Unfortunately this book was not for me. Other readers may enjoy it more, but I could not get into it and ultimately did not finish it.

I quite enjoyed that this was a murder-mystery that focused less on the mystery itself and more on the people that were affected by the murder. It was different to what I was expecting but I thin upon a reread, knowing what I'm going into and what the authors intention is, I will enjoy it more and have a higher rating.

I struggled a little with this novella as it's quite choppy, spans over many years and we're left more with hints than a direct answer to who the murderer is. I think Yeo-San has created a very intriguing short-story here, and while it packed a punch in its few pages, I think it could've been a bit longer. I liked what the author was trying to accomplish, I just wish there was more depth to the characters, I felt very detached and therefore wasn't as drawn in.

I hope what Kwon Yeo-Sun publishes next will be translated again, I would absolutely pick it up.

Thanks you #HeadofZeus and #NetGalley for an eARC of Lemon.

I was expecting this to be a quick read, as it is under 200 pages long but unfortunately this was lost in translation for me and dragged.

I really struggled to connect with it, and it didn't grab me as much as I thought it would. I finished it, just out of curiosity really to see if it improved, not because I was invested.

This is classified as a thriller, but that was lacking for me massively. This is more character-driven about grief than anything else. This was not for me, but don't let me put you off...Read it and let me know what you think!

I went into reading this book with a small idea of what the book would be about; Kim Hae-on is bludgeoned to death when she is nineteen during the World Cup in 2002. No one is convicted of her murder.

Sounds pretty good right?

I was so intrigued about what would happen in this story, it was immediately added to my TBR before I knew I could get hold of a proof copy. I have always enjoyed a mystery book and I have a growing number of Asian translated books that I have or plan to read, so Lemon felt like the perfect book for me.

When I closed the book I gave it 4 stars, but now when I think about it, it doesn’t feel like my normal 4 stars. So should I push it down to 3 stars? There were many elements I liked and found unique, such as the glimpses at the lives of the three narrators as they moved on with their lives. This teamed with the sparsity of their world. It was very much like we switched on the TV and were in the middle of an episode of Season 4, Episode 8; so much wasn’t told to the reader. This often left me feeling quite distant from the characters and not understanding things. Though the later might just be me.

It’s a book I’m happy that I got to read. I always want to challenge myself and read books that aren’t very typical. But sometimes, you do want something that you know and it turns out that’s actually what I wanted when I read this book. I wanted my mystery whodunnit. Something that wasn’t the point or the focus of the book.

This was very different to the usual Murder mysteries I read, the plot was so promising, but I don’t feel that the story really delivered. I struggled to keep reading at times.

A solid steady read, sadly didn't wow me but enjoyable enough.

Thanks so much for the advanced reader copy.

I didn’t connect with the storyline.

I tried to persevere with ‘Lemon’ and read up to 25%, but I just wasn’t enjoying it at all. I can see that some other reviewers felt much the same.

I thought that the plot would be riveting, but maybe it was because the names of the characters were confusing? All I can remember is that a teenage girl was murdered, and it became known as ‘The high school beauty murder.’

Sorry but ‘Lemon’ just didn’t capture my attention, so awarded just two stars.

Galadriel.

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of this book to review.

This book has so much promise.
It came onto my radar via twitter and I was fortunate enough to a copy via @Netgalley and with thanks to Head of Zeus thank you.

However sadly this one did not deliver in the way I had hoped it is a relatively short book so a quick read.

I would love to tell you this was a great short story but it wasn't. Largely the story didn't work for me as it jumped around so much with the different perspectives. I could not connect with the characters and therefore didn't warm to the story at all. I certainly would not put it in a Mystery or thriller genre. It is a literary fiction title about a crime.

The plot and themes in the book Kwon Yeo-sun explored centred around the murder of a young girl and as a result the grief and love of family members and how they dealt with life after the tragic death.

Sadly not one I can recommend,  however thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my review copy in return for my honest review.

This fascinating cross between a murder mystery and psychological drama is bound to shake you to the core and elicit a wide range of emotions and feelings!

Exploring the effects that loss and death have on people, depicting how guilt and madness are intertwined, It pushes boundaries in a great thought provoking and defying manner.

Kwon Yeo-Sun skilfully shares clues throughout the pages, letting the reader interpret their meaning to their hearts content.

Definitely #notjustanybook and one like you’ve probably never encountered before.

I've been very interested in Korean literature lately, and this hit the mark even though it is slightly outside the genres I mostly read in. Uncomfortable read, but very clever and manages to draw you in until the very end. Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy.

Something a little different. I loved it!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

What I expected? A murder mystery. What I got? A short and sweet book exploring topics such as life, death, gender, and privilege. Wowza!

A girl tries to unravel the mystery of her sisters' murder and attempts to find the murderer--who is, after all, still on the loose. This is told in fragments rather than in a chronological timeline, but it somehow fits together. I flew through the pages and couldn't make myself stop reading. A definite reading recommendation!!

This wasnt a style of writing I was used to, particularly in a murder mystery type of book so it took me a while to slow down and appreciate the pace of the story. Once I found the right pace though, it was an interesting read, in a story where a teenage beauty queen is found dead, and her murder is being investigated and contemplated by various characters.

3.5 STARS

I didn't know what to expect with Lemon but I am glad I picked it up.

It was an interesting examination on a sister's grief and the journey she took to heal.

The use of three POVs was intriguing and required me to understand the context to know who was speaking and from that, it gave me information about the content on the loosely structured mystery plot.

