The Fetishist was an absolutely wild ride and I could not put it down! I perpetually didn't know where it was going, in the best way. I loved the way Min interwove flashbacks and perspectives of various characters. It didn't feel forced or clunky at all.

I saw a lot of hate for Emi's character in other reviews, but she was clearly suffering and quite mentally ill--I wish other reviewers would chill! Alma was definitely my favorite, but Kyoko and Kornell were great too, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I didn't hate the Daniel redemption arc in the end. I don't think the story about Gracie Han added much in the final pages, though.

The acknowledgements from Min's daughter were beautiful. I love how this book because a collaboration between Min and her daughter posthumously <3 Would highly recommend this book! It's very well written and well worth your time.

A painful book, but one that is necessary.

Written about a daughter's revenge for a mother's death, at the hands of a man who treated all asian women as a fetish, this strikes a cord within me. The anger that burns deep inside of me when I've seen men give my mom a second glance. The rage that boils when I've heard a whisper between two men in the aisle of a store. It's one that I understand.

This is a book that hurts to read but that was needed. It's painful that Katherine Min is not here anymore to give us more, but how blessed are we that we have this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑲𝒚𝒐𝒌𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓’𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕, 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒕 𝒂 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕. 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅, 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒇 𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒎𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕, 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕, 𝒔𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓’𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔, 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒘𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕, 𝒊𝒏 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝑲𝒚𝒐𝒌𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒕, 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒃𝒖𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒆𝒅𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒖𝒏𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒐𝒏 𝒑𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝒃𝒍𝒖𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒐𝒍𝒆𝒖𝒎, 𝒔𝒎𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓’𝒔 𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒈𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒅𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒊𝒑𝒔.

Daniel is a dirty cheat with a fetish for Asian women, who left Japanese punk rock singer Kyoko’s mother Emmie dead on a pale blue linoleum floor. Kyoko’s grief has mutated into a hatred so deep and pure that she has turned assassin. She has decided it’s the perfect evening for Daniel Karmody to die and no one will suspect this blue-haired, 5’3, adorable twenty-three-year old of her intent. She waits in the shadows and then, much like her mother’s life, he ruins her plan and adds insult to injury unbeknownst to him by who he has with him. It solidifies her resolve further. Her heart is burning with revenge, and she will have it.

Kornel works long hours at a Japanese restaurant, grueling but he loves it. He will do anything to protect Kyoko, even if it means getting tangled in her scheme to take Karmody down. Despite his intimidating size, 6’3, 293 pounds, a black man, he is more gentle giant than a threat to anyone but he is loyal to her. If she wants Karmody punished, then so be it, but maybe he can control the outcome. Keep her from ending up in prison.

Far away is Alma, beautiful, Korean American cello prodigy, and the love of Daniel’s life, fighting a disease and desperate to end it all. As her illness ravages her physically, stopping her from her obsession (her cello playing) she has her own plan to end her own suffering, but like Kyoko’s madcap scheme, her own goes awry leaving her stewing in painful memories of the past. Daniel thrived after whetting his appetite with her, getting his “Asian fix”. Seeing photos of him with his string quartet on the internet, her gaze lands on an asian violinist, naturally she imagines they are sleeping together. How dare he have his health, success, and his ‘viking’ bride. Surely none of that is stopping him from fulfilling his carnal desires for all things Asian. Alma has her good friend Rickey, who loves her to pieces, but has she ever been loved as a woman?

Daniel is soon trapped in a nightmare when he is abducted, confused as to why at first, but he has a lot of time to ponder the reason for his current predicament, his past and try and fight his way out by building a weapon among his victim’s things. Was Kyoko’s mother truly a victim? Is Daniel to blame for her death? Is he an evil fetishist? What about the women he has had, could they have a fetish for white men? Is he the monster Kyoko imagines him to be? Will she end him before he faces painful truths about himself?

Daniel and Alma are both suspended in a moment miles and miles apart, rehashing their love and pain, still thinking of each other. Will Daniel be dead before he and Alma make peace with the past? Will Kornel truly go against his nature and let Kyoko see her plan through to the bitter end?

