I think this book is best enjoyed reading without any big breaks. It felt like I was losing the thread of the story if I didn't read the book for a few days. The book threads different stories together with many characters. Will definitely need to do a deeper read in the future but I think Ed Park did a fantastic job with the writing.

Same Bed, Different Dreams is an absorbing, hypnotic, immersive view of the real and surreal experience of Koreans in Korea and American at various points of the 20th Century, with a focus on the massive transitions around Japanese occupation and of course the war. It posits a clandestine Korean Provisional Government working in the shadows to prepare for unification, and that anyone doing anything at all supportive of that is a member of the KPG, whether knowingly or not. This includes Marilyn Monroe and other seemingly unrelated folks living their lives.
This is told through the lens of a modern day employee of GLOAT, an all-encompassing network of the future, where of course they still have all the same issues around expecting people to be a certain way based on looks or heritage.
This is very original and mind-bending in the best way.

Thank you to Random House and Netgalley for this advanced copy.

What an intricate and bizarre novel about Korea? And the meaning of freedom maybe? I have to say I'm not completely sure. The plot of this novel escaped me at times and I had a hard time following the thread, but what I really appreciated about this book was the different story telling styles the author used. In particular, the dream storytelling throughout the book was really interesting and I never really knew how much of it was fiction and now much of it was based on fact and I love that style of writing. This book feels like it would be a great read when you have a long period to sit down, dive in, and immerse yourself in good storytelling.

Exceptionally weird and I absolutely loved it, though I do wish dream five had been followed by another interlude at GLOAT with Soon.

It appears I am too dumb for this book. Since it’s out, I will likely revisit at some point because it sounds like something I’d love. But I’m throwing in the towel for the time being.

Same Bed Different Dreams journeys across the 20th century and beyond to science fiction futures with the common themes of Korean history, pop culture and the effects of technology on society. It is the first theme, Korean history, that serves as the center of the story, tracing the development of the nation, with a large focus on the 20th century, especially the divisions caused by the Korean War. It is a war not completed. Continually, the book asked the question "what is history?"

Having read Park's 2008 book, the largely forgettable New York office culture satire Personal Days, Same Bed Different Dreams is an ambitiously weird post modern romp. Those three themes are represented by three separate narratives. Soon Sheen, a former author, know works for the social media company Gloat for whom he had created some well-known acronyms and generates other content. We first meet him at a dinner party of college friends where he meets Echo, author of a book that shares the name of this one. The second narrative is that book, told through five 'dream' segments that unravel the difficult history of Korea via members of the Korean Provisional Government who's members are tenuous and often identified by actions. The third narrative focuses on Parker Jotter, a Black Korean War veteran and science fiction author.

Full of tangents and digression that brings to mind a Wikipedia wormhole session, Park continually circles back to the key question: "What is history?" History is as fractured as our lives and memories.

A wonderfully readable caper through many different facets of the Korean and American past and present.

ALTERNATIVE HISTORY? META FICTION? Count me in.

Same Bed Different Dreams puts Ed Park at the top of my list of authors to keep on my radar from here on out. It is an epic undertaking, to provide the amount of depth needed to tell a story within a story within a story, with such a large cast of characters AND while weaving together different narratives in a way that doesn't feel forced. All the while, Park plants seeds toward a larger puzzle/riddle, to encourage readers to think critically about history, who is left out, and who is working from the shadows.

I love how this book engages with real-world politics, history, and people, and it's going on my must-read for AAPI readers!!!

Wow.
This was a doozy, but what a great way to finish out the year!

I read some reviews here after I finished to get a feel for what others were thinking, and I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the review posted by The Speculative Shelf. So I'll try not to duplicate any of that here. I will say that it took me a good hundred pages or so to really get into this book, and then, I was totally hooked. I am not a re-reader of books, but when I was almost finished I was already plotting how I was going to start again so I could get more out of the beginning. There are so many backstories and little plot twists throughout that it can get confusing, especially if you are like me and not a huge history buff. I did stop several times to check out real events and/or people on the internet, and also to go back in the story—yay for the Kindle search bar.

When I first started reading this, I was reminded of Marisha Pessl's brilliant, slow-building style, so I think fans of her writing will love this too. Honestly, Park has so brilliantly crafted this book it's hard for me to imagine someone who won't like it. It's the kind of book where, if you even see the intersection of the stories coming in advance (because often I didn't), you just nod your head in appreciation, saying to yourself, yes, yes, of course. Definitely recommend.

Same Bed Different Dreams is the strange, weird, and totally unique novel of
creative genius, Ed Park. I have no idea how to explain it so I will share part of the blurb: "A wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present." The characters are a strange assortment but "their links are revealed over time, even as the dreamers remain in the dark as to their own interconnectedness."

At over 500 pages, the story requires commitment from the reader and, truthfully, I almost quit at 25%. I felt like I had no idea what was going on but, shortly thereafter, I was hooked. I am sure that I still don't understand it all. It is a complex story, but for me it was worth it.

"What is history?"

Or, what was this book? I love post-modern novels, and this one was a challenge! There were so many coincidences and intersections between the three different books/sections that it became hard to follow what was real and what was not. Is the Korean Provisional Government real? Does it matter? Reading this book makes Infinite Jest look downright simple.

If you know Korean history, you might get more out of this than I did. So many tweaks to what happened made it hard for me to know what was real and what was fiction. But if you don't know anything about Korean history but love a literary puzzle, you'll still love this book. My brain is now mush trying to figure out even 50% of the connections. I'm pretty sure I'd have to read it another two or three times to get all the pieces to fit together.

