Kwon Yeo-sun ’s “Lemon” completely subverted my expectations. At first it seemed to be exploring the emotional aftermath of a schoolgirl’s murder. It was only at the half-way mark I realised it was also an intricate puzzle pointing to a very different crime. Kwon pulls this off through her inventive use of well-worn techniques like bait-and-switch, misdirection and unreliable narrators, further obscured by an unusually minimalist approach. She makes few concessions to her readers, scattering elliptical clues ranging from the murder’s timing during South Korea’s hosting of the 2002 World Cup - and the ensuing controversy - to the opening of James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Her narrative’s episodic, voiced by women intimately connected to victim Kim Hae-on, prominent is younger sister Da-on. Kwon knits sections together partly by borrowing from Joyce’s colour symbolism from her title, and the yellow dress Hae-on was wearing when she died, onwards – not that’s it’s necessary to read Joyce to work out what she’s doing. Yellow’s shifting meanings clearly mirror her characters’ psychological states, hinting at what actions these might conceal.

Kwon has a reputation for biting, social critique and, although genre fiction’s a recent departure, Lemon’s themes fit with her earlier work. Through “Lemon” Kwon highlights fault lines in South Korean society, privilege and inequality, corruption, and the damage inflicted on women by living in an intensely patriarchal society. I was gripped by a lot of Kwon’s material and I liked her clever use of crime conventions but I was uncertain about other aspects of her novel. I found the writing heavy-handed, jarring and out of step with the apparent subtlety of the underlying concepts - it’s impossible to tell what tracks back to Kwon’s original prose and what might be a translation issue. I was uncomfortable too with the portrayal of Hae-on, her behaviour and choices. It wasn’t clear what these represented - some interpretations are highly problematic - and I wish Kwon had decided to fill in these particular gaps.

Translated by Janet Hong

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

In 2002 in Korea, Kim Hae-on in killed; she's a beautiful high school student an this vicious and seemingly un provoked attack sends shockwaves through the community. A delivery boy and fellow student are regarded as suspects but no one is ever convicted of this crime. Now years later Kim's younger sister Dae-On is out to uncover the truth.

This was beautifully written novel; although at first you think this is about un masking Hae-On's killer it delves into the lives of all those touched by murder. Dae-On who is completely isolated in her grief, Han Manu who lives with the whispers and can't escape, ultimately a tragic figure in his onw right as well as Jeongjun who is sent to America to escape the whispers but can't escape. Although this was a short novel it was paced with emotion and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

If ever there was a case for not judging a book by its cover...

Lemon is set in South Korea in 2002 and follows the lives of three women affected by the death of 19 year old student Hae-on. The story is told from their individual perspectives over a seventeen year period. Its marketed as a psychological study of grief, trauma and the meaning of life - were it but...

This book was quite simply all over the [;ace. It was one part detective novel, one part "twisty" psychological novel and several parts of confusion. I felt that the author was trying to impress the reader with his stylistic approcah to narrating the story but it just fell flat and lacked conviction. The novel lacked any substance and no development of the themes of life or death It read like a comic book in parts.

Each chapter was narrated by a different un-named woman. It was impossible at times to work out the narrator was. Maybe this was a ploy meant to add to the mystique of the novel but it only frustrated and annoyed me. The translation was also heavy handed and clunky at times and did not flow naturally Lets say I knew I was reading a translated work, unlike other excellent translated works Ive read recenty such as Marie Auberts Grown Ups.

The only positive things I can say about this book are the cover and its brevity. At just over 100 pages long, the reader is at least spared too much head spinning...

Many thanks to @netgalley and @headofzeus for the ARC in return for my honest review.

I know the old saying is ‘never judge a book by its cover’ but sometimes you just can’t help it! I judged and I was right, I loved this book. This might be a relatively short story but it certainly manages to deliver an emotional story that really packs a punch. The story in its way is quite simple but the complexity and depth comes in the characters. The story is told in three narratives with all completely different stories to tell, and very different voices, but the voices really do speak to you as their stories are beautifully woven together. I think this is quite a haunting story that will stay with me for sometime.