This was a beautifully written, original tale. It isn’t about fetishism alone, it is about how we treat the people and things we desire, how our love or lack of it subtracts or adds to the lives of others. It is a question of who has power, and how we see the subject of our longing. Is Kyoko’s rage justified? It is a love story, too, in reverse with misunderstandings all around. I was captivated by the idea of fetishism, where is the line? Can you control your desires, your leanings towards a type? Are women always just objects for a man’s hunger? Alma certainly has power, she is no weakling, and Daniel loves her, of that there is no doubt. Is fetishizing acceptable if love is genuine?

Provocative, sad, and yet filled with humorous moments that had me laughing. I also understood Kyoko’s perspective, rage, and misguided lust for revenge. Yes, read it!

Publication Date: January 9 2024

Penguin Group

Putnam, G.P. Putnam’s Sons

I was initially drawn to this novel because of the cover, title, and the fact that it was published posthumously. I didn’t know what all i was getting myself into! The story follows Daniel (the fetishist himself), his ex girlfriend, and the daughter of another of his ex girlfriends. We jump between past tense and present day, at which point Daniel is kidnapped.

This book is fast paced and pretty short! I felt that end was a little rushed. I found the sex scenes to be unnecessarily graphic, but that’s a personal preference. I liked the commentary on race and would be curious to know if the story was influenced by the authors own experience! Overall I would rate this 3/5 and recommend it to someone looking for a quick, mysterious read!

The Fetishist by Katherine Min was one of the strangest stories I’ve ever read. If I could describe this with a couple of words they would be “strange regret”. I couldn’t focus on just one person and where it was going. The more I read the worse I felt. There was some resolution at the end but overall struggled with the entire novel. It was sad and convoluted.
3⭐️
Thanks Penguin Group Putnam via NetGalley.

At the center of the story is Daniel, an aging violinist and the titular (white, male) fetishist, who almost exclusively dates/sleeps with women of Asian descent. We also jump into the life of Kyoko, a Japanese-American punk singer, and her boyfriend Kornell, a sweet Black man and drummer who works in a Japanese restaurant. Kyoko blames philandering Daniel for her mother's death, kidnaps him, and keeps him imprisoned in a basement. Meanwhile, Daniel's ex-wife Alma, a Korean-American cellist with fiery charisma and MS, attempts suicide and falls into a coma.

Daniel's and Alma's twin imprisonments of the body allow the reader to follow their minds' meanderings. They remember past relationships, including each other, and are brought together at the end for a kind of reconciliation.

Really acute, punchy writing, packed with powerful observations about life, death, and love. The plot was fast paced with some very short chapters here and there that I appreciated--the book was eager to jump ahead to keep the pace. However, the action still lagged in the book's midsection, when we're primarily awash in backstory.

Interesting to note that this is published posthumously with the help of Katherine Min's daughter, as Min switched to (wonderful!) essay-writing towards the end of her life.

Smart, funny, touching, sad, observant, and ultimately, full of redemption and empathy.

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:

Backed by Alexander Chee and Cathy Park Hong, this savage and sharp novel examines the colonist and his yellow-fever appetite. We get revenge, lust, and kidnapping, all in wry fashion.

Is the question:

Why does the colonizer continue to colonize?

Or

Why does the colonized continue to submit to the colonizer?

Though it feels uneven in portions as I feel Min is a better short story writer than a novelist, her writing shines through in character study and interactions, which I think moves the plot along just fine. The chapter headers and the way the story moves in parts feels done haphazardly (which I think this could've been smoothed out in editing).

Published posthumously, it still feels like it was trapped in the third or fourth draft as it remains surface-level in its tensions and heavy-handed in the way the characters are fleshed out. It's a shame we lost Min too quickly as I feel like this would've been an incredible and timely novel if she were still here.

I will leave you with this note:

The book ends with a side-eye, but with much surprise. We get the classic "Asian school lunch scene" from an awkward Asian teen Gracie with her Caucasian lover, Daniel. I was going to make a loud scoff over this, but Min surprises us with character exploration, allowing Daniel to pick up Gracie's retainer and have him slip it in his mouth, tasting her, tasting what she tastes. It's in these moments, intimate moments, that I think Min's work shines through with much tenderness, vulnerability, and surprise.

Because as much as we think we know who we know and who we love, they still come with much surprise.

