This book talks about the struggles of growing up as a little girl into womanhood with a best friend that is detrimental to her health yet comforting for her soul. It talks about the relationship with anorexia and how it is more than an eating disorder. Therefore, to anyone who may want to read this but is experiencing a difficult moment in their life, especially with food intake, I highly discourage reading this book. Even Evanna herself discourages it in her book.

Evanna's method of narrating her journey was mesmerizing and at the same time suffocating. I had to put the book down several times because I could feel the struggle and pain through the text. It also made me relive some of my own teenage struggles that I had forgotten and buried in some dark corner of my mind. And just like how Evanna described in her book, it is true, that those self-hating thoughts validated by negative attention were once a comfort. With this book, I once again embraced a friend and properly let them go.

I would like to recommend this book to anyone who still struggles to direct love towards themselves. Read this journey and recognize your own.

This book is hard to continuously read, as each page carries a certain level of heaviness. It took me months to finish as I did reread pages. If you can read Korean fluently, I would suggest you try to do so as there may be some artistic and language nuances that may have been lost.

At the start, I advise you to really read and understand the Introduction piece of Deborah Smith, as it gives insight into the background of the novel and her translation style.

The Korean title of this book is "소년이 온다" or "Here comes the boy" which sounds more direct and appropriate as the book revolves around a boy, his life, and the lives of the people he met during a turbulent time in South Korean history. It is fortunately not a History book, but a telling of people's situations, experiences, and emotions. They are mostly haunted and tortured, and Han Kang reflects that in the constant transitions from the past to the present - as if the past remains as disruptive - a bruise that has yet to heal. That is why I found it hard to read, as it left a heaviness in my chest. But despite that, you are indeed left intrigued to finish the book to know "What happened to the boy?"