Oh, I do wanted to like this book. I LOVED that gorgeous cover and the premise of this novel, but ultimately it wasn’t what I expected. First of all, this is not a crime novel so don’t go in with the expectations of a crime or psychological thriller novel. There is no real resolution. We do learn who did the crime, but it’s so flimsily mentioned, such so that you don’t get any real reasons for this brutal crimes nor is justice given.
This follows the murder of a 17-year old teenager and the effect her murder has on her sister, the suspect who was wrongly coerced into confessing a crime he didn’t commit, and a friend of the sister’s.
I understand this book might have been about grief, and how one deals with trauma but the prose and characters didn’t resonate. I found her younger sister’s decision to get cosmetic surgery to become more like her sister strange, and find the book surreal and absurd. I guess I just wasn’t the targeted reader.

This is an incredibly interesting story and it sure packed a punch for a short book. I loved the characters and setting in the book, and it was written really well. A fantastic mystery story xx

A dagger in the heart, a long shriek of grieving from three narrators. Densely written and profound psychological exploration of grief and trauma. Da-on's beautiful teenage sister is murdered. Da-on seeks the perpetrator and to understand the 'why' through grief and guilt and terrible trauma, and to give meaning to her own life within the unbelievable reality that life continues all around when it has violently stopped for someone you loved.

This is a strange little novel. To say the book 'loosely follows the structure of a detective novel' is rather an understatement, because to my mind it has very little in common with a crime mystery. Admittedly there's a murder and a suspect is interrogated, although only as imagined by the victim's sister, but there is no real resolution.

The story is told over a period of seventeen years from the point of view of a number of characters, including Da-on, the sister of Hae-on, the murdered girl. In some chapters it's not clear who the narrator is; you have to turn detective yourself to try to work it out. Hae-on's beauty seems to be the only thing about her everyone can agree on. In fact it seems to be her only attribute, as if it forgives other aspects of her character.

The impact of Hae-on's is most closely felt by Da-on and her mother. Initially this causes them to move away in an effort 'to escape rumours, to feel my sister's absence less'. However, as it turns out it only increases their awareness of their loss. Da-on goes through various stages of grief including, bizarrely, undergoing cosmetic surgery to more closely resemble her sister.

I didn't get much sense of the story being set in Korea apart from the names of the characters and the reference to a 'hangover soup shop', something I'd never heard of before. I'm not sure whether this was by design but some of the language in the first chapter sounded more like something you'd encounter in a British TV detective drama rather than an interview conducted in a Korean police station. For example, phrases such as 'You'd better fess up', 'You're in deep shit' and 'Have you lost your frigging mind?'

Although I finished the book, I was left feeling rather underwhelmed and that I must be missing something, especially since other readers have given it five star ratings.

A beautiful teenage girl is murdered, and the crime affects everyone around her - her family, her friends, her classmates, the boy accused of the crime. This book dips into the lives of the people affected by the crime, but is in no way a crime novel - it isn't about uncovering the perpetrator of the crime at all. Instead it is more about the effect the crime has on those who were left behind. It's an interesting story but too short to fully deal with everything it touches on, and it felt rather disjointed and confusing as each chapter has a different narrator, but it isn't specified who the narrator is at the beginning.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

The cover of this book is what I liked first. It is an interesting short book, quite quick and easy to read. The characters are not so likeable, but you can enjoy the ride once you manage to get into the story.

However, I don’t know if it is the writing itself or the translation, but I found it so confusing and plain. The blurb suggests is a thriller, but I didn’t find it to be that. It was also supposed to be an exploration of grief, loss and trauma and I didn’t find that either. In my opinion, it is a bit superficial with an abrupt ending.

I actually enjoyed the idea of this book and the beginning of the story, but oh gosh, it all went downhill after the first chapter. I found the characters to be a bit exaggerated and some were borderline cartoonish, plus it might be a translation thing but the writing did not work for me at all. I just felt overall very underwhelmed by this.

