3.0
Lemon
ByPublisher Description
New York Times Book Review: Editor’s Choice
Philadelphia Inquirer: Best Book of the Month
World Literature Today: Notable Translation of the Year
CrimeReads: Best International Crime Novel of the Year
Ms. Magazine: Most Anticipated Book of the Year
Washington Independent Review of Books: Favorite Book of the Year
Parasite meets The Good Son in this piercing psychological portrait of three women haunted by a brutal, unsolved crime.
In the summer of 2002, when Korea is abuzz over hosting the FIFA World Cup, eighteen-year-old Kim Hae-on is killed in what becomes known as the High School Beauty Murder. Two suspects quickly emerge: rich kid Shin Jeongjun, whose car Hae-on was last seen in, and delivery boy Han Manu, who witnessed her there just a few hours before her death. But when Jeongjun’s alibi checks out, and no evidence can be pinned on Manu, the case goes cold.
Seventeen years pass without any resolution for those close to Hae-on, and the grief and uncertainty take a cruel toll on her younger sister, Da-on, in particular. Unable to move on with her life, Da-on tries in her own twisted way to recover some of what she’s lost, ultimately setting out to find the truth of what happened.
Shifting between the perspectives of Da-on and two of Hae-on’s classmates struck in different ways by her otherworldly beauty, Lemon ostensibly takes the shape of a crime novel. But identifying the perpetrator is not the main objective here: Kwon Yeo-sun uses this well-worn form to craft a searing, timely exploration of privilege, jealousy, trauma, and how we live with the wrongs we have endured and inflicted in turn.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Best Book of the Month
World Literature Today: Notable Translation of the Year
CrimeReads: Best International Crime Novel of the Year
Ms. Magazine: Most Anticipated Book of the Year
Washington Independent Review of Books: Favorite Book of the Year
Parasite meets The Good Son in this piercing psychological portrait of three women haunted by a brutal, unsolved crime.
In the summer of 2002, when Korea is abuzz over hosting the FIFA World Cup, eighteen-year-old Kim Hae-on is killed in what becomes known as the High School Beauty Murder. Two suspects quickly emerge: rich kid Shin Jeongjun, whose car Hae-on was last seen in, and delivery boy Han Manu, who witnessed her there just a few hours before her death. But when Jeongjun’s alibi checks out, and no evidence can be pinned on Manu, the case goes cold.
Seventeen years pass without any resolution for those close to Hae-on, and the grief and uncertainty take a cruel toll on her younger sister, Da-on, in particular. Unable to move on with her life, Da-on tries in her own twisted way to recover some of what she’s lost, ultimately setting out to find the truth of what happened.
Shifting between the perspectives of Da-on and two of Hae-on’s classmates struck in different ways by her otherworldly beauty, Lemon ostensibly takes the shape of a crime novel. But identifying the perpetrator is not the main objective here: Kwon Yeo-sun uses this well-worn form to craft a searing, timely exploration of privilege, jealousy, trauma, and how we live with the wrongs we have endured and inflicted in turn.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities1615 Reviews
3.0
nana
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Melina
Created about 17 hours agoShare
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“🍋 Lemon 🍋
I’m the summer of 2002, during Korea’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup, a horrible event takes place. This will be dubbed the High School Beaty Murder. It is unclear why anyone would want to harm Hae-on, and her sister most of all doesn’t understand what happened. Two suspects are quickly identified - one a rich boy from a good family, the other a poor kid who has to work to help support his.
This book is sooooo short - I could’ve definitely read more cause I really enjoyed it! Partially about the mystery of the murder, but more so about the lasting impact it has on different characters over the span of nearly two decades. I really enjoyed all the different POVs, especially because the narration style itself changed too. You have the sister of Hae-on who’s trying to find out what happened, you have a female classmate talking to a psychiatrist (but like a one sided conversation) and another classmate who was not involved and provides insight from an outside perspective. Each chapter is also a jump in time - which again I quite enjoyed - and was thankful for given the length of the book.
You never get definitive answers - but there is a lot of hunting and implying within this that leads you to infer what happened. Most interestingly the original crime and resulting impact leads to another crime being committed that again is never flat out explored but heavily implied.”Krystelle
Created 1 day agoShare
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“This is not quite what you go into a murder mystery expecting. There are no easy answers in this book, and it seems to deal more with the fallout than it does with the actual death itself.
There is a lot about this book that is unfulfilling- it feels a bit like empty calories taken on for no real reason. I felt like I was getting peeks into the lives of characters who I had no affection or care for, and while we were told a lot of what went on action wise, not much was shown in terms of inner thoughts.
The book was reasonably short, which could have contributed, but realistically, the words that were spent felt like they were spent in the wrong places.”
Shannon.reads.books
Created 3 days agoShare
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SleepyReader
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About Kwon Yeo-sun
Kwon Yeo-sun was born in Andong, South Korea, and now lives in Seoul. In 1996 she received the Sangsang Literary Award for her debut novel, Niche of Green. Her subsequent novels and short stories have received numerous literary awards, including the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, Yi Sang Literary Prize, and Oh Yeong-su Literature Award, among others. Lemon is her first novel to be published in English.
Janet Hong is a writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. She received the 2018 TA First Translation Prize and the 16th LTI Korea Translation Award for her translation of Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale, which was also a finalist for both the 2018 PEN Translation Prize and the 2018 National Translation Award. Her recent translations include Ha Seong-nan’s Bluebeard’s First Wife, Ancco’s Nineteen, and Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass.
Janet Hong is a writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. She received the 2018 TA First Translation Prize and the 16th LTI Korea Translation Award for her translation of Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale, which was also a finalist for both the 2018 PEN Translation Prize and the 2018 National Translation Award. Her recent translations include Ha Seong-nan’s Bluebeard’s First Wife, Ancco’s Nineteen, and Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass.
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