It was a short novel but I do wish that there was more explanation to the plot and questions answered because I finished it with many questions and used my imagination to fill in some gaps. I could imagine that it's written better in the author's native language (Korean) as it felt like some meanings were missed due to the untranslatable nature of some Korean words.

It wasn't my usual type of read but it gave me a taste of novels of these structure and appreciate the deeper meaning the author was trying to say through their words.

I read "Lemon" a few weeks ago and I'm still processing the sense of incompleteness I felt at the end of the novel.
This short story consists of various chapters narrated by different characters connected to Kim Hae-on, a high school student killed during the summer of 2002.
Overall, it was like being on the verge of completing a jigsaw puzzle, and discovering that the last piece was missing.
According to the blurb, this was meant to be a suspenseful work exploring trauma, grief, and guilt, so I wonder: could this be the foretold suspense? The fact that there is no real closure offered by the author and her narrators? In all honesty, I don't know.
I had no problem with the alternating narrator voices, and it was clear from the start that they were unreliable voices, but days later I'm still not convinced they've said everything they had to say.
What I had a real problem with was the the portrayal of Hae-on, her behaviour and choices. It's clear that the characters are also uncomfortable about it, but no one takes the time to explain what these represented. And it felt like they were using her behavior as an explanation for what happened to her.

Anyway, I will definitely read more of the author's past work to make a comparison and have more of her analysis of South Korean society.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Head of Zeus for an advance review copy.

This was not what I had expected it to be: I thought it would be more of an account of how classmates were dealing with the aftermath of the death of one of their own, but in stead it became more of a thriller. At first, I welcomed the change of genre, but in the end I was still unsatisfied with what I had just read. Maybe if it were a bit longer and had made a choice between those genres (and not trying to do both a little), I would have liked it better.

Different narrative voices over a period of years, each adding layers and clues at to the truth. And when I got to the end I thought 'huh, not sure what happened there'. Interesting and well-written, but I think I wanted a little more closure than I got - but given the subject of the book, I presume that was the intention. Something I would go back to re-read at a later date to see what clues I missed, perhaps.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

In the summer of 2002, South Korea hosted the World Cup , that same summer nineteen-year-old Kim Hae-on is killed in what becomes known as the High School Beauty Murder. Two suspects are identified but alibis and lack of evidence mean nobody is ever charged with her death.
17 years have passed and the book follows the lives of the people who loved Kim Hae-on and those who were suspected of murdering her. This book isn’t a suspense or thriller, we know about the murder from the beginning , it’s more about the effect of grief and trauma on people’s lives and a look at Korean society.

It’s a short book but it’s kind of hard to categorise and there’s some elements left to the reader to decipher. I thought this was well translated in the most part and the writing flowed easily throughout but there were a couple of parts that maybe the nuance didn’t translate. I didn’t always know what was fully going on yet I was captivated by the story and the character and the portrayal of Korean society.

I would definitely read more from the author. I enjoyed the spareness and almost dreamlike quality of the writing.

"I still can't help but wonder, do our lives truly hold no meaning? Even if you try desperately to find it, to contrive some kind of meaning, is it true that what's not there isn't there? Does life leave only misery behind? Could the fact that we're alive - the fact that we're in this life where joy and terror and peace and danger mingle - couldn't that itself be the meaning of life?"

The story centres around the disappearance of Kim Hae-on and the subsequent futures of those who were there, with the murderer eventually revealed in the short but impactful novel. To call this a mere mystery novel, however, is deceptive. Although the core premise is of the loss and coping mechanisms deployed, it also looks deep into the events and the meaning behind them.

Yeo-Sun managed to incorporate a great level of detail into the story, contemplating questions around life and fairness. One of the characters reflects on events, that "some lives are unfair for no apparent reason, but we carry on, completely unaware, like miserable vermin". These ideas permeate the characters lives, but not through their recognition and desire to seek more, but their defeat and willingness to accept all that happens to them, over and over.

The novel is not what I expected, but it was not bad at all.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Lemon Arc.

Everything Korean seems to be raging right now – from Squid Game to K-Pop to Korean fried chicken and beer. But these things did not just appear overnight, And much like all of those examples, Korean crime fiction has been bubbling along in the background just waiting for the West to discover it. And there have been some great titles in translation recently including Kim Un-su’s The Plotters and Jeong You-jeong’s Seven Years of Darkness and The Good Son. Into this tradition comes Kwon Yeo-sun’s first novel in translation Lemon. While there is a crime at the centre of this novel, as with all good crime fiction, it has much more on its mind than unmasking a killer.
The book is a series of short vignettes from different points of view. It starts with the aggressive interrogation of Han Manu, accused of murdering schoolgirl Hae-On in 2002. The interrogation, and much of the story is told from the perspective of Hae-on’s younger sister Da-on who will spend the years following grieving for her sister, trying to be her sister and seeking to find her killer. Along the way she will encounter her sister’s friend, strike up an unlikely friendship with Han Manu and his sister and commit crimes of her own.
As already mentioned, the crime fiction elements of this novel are used to highlight issues in Korean society. Kwon’s narrative deals with issues of beauty standards and plastic surgery, educational expectations, compulsory military service, the Korean medical system and of course, the difference between the haves and the have nots. And she does this through a range of likeable and not so likeable characters and a mystery that, depending on how the book is read, is never quite solved. But overall Lemon demonstrated the richness and diversity of the Korean crime scene (K-crime?), a crime fiction sub-genre just waiting to be more widely discovered.