A complex and captivating exploration of grief, Lemon explores a young woman's murder through the lens of her family, friends and acquaintances to understand how a loss impacts lives. I had hoped it would be a little more true crime-esque and provide more detail of the circumstances around the murder, perhaps give us an answer. Instead, this is open to interpretation, with the reader placed in the minds of each person connected to her death and leaving you to decide what you think may have happened. It's beautifully written, perfect for fans of translation fiction, and a surprisingly short read. Thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC!

Less a murder mystery than a study of how trauma and grief reverberates through time, differently through various social classes
Like those who had no idea their youth was gone, I’d lost myself without realizing it.

Sisters Da-on, bright, bubbly and beautiful Ha-on, are at the centre of Lemon.
I don't think the blurb does the book much justice, far from a murder mystery Kwon Yeo-Sun gives us chapters from the viewpoint of various characters responding to the high school murder of Ha-on.
Plastic surgery, Christianity and other coping mechanisms come back, while also social class is very much present. For some people the events just lead to going to the USA for study while for other literally their whole lives are upended by the ripple effect of the event. While reading I recalled Astral Season, Beastly Season by a Japanese author, another recently translated book, that deals with the same kind of topic.

Briefly summarised the chapters have 1) the sister narrating the witness statement of a chicken restaurant delivery driver, who saw her sister for the last time alive, 2) a classmate of the sister meeting her after a long time, 3) the sister herself, narrating years of grief, 4) fiancé Taerim, engaged to an other suspect, Shin Jeongjun, of the crime, calling a mental health hotline, 5) Da-on visiting the chicken restaurant delivery driver now disabled, 6) Taerim again in a rather constructed info dump and 7) the classmate from chapter two who recounts another meeting with Da-on, with 8) very shortly recounting a reaction from Da-on reacting on the death of one of the aforementioned characters.

Quite early the perpetrator and motif are knowable to the reader, but again that is far from the core of the story. I found the language in the translation quite plain, and sometimes inadequate against the deep emotion especially Da-on tries to express in response to the events that occur. Overal an interesting and quick read, with a truly gorgeous cover.

I really don't know what to say about this book. I had to read it twice to make sense of it. After the first time, although I understood what had happened, I was unsure who it had happened to. The story is told by three different narrators and I think it would have helped if we had known who was telling the story in each chapter. That said, once I'd figured it out (sort of), it was an interesting story. However, the fact that I had to read it twice sort of took the enjoyment out of it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Head of Zeus for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I did enjoy elements of Lemon, each of the viewpoints were intriguing and well-told. I thought the impact of the murder on Dae-on, the victim's sister, was particularly well-crafted, and the cycles of grief were subtle yet marked. However I didn't think that the 'detective-style' of storytelling worked, given the novel bills itself as a quiet explanation of grief. This is also juxtaposed with the soap opera level drama that pops up on occasion. There also were an abundance of clues as to who the killer was, yet police, students and parents alike seemed relatively uninterested in finding justice, and no-one in present day ever went to interview the chief suspect.

'Lemon' has a very intriguing entry. It isn't a classic crime novel and may appear unstructured.

Through alternating perspectives we get to know Da-on and her sister and how she and her family experience loss and grief.

“Death carves a clear line between the dead and the living[…]. The dead are over there and the rest of us are over here. When someone dies, no matter how great they were, it’s like drawing a permanent line between that person and the rest of humanity. If birth means begging to join the side of the living, then death has the power to kick everyone out. That’s why I think death, with its power to sever things forever, is far more objective, more dignified, than birth, which is the starting point of everything”.

Don’t pick this novel if you are expecting to read a thriller or a mystery, it isn't one. I don’t think it should be marketed as such, since it is misleading. The story does start off with the murder of the school beauty, Hae-on and two suspects, Shin Jeongjun, the rich kids whose car Hae-on was seen leaving and Han Manu, a delivery boy who saw her in the car. That’s where the mystery elements come from, but the novel doesn’t focus on the resolution of the mystery or the investigation.