The only theory I have that I'm 75% sure is correct is that the book/section 2333 is somehow a reference to Bolaño's 2666. It's just too much of a coincidence ... which was like everything in this book.

Here's the heart of my review: It's good, and the title is beautiful once you get the context that "same bed, different dreams" is in reference to North and South Korea. They're in the same bed, but they currently have different dreams. To get why that is both sad and beautiful in 1,000 different ways, you'll need to read the book. And then, if you're like me, you'll only understand about 300 of those 1,000 different ways. But those 300 are pretty damn cool.

Story: I'm unsure if there is one; it's a post-modern novel.
Character Development: I'm not sure any characters developed; it's a post-modern novel.
Writing: 5 stars

This is a bewildering composition of a book, made up of three distinct but intertwined narratives. The writing is superlative, and powerfully evocative of an alternate history that would perhaps make more sense to someone who knows more about modern Korean history - I just didn't know enough about the history of the peninsula, ancient or modern. Of course, the 37th parallel is famous, but the storylines that led to that line drawn on the map are only faintly known to me.

Despite my (or any reader's) ignorance of the real historical timelines, the writing literally explodes with ideas and anecdotes, dreams and escapades, successes and disappointments - all spun together into something akin to a single cookie doughball, showing striations of the various component colors, but inseparable and merging with each other.

There are just too many threads to be called out here as a good representative summary, but at the very least, this is a book that is supposed to contain the story of publishing a book that's supposed to describe a set of dreams of a history - that can be considered alternate for this - our - real world! Quite a mouthful in and of itself, and that's the true power of this book. It manages to cram a density that's far beyond what most novels have, and that most readers are ready to consume. All the while I was reading this, I was aware of something simmering just beneath the surface, threatening to come bursting out at any time.

The story of the Korean dream of unification signifies trying to close the loop on a historical wrong that was perpetrated on the Korean people by Western powers, and while the narration takes an at-times satirical note of the desire for unification, the pathos and poignancy it shows from time to time is unmistakable. Characters yearn, circumstances entice and yet the end result seems just out of reach. Some events seem as if a mirage - not just to the reader, but actually to the characters in the book itself!

The doesn't mean the book is outright serious, sad and overly erudite. The pages are filled with delightful side-stories of silly adventures and foolish endeavors, outlandish incidents and alien landings, joys of parenthood and pains of utopia.

The author knows what he is talking about, what he is undertaking. His research is deep and his understanding profound.

The book is ultimately a paean to the land of fathers and forefathers and ancestors, but also to his descendants and the descendents of all Koreans.

And at the end of it all, that last line is utterly fitting.

Thanks to the author, Random House and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Same Bed Different Dreams
By Ed Park

This is a book within a book. It is about Korea, its long history, its occupation by Japan, its fight for independence and its divide into North and South Korea.

The story begins at a drinking party where a group of Koreans, living in the United States, gather to discuss a forthcoming book titled "Same Bed Different Dreams". The book tells the stories of many Korean individuals and their concepts of what an independent Korea should look like. It discusses the KPG – Korean Provisional Government – which never really manages to govern or to reunite the North and the South into one country.

While the history is very interesting, this book is a hard go for a reader without much knowledge of Korea. There are many Korean words – for instance for food and drink – which are not understandable to a non-Korean reader.

The mindset of Koreans with regard to other Asians – Japanese, Chinese – is in the forefront here. For the Western reader, understanding of how Koreans think about their homeland is valuable to our understanding of the differences between east and west. While I certainly learned a lot from this book, I must say it was not an easy read.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book early.

A book within a book that describes an alternative history of Korea where a secret society is secretly pulling all the levers of society for over a hundred years. Our main character falls into a rabbit hole of investigating the roots of this manuscript and pulling loose threads. Delving deep into the complex history of Korea while also imagining what it would take to create a utopic society (and what that even means and for who), this engrossing novel is one that should not be missed.

For fans of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

A book that plays on form and history with an alternate secret history in Korea.
I normally like a lot of the elements used here but I could not get into this one. I think it was a little too out there for me, but others might enjoy it!

This was a hard book to read. Interesting beautiful prose. I caution all readers that this is not a typical Korean War story. Almost stylistically dystopian with chaos and literary. I imagine that Robert Altman would have loved this as inspiration for the movie MASH.

The way I read this, I wished I had a board, some red thread and tacks handy! This book was such a trip. I've never gone down this deep in a googling rabbit hole with any book. SBDD starts with a Korean-American ex-writer Soon Shin finds a manuscript from a mysterious author which imagines a Korean Provisional Government (KPG) that never dissolved following WW2. What follows is three alternating and very distinct parts; Soon's perspective as he reads the manuscript, the manuscript itself and a Black war veteran sci-fi writer's life story.

The manuscript parts especially drop names after names, and delve deep into Korean history. Some names and events come back in the later chapter, sometimes slightly changed. And these parts were what sent me searching Korean history, fact checking the most random things, attempting to make sure I caught the nuances as the history was being re-imagined (I wonder what my internet provider makes of all this activity).

This novel is definitely experimental, but it absolutely felt like a giant puzzle and I enjoyed the hell out of it's fever dream.

I felt like this went over my head for the most part; the book was broken down into 4 sections, corresponding to a series of books or maybe dreams, