentor and victim learn they have more in common than they realized. Gon is stumped by Yunjae’s impassive calm, while Yunjae thinks if he gets to know the hotheaded Gon, he might learn how to experience true feelings. Drawn by curiosity, the two strike up a surprising friendship. As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people—including a girl at school—something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life in danger, it is Yunjae who will step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become a most unlikely hero. 

TRIGGER WARNINGS: physical violence, physical abuse, animal/insect abuse, bullying.

REVIEW

Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He doesn’t have friends but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Upon learning this diagnosis, his mother sets about teaching him a multitude of possible social scripts—to express envy when a classmate is showing off a new toy, or to mimic the facial expressions of the person he is talking to— so he will appear “normal” to others. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say “thank you,” and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.

Then on Christmas Eve—Yunjae’s fifteenth birthday—everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world. With the help of his kindly upstairs neighbor Dr. Shim and the his mother’s lessons deep-seated in his memory, Yunjae tries to make his way alone in the world. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until he meets Gon, a transfer student to Yunjae’s high school class, who has bounced in and out of juvenile detention after tragically being separated from his mother during a trip to the amusement park. Unlike Yunjae, Gon is violent, loud, and angry at the world for depriving him of a family and a happy childhood. Yunjae is oddly drawn to Gon, mainly because he is so transparent and pure of heart that Yunjae can easily read his feelings. Through an unlikely friendship, the two boys find a way to understand something they thought was unlikeliest of all: love.

While the author offers a brief explanation of alexithymia, the condition Yunjae is diagnosed with, she avoids cluttering the novel with medical terms as a way to lend credibility to the protagonist’s depiction; in fact, she makes clear in the endnotes that the portrayal of Yunjae is based on both medical knowledge and her own imagination. Also worth a note is the fact that the author doesn’t  pathologize Yunjae’s condition as abnormal or problematic. Actually, it is Yunjae who observes, with remarkable clarity, the oddness of others’ behaviors. There is a devastating eloquence in how Yunjae is able to express the complexities of human behavior and interactions with such simplicity, and through Yunjae’s eyes, the reader is given a different way of looking at the world.

MY RATING: 🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