Kwon rather tells us the aftermath of Hae-on’s murder and how everyone is coping with what happened. Each chapter features a different year from 2002, the year Hae-on on died, until 2019. The story is told through three different narrators, Da-on, Hae-on’s little sister and two of Hae-on classmates’ Sanghui and Taerim.

It was cleverly done, and I loved the discussions Kwon created around life, death and how each of the characters had their own difficulties in their mourning of Hae-on, especially Da-on and her mother.

This is a bit of an odd book, if I'm being entirely honest. I don't really know what it was trying to do, or who it should appeal to. Equally, I'm not entirely convinced of the genre.

The blurb would suggest mystery/detective, but it's neither. Yes, a young girl goes missing and is murdered (though this is only told through retrospective discussion at various points in the timeline, through numerous anonymous POVs). There is no attachment to the victim, nor the supposed suspects and as a result, everything feels entirely disjointed to me.

I hold my hands up and say there's every chance I just didn't "get it", but then, I'm a firm believer that a book that requires you to "get it" on any level, is simply being pretentious, and hiding a lack of clear thought, planning and poor execution behind the suggestion that it's just so clever.

This didn't work for me at all. Saving grace is it's short.

This book didn't quite work for me. Thankfully it was very short.... The blurb says it's a thriller but 'deep' with reflections on death, grief, trauma... I found nothing of that - it was not a very good thriller, I did not care about the victim (a beautiful teenager - we know about her only that she is insanely beautiful, not particularly bright and rarely speaks) or why she was murdered; the chapters alternate different points of view but it's never clear whose, and the characters were all... interchangeable. The ' fascinating dissection of class, gender and privilege in contemporary Korea' was nowhere to be seen. It's full of cliches on how there is a clear line between the dead and the living (yes... really), and the translation seems clumsy.

I thought that this was a very interesting thriller and I liked that it was told from three different female perspectives. This book mainly focuses on the trauma, grief and the way that Hae-on’s death affected those closest to her and round her rather than the murder itself. Which I thought was really interesting as a lot of thriller mysteries focus on the crime and figuring out who did. This story is told over seventeen years, from 2002 to 2019, and nearly all of it is about what happens after Hae-on’s murder.

This book doesn’t actually tell you who killed Hae-on, even though there are multiple suspects, and I did feel a little dissatisfied by this. Because I was hoping that Da-on, Hae-on’s younger sister, would figure it out and revealed it by the end. <spoiler>I do think that the most likely person was Taerim; as she was jealous of Hae-on being with Shin Jeongjun (her high school boyfriend that she later marries) the day she was killed. Also she is the only one that isn’t investigated for an alibi because Han Manu doesn’t tell the police that she’s with him and was the one to actually see Hae-on in Shin Jeonjun’s car. And by the time he does the detective doesn’t believe him. Both boys have alibis for where they were whereas we don’t hear about where Taerim went after getting off of Han Manu’s scooter. I think she’s the most likely one to have killed Hae-on but it could have easily been someone else.</spoiler>

I thought that this story was very well written, the plot and characters were all very fleshed out despite this being a novella. And each of the narrators had distinct voices. I did find the parts told by Yun Taerim to be a bit strange. As they are all one-side of conversations she has with a doctor, as she is mentally very unwell, years later but she is still very affected by what happened to Hae-on and often refers to her (not by name) when talking about her now husband Shin Jeongjun, who was one of the original suspects and possibly the last person to see Hae-on alive. Also the three of them are unreliable narrators with chunks missing in each of their narratives keeping elements of the story hidden away from the reader. But I found that as I read the book I was able to piece together different pieces of evidence and information from each of them to come to my own conclusion for who I thought had killed Hae-on.

Overall I thought that this was a well written, thought provoking, and clever story. I just wish that the murder had been revealed or that there had been more closure by the end of the story as it’s left very open ended with few things resolved or revealed.

Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun is an amazing psychological mystery thriller, perfect for any crime and mystery fan.