THIS BOOK! OMG! To find out that this novel is being published posthumously was absolutely heart wrenching.
“The Fetishist” is an incredibly meaningful and somewhat violent exploration into the way white men fetishize and abuse Asian women and their respective cultures. I would recommend this novel to anyone and everyone. It is clear that the author wrote from a place of pain and turned it into an incredible work of fiction. #netgalley #thefetishist

Thank you NetGalley andG.P. Putnam’s Sons for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

4.5 stars!

When I first came across The Fetishist, I had very little clue what it was about. It was recommended to me on NetGalley, but I was intrigued by the title and the cover. I’m really glad that I picked this up, because I enjoyed it a lot and was super engrossed while reading.

This is about Daniel, who is the titular fetishist and kind of a loser; Kyoko, a singer in a punk rock band with some violent desires; and Alma, a former cellist who is currently living with MS. At first, I was unsure how all of their threads would come together, but they do in interesting ways (sort of in the way where you can’t stop looking at a car crash/train wreck, because wow these people are messy) and at times this is super funny in an absurdist kind of way. All three are drawn together by music (which was a fun throughline) and while it’s quite easy to tell which part of the story you’re in, there is a “past” and a “future” woven throughout, and it’s cool to see the ways their lives have intersected. I found this to be really compelling, especially considering the themes it approached. The title of this book comes from the fact it’s exploring the fetishization of East Asian women by white men, and I think it does this quite well, for the most part. There are also parts where the writing is toeing the line of being fetishistic (Kyoko, for example, is described as being small a multitude of times), but I think these contribute to the overall exploration Min is going for.

I enjoyed the narrative voice for this a lot. It’s omniscient, but the best way I can describe it is as being omniscient in the way the narration for Desperate Housewives is. I mean, okay, no one died and is narrating the lives of her former neighbors, but the overall vibe is… similar, I think. It’s fun! I enjoyed how short the chapters were, though it might be more accurate to say it’s a collection of vignettes that tell an overarching story. The voice and writing in this are just so good, it was worth reading just for that.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the end. I think it was cathartic and I really liked how some characters ended up, but there was one for whom I feel things worked out a little too easily. I’m not mad about it, because I think I can see what Min is going for, but I knocked the half star off for it, because I’m just not sure that character should’ve had their story end that way (though maybe I just wanted to see them grovel!). There’s a lot to chew on here, though, and regardless of me feeling a little bit “hmmm” about one aspect of the ending, it was a fascinating read.

Overall, I had a blast reading this and found it clever and engaging! Highly recommend.

Min manages to create a story that feels very unique based on some themes that have been well explored: the fetishization of Asian heritage women, the world of classical music, aging, the one that got away, revenge… and this uniqueness deserves attention. Often funny and sometimes absurd, this was an entertaining read.

I was disappointed that Kornell and Kyoko feel thin when compared with Alma and Daniel, and the way that redemption is offered for the man that fetishizes women feels dated. However, these elements, while annoying, do not detract too much from a read that is entertaining and often surprising.

The Acknowledgements state that Min passed away prior to the release of this book, which is too bad, she deserved to know the praise her work will surely receive.

I came here for one thing, and that was the murder of a fetishist. And she had the audacity to give this man a redemption arc???

The first 70% was so compelling though. 2 stars for the writing and initial developing plotline.

A posthumous novel is a very poignant thing.

I chose to try this because I like a revenge story. Main character Kyoko kidnaps a guy and keeps him in a basement because she is convinced that he is responsible for her mother's death. Which he (sort of) is.

For me, there was a little bit too much basement captivity, but there were a lot of other interesting elements: classical music, the fetishization of Asian woman, morally gray characters.

Original and a little out-there, The Fetishist won't be for everyone but it's worth trying.

Katherine Min's writing style drew me in from page one. She elegantly crafts the story of Daniel, Alma, and Kyoko, whose lives are intertwined and unwind to tragedy and fulfillment at various points along the way. She confronts race head on, pressing the reader to awareness of his own bias and consideration. Misuse of selfish pleasures is another theme that enters the scene. I really enjoyed reading this book. It will be published in January 2024. Add it to your list!

Thank you Netgalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for my advance egalley!

