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3.5 

The Vegetarian

By Han Kang & Deborah Smith
The Vegetarian by Han Kang & Deborah Smith digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

“[Han Kang’s] intense poetic prose . . . exposes the fragility of human life.”—The Nobel Committee for Literature, in the citation for the Nobel Prize

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY


“Ferocious.”—The New York Times Book Review (Ten Best Books of the Year)
“Both terrifying and terrific.”—Lauren Groff
“Provocative [and] shocking.”—The Washington Post

Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself.

Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.

A Best Book of the Year: BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Time, Elle, The Economist, HuffPost, Slate, Bustle, The St. Louis Dispatch, Electric Literature, Publishers Weekly

16168 Reviews

3.5
Loudly Crying Face“The Vegetarian by Han Kang is a book written through multiple POVs, the protagonist's POV although is written the least in this book which might be shocking for everyone although this doesn't let the story stray from the fact that this book is about Yeong-hye and the affect Patriarchal society had on her mind. This book was nothing what I expected to be as I thought it would be a story which would focus mainly on vegetarianism. Unlike that the author uses not eating meat as the first protest by Yeong-hye against any type of cruelty, this protest keeps evolving throughout the book eventually makes her accept her body as a tree which doesn't require any kind of physical food as normal human bodies do. Through this book the author intends to show how patriarchy forces women down and harshly affects their mental and physical well being, and according to me the book doesn't fail at anything that was intended by the author Han Kang.”
“I’m not quite sure what to make of this book just yet. It was a jaw dropping yet horrifying tale. I think the author’s argument is very much at the forefront; a critique of the harsh patriarchal and misogynistic culture she’s seen in Korea. Both sisters are victims of a system set up to make their lives impossible. In-hye at the beginning didn’t know how to exactly defend her sister. But upon Yeong-hye’s continued decline, she’s come to realize how she could’ve done more and that was the most devastating part of the book for me; In-hye taking the blame of all that’s happened to her sister when the men in their lives are the ones who perpetuated their abuse and took advantage of them.”

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