January Reads

Former CNBLUE member once said, “two books a month is a lot” (video at 10:57), and guess who took it by heart. Of course, I didn’t force myself to read more than two books this month because 1) 2 books is a lot, and; 2) I am overwhelmed with the pile of unread books on my shelf and because there are just so many of them I do not know what to read first and all the thinking and deciding took so much time that I ended up reading nothing. 

Excuses.

Okay, let me tell you the truth. I am lazy, okay? Plus I am too busy being happy with my job. So I decided to just make a monthly recap of all the books I’ve read instead of doing reviews for each. Also, I figured it might force me to read as many as I can so as to make a decent monthly list. 

So here are my books for January. 

1. Every Moment Was You, Ha Taewan

This is one of the last few books I bought last year, and it ended up as the first book I read this year. If you are a Kdrama fan, you know this book very well. Lee Young Joon (Park Seo Joon) was caught reading this in that 2018 hit drama, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim right after Kim Mi So showed it to him when they got trapped together in the library. That drama is one of my favorites, despite the fact that I kept asking myself why did Seojoon wait several years before he confessed to Miso? That could have saved them a lot of trouble.

Anyway, back to the book. Every Moment Was You is a poetry book, which isn’t my cup of tea when it comes to reading books. Why did I read it? Because I bought it. Why did I buy it? I want to have it in my collection of books. The book is pretty straightforward, divided into 4 sections: the first section is for those who are wondering if there is someone for them out there (cue: Somebody Out There), the second is for those who have finally found their other half (cue: I Do), third is for those who are in search of comfort or maybe guarantee (cue: Ever Enough), and the fourth is for those who are hurting (cue: Like We Used To). It is quite fascinating because it’s like the four seasons of falling in love with your “the one that got away”.  Like I said to my friends, it felt like I was reading a compilation of letters from my TOTGA. Hmmm, sounds like another fiction is coming up from me!

How I rated it: 4 of 5

Would I recommend it? If you like poetry books, I don’t see why you won’t read it. 

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2. Almond, Sohn Wonpyung

Almond reminded me of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and R.J Palacios’ Wonder. All three stories are about a boy who is different and special, which society defines as “weird” and “outcast.” But the similarity ends there because this book has more violence than I thought it could contain. Yunjae is a functional human being, albeit the alexithymia, an inability to identify emotions. Other kids in his school thought he was weird, especially when he didn’t show any sign of grief or sorrow after his family’s tragedy.

Are you still human if you cannot laugh or cry or be angry? Apparently, yes. Yunjae might have missed the chance to learn emotions through his tragedy, but he got it from people who cared more than his inability to feel love, sadness, joy, and anger. His mom obviously cared for him more than anyone else, but it was Gon and Dora that treated him like an ordinary person as if he didn’t have anything to make society think he was weird.   

How I rated it: 5 of 5. It was written magnificently and I can imagine what the characters look like.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Namjoon read it so I don’t see why won’t you. 

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‘Til the next month!

xo

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