AHH! I am so thankful to Putnam Books, Katherin Min, Netgalley, and PRH Audio for granting me advanced digital and audio access to this comical, vengeful, narrative that leaves readers feeling both icky and confused at the same time. The Fetishist is set to hit shelves on January 9, 2024 and I can't wait.

Kyoko has a plan to kidnap and brutally murder a man named Daniel, whose responsible for the death of her mother all those years ago. Daniel is just out and about living his life, lusting after Asian women, ripe with Yellow Fever, and not giving a damn about who he hurts in the process. Kyoko's boyfriend, Cornell, also has a bit of a fetish for his girlfriend, defending her honor on a next level and finding himself lost in his own life.

Daniel's current girlfriend, Alma is a Korean-American prodigious cellist and hates the way other women look and lust after Daniel, for she wants all the attention from him to be solely on her. This weird love hexagon leaves hurt feelings and scabs in its midst and when Kyoko's plan flops miserably, what we find in the aftermath is a tale of forgiveness, apology, and self-work.

Slight content warning, this is an adult novel with sex scenes and mention of suicide throughout.

First, I would like to say condolences to the Min family. Katherine Min passed away before finishing this novel, and her daughter, Kayla, finished the novel for her.

This book is a slice-of-life type of novel that really comments on how our actions affect others and the fetishization of Asian people. I found this story hard to put down. The characters were a little over the top but still believable.

Each main character had their own POV chapters, and Alma/Daniel's story informs Kyoko's history. All three characters grapple with the past. Alma and Daniel were a couple for years. Both are classical music performers, and at one point or another, considered to be prodigies. Kyoko is the daughter of one of their former colleagues, Ami.

All three characters are dealing with the consequences of one summer 20 years ago and how the decisions of one person have shaped their lives. Out of every person in this book, Daniel is the hardest to sympathize with. He really seems like a sad sack who can't take responsibility for his actions, nor can he recognize his fetishization of Asian women. At one point in the novel, he even says he paid no mind to Asian women, believing they were all the same until he meets Alma. His whole persona gave me the ick. I couldn't believe that Alma and he lasted as long as they did because she seemed like such a strong personality, and Daniel seemed meek in comparison. Though thinking of it now, that may have been the point because Asian women are typically depicted as meek and obedient in Western cultures.

Kyoko is the main plot driver. She is the daughter of Ami, who played with Daniel and Alma in Italy one summer 20 years ago. I know what you're thinking, and no, Kyoko is not the daughter of an affair Daniel had. That had been my first thought too. Instead, Kyoko is a much more complex character trying to cope with her childhood trauma and resolve the rage she has. Every bad thing in her life seems to be the result of Daniel. The story between Kyoko and Daniel was the most interesting to me. I thought it unfolded well and had an interesting conclusion.

Overall, this was a good book with a lot of trope busters in it. I think the story of Daniel and Alma could have had more resolution, and Daniel could have done with more realization of how he fetishizes Asian women. Also, there was almost no point in him having an ex-wife. It didn't add to the story in any way.

Thanks to Netgalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the ARC.

This book was so fun and strange, I can't wait until others read it so we can discuss! I will read whatever Katherine Min writes next. Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!

The Fetishist has a complex collection of characters who intersect in various ways over time. Just when you think you know what is going to happen next, circumstances change and everything is different. It's a fascinating journey through dark emotions and bad choices which ultimately leads to a much different place.

Daniel was stupid. After deciding to marry his true love Alma, he had to have a last fling, with Emi, Kyoko’s mother. He is caught red-handed and loses Alma. Nor is he interested in Emi.

Years later, Kyoko kidnaps Daniel, determine to kill him for revenge concerning her mom's suicide. On the West Coast, Alma swallows a bottle of pills and so it goes. Attempted suicide and revenge. How does it end.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishers for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Fetishist by Katherine Min!

I enjoyed the various character threads in The Fetishist and how they ended up overlapping. To me, the book started off a little slowly, but once I got more immersed in the back story of characters (particularly Alma) the pace really picked up and I kept reading because I was so curious to see how some of the dubious choices made by Kyoko, Daniel, etc. would resolve and what the fall out would be. The relationships between the characters are a very real reflection of flawed humans trying to connect with other other. And the story really shows how easy it is to make a good or bad choice and have the effects ripple on for a long time - often in unexpected ways.