Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Violets
Violets | Kyung-Sook Shin
5 posts | 7 read | 10 to read
We join San in 1970s rural South Korea, a young girl ostracised from her community. She meets a girl called Namae, and they become friends until one afternoon changes everything. Following a moment of physical intimacy in a minari field, Namae violently rejects San, setting her on a troubling path of quashed desire and isolation. We next meet San, aged twenty-two, as she starts a job in a flower shop. There, we are introduced to a colourful cast of characters, including the shop's mute owner, the other florist Su-ae, and the customers that include a sexually aggressive businessman and a photographer, who San develops an obsession for. Throughout, San's moment with Namae lingers in the back of her mind. A story of desire and violence about a young woman who everyone forgot, VIOLETS is a captivating and sensual read, full of tragedy but also beauty in its lush, vibrant prose. "[VIOLETS] binds a spell around the reader until the very end" Park Wanseo "I always find myself acting out the main character in my mind when I read Kyung-Sook Shin's novels. Reading VIOLETS is like she's writing a script written perfectly for me" Doona Bae, actor (Netflix's SENSE8, CLOUD ATLAS) "The story of thwarted desires and the isolated individuals that harbor them... clean prose filled with Shin's trademark rich descriptions" Korea Economic Daily
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
blurb
RowReads1
Violets | Kyung-Sook Shin
post image

The only hard candy I have at the moment are several flavors of “Claerys old fashioned hard candy”. that I suck on sometimes for nausea. They aren‘t bad. The violet ones up above are appealing to me more right now. Eat the flowers 🌹. @Andrew65 #hardcandy #winterreadathondailychallenage @DieAReader

Andrew65 Look lovely 🍬🍬🍬 2y
33 likes1 comment
quote
charl08
Violets | Kyung-Sook Shin
post image

Her colorless face, staring out at the unbothered ginkgo trees and the cafés behind them, appears and disappears with the light.

San wears an expression of melancholy, perhaps, but also of loneliness.

It is an expression that is not hers alone. A young woman on an escalator, a young man silently walking from building to building with a résumé in hand, salarymen on the subway at dawn - the same expression appears and disappears from their faces.

MicheleinPhilly She is wearing a melancholy face because gingko trees STINK. She is waiting for them to drop their stinky cheese balls all over the street. 😖 2y
charl08 @MicheleinPhilly it took me a while to finish this one. Can confirm that the gingko are the least of her problems! 2y
41 likes2 stack adds2 comments
review
Abailliekaras
Violets | Kyung-Sook Shin
post image
Mehso-so

Beautifully written. A quiet story about San & her life moving from rural South Korea to Seoul. San feels lonely & alienated & fears hurting people so finds it hard to make friends. This melancholy is off-set by a gentle tone & precise writing, finding beauty in the minutiae of life. Excellent translation. But it moved too slowly for me. I prefer her later work which is tighter & more distilled.

31 likes1 stack add
blurb
Smrloomis
Violets | Kyung-Sook Shin
post image

So this looks good and possibly upsetting too 😳🤷🏻‍♀️

ChaoticMissAdventures I had really hoped to see this in the BOTM it sounds so interesting and I love most things I read out of South Korea these days. 3y
Smrloomis @ChaoticMissAdventures I loved the first book I read by her (tagged for anyone who hasn‘t read it) so, so much. Even though this sounds really sad (and I‘m not always up to reading very sad stuff these days), I‘m definitely looking forward to getting a copy! 3y
48 likes2 comments
review
nelehelen
Violets | Kyung-Sook Shin
post image
Pickpick

Character study of an isolated and repressed woman, there‘s a lot to unpack here.

Full review: https://www.instagram.com/p/CbZKwxTOhum/?utm_medium=copy_link

30 likes2 stack adds