This book felt like slowly drowning in ice water. As a reader, I was so numb to everything that was happening.

The main character isn't all that easy to connect with. She's constantly judging people based on their ethnicity* (more on this later) and earlier on in the book her dialogue mostly consists of in-depth physics knowledge about sterile neutrinos, which was impossible to follow (and that ultimately went nowhere).

But if you can push through those bits, there is an entertaining bit of magical realism to be found here. The generational mystery and magic (or curse) of the folktales that permeate the main character's life and reality are what kept me interested in this book.

It took a while to get used to this author's writing style (and, truth be told, I don't know that I ever did quite get used to it), but it was poetic in its own way.

Also, it's likely that the disconnected feeling I had towards this story and main character were a direct result of the writing style. I don't know that the tone of this book really worked for me, but it did make this a unique read.

*With regards to the main character judging people on their ethnicity:

I understand that this is the story of a second generation immigrant; her life has been shaped by her parents' immigration and war experiences (I grew up in a family like that, too - albeit third generation, but I have a bit of an understanding of the residual pain, anger and resentment felt in those households). That being said: this book takes a very blunt approach to demonstrating the "us versus them" mentality of many first and even second generation immigrants. Because of this, there are aspects of this story that feel blatantly racially insensitive. The main character is Korean, and the way she talks about Japanese people, American people, Chinese people, Swedish people, pretty much any ethnicity that isn't her own is often crosses into derogatory. I get that it's a defensive manoeuvre and retaliation that she feels justified in. I'm not going to say whether it's justified or not, just that it is presented in a jarringly blunt way.

The ending of this story didn't really leave me fulfilled. I get that the character finds peace, but I, unfortunately, didn't feel the same sense of closure.

I received this fascinating new book from Erewhon Books via Netgalley (thanks!) in exchange for an honest review.

‘Folklorn’ is an incredibly ambitious novel, a diasporic, magically realist, mythical family drama about physics, belonging and identity, nature vs nurture, and so much more. At the centre of this lyrically woven tapestry is Korean-American scientist, Elsa Park- an experimental theorist studying sterile neutrinos (I’m still not too sure either), who ends up on an epic quest of self-discovery, via the medium of Korean folk stories.

As the action shifts from the Arctic, to Sweden, to America, all via, (spiritually and mythically) Korea, the author spins Elsa around on a journey to discover truths about her identity- specifically in the ways that her identity has been framed by her mother. Now in a coma, her mother once claimed that all the women of their family are doomed to repeat the tragedies told to them by Korean folklore, unable to escape the echos of these stories and live freely. There’s an almost Indiana Jones/Robert Langdon continent-hopping, history/academic-plumbing mission here, but, one turned inward: a search not for a lost relic or mystical artefact, but for one’s sense of self. Elsa, as a Korean immigrant, ruptured as she is from her homeland, must seek for an understanding of where she is from, and crucially, where she is headed. This is an introspective mission and, as such, it does drag its heels a little in places, particularly in the middle third.

In many ways, the book reminded me of last year's ‘Transcendent Kingdom’ in its exploration of the interplay between science and religion/myth, through the lens of a strained mother-daughter relationship, shaped as it is by both immigration and mental illness. In other ways, it evoked similar themes of K-Ming Chan's ‘Bestiary’ in its appropriation of cultural folktales as a vehicle to explore filial dysfunction, obligation and resentment. However, ‘Folklorn’, lacks the sleek, tautness of Gyasi or the lyrical abstraction of Chang.

There are so many interlacing ideas here- a lattice of motif and theme, of folklore, particle physics, commentary on race and immigration and, for the most part, it works cleverly and with nuance. The ways in which Angela Mi Young Hur draws narrative parallels between these different strands was particularly effective and the multiple elements do coalesce poignantly at the conclusion. However, I couldn’t help but feel that a little more restraint and tighter editing would have been helpful: much of the story is told through protracted duologues and can feel, at times, somewhat contrived and a little too digressive. Whilst this sounds like a criticism, it also very much reflects my engagement in the central narrative: I wanted to push ahead and find out more about Elsa's story.

However, a few pacing issues aside, it's an alluringly told story about cultural/familial past and how inter-generational trauma shapes and determines one’s destiny. I learned a great deal about Korean history, myth and diaspora and enjoyed both Elsa and Oskar as characters. Angla Mi Young Hur is a magnificent writer with an impressive and visionary storytelling voice and I'm excited to see the wider reception to this novel.

I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a thoughtfully written perspective on grief, culture, and belonging against the backdrop of Korean folktales. Elsa is such a thought-provoking and complex main character, and her relationship to her family and culture raised so many questions (that are impossible to answer!). I'll be thinking about this for a while.

“These folktales also began and lived long as oral tradition, passed over generations—stolen notebooks and burning paper can’t kill these women.”

Thank you to Netgalley and Erewhon Books for the ARC of Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur. The following review is my own.


Elsa Park is a particle physicist stationed in Antarctica who’s sense of belonging there is shaken when her childhood imaginary friend suddenly returns. This reunion forces Elsa back into the chaos of her family where she begins to try and separate her mother’s stories of their Korean heritage between myth and history. While unraveling her mother’s secrets Elsa is faced with the truth of her family’s generational trauma, their history of mental illness, and the damage it has done to each of them.


So, do you ever finish a book and then sit there completely overwhelmed and unable to properly convey how it made you feel? That is 💯 how I feel upon finishing Folklorn. This is a heavy story in content and also, at times, in writing style, but it kept me on edge and invested through all of it. This lyrical story has so many layers that I know I will need to read it time and time again before I have any chance of coming close to truly understanding Elsa’s journey. I’m absolutely blown away by this book, and would highly recommend everyone look it up when it is released on April 27th. Folklorn gets five stars from me and I can’t wait to experience this story again and again.

This was a beautiful, highly introspective novel about the tension between physics and folklore, inherited trauma and love rediscovered through grief. It follows a Korean-American scientist named Elsa Park doing a physics post-doc in Antarctica and Sweden, who is called back to her childhood home in California following her mother's death. This novel is as heavy at times as it is tender at others, tackling issues of family, identity, belonging, and diaspora.

While the issues it covers are very real, I also loved the echos of magical realism that threaded through the novel, as Elsa follows a trail of her mother's Korean folktales in order to discover more about herself and her heritage. Below all of this, too, is a powerful message about womanhood and cycles of trauma throughout history, about mothers and daughters and familial wounds both intentional and accidental. It is interesting from both a philosophical and psychological perspective, ideas about nature vs. nurture intertwining with musings on culture and history. Some of the physics talk went over my head, but Angela Mi Young Hur generally does a brilliant job of translating complex science for a lay audience, with gorgeous prose besides.

This novel allowed me to meditate on heavy topics while also presenting an ending that felt hopeful. I look forward to allowing these ideas to settle, and re-reading this book in the future.

Folklorn was a thoughtful and lyrical tale. It took me a little longer than usual to get through it, but that was partly due to the time of year, with so much else going on, and the fact that it was a book I found myself pondering as I read, which slowed my reading speed. This story considers the idea of belonging and heritage, and whether that is genetic or a result of experience. Elsa's journey is woven through retellings of Korean folktales her mother used to read to her as a child, and we can see how she maps out her own history against those tales, sometimes blurring the lines between fact and fiction, so we question if what she is seeing and remembering is real or only in her head. It was a fascinating and captivating piece that was part family drama and part voyage of self-discovery, with a side serve of magical realism and folklore. Overall, this was a delightful and thought-provoking book, and I would be keen to read more from Angela Mi Young Hur in the future.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Angela Mi Young Hur weaves a beautiful and lyrical story about the question on where you belong in her novel “Folklorn”. The story is quite philosophical and when reading the author is able to emote so many different feelings all connected to the large worldly questions on belonging, what a family is and how oneself is connected to something we can’t fully understand.

The character in the centre of all this is Elsa Park, a Korean-American physicist and the story around her is set both in the past and in the present and is connected through folktales from Elsa’s childhood. She is on a journey to discover her identity – at least that is what I took from the text – and it shows how hard the topic of identity really is and how much we put into knowing exactly who we are at all times.

Living in Stockholm, and having been a student at Stockholm university, the sort of outsider look on Swedish culture and – well – identity was interesting to take part of too.

I really enjoyed “Folklorn”. It made me think a lot on difficult questions which is something I, personally, really enjoy in things I read. I want to be challenged a bit and being able to reflect on the book I just read and this novel did just that.

This was a tough read for me, and it's possible that it's all on me. I will not be reviewing this book off of NetGalley until I have a print copy in my hands because I believe a lot of my issues will feel less important once I have a better sense of things like where I am in the story, and how the pieces fit together, and other things that seem to translate better when I have a physical book instead of an ebook.

Even as an ebook I could appreciate many of the scenes, and there were parts that seemed really brilliant to me, but I also felt the story would veer away from what I wanted to know more about, a little too quickly. The author provided a lot of detail and a great deal of back story in other cases where I felt I didn't need quite that much information, and where I felt the amount of detail dragged on the story instead of providing vivid realism.

I have had feelings like this about an electronic ARC before that then go away when I'm reading a print book and can see how the parts balance, and I'll try again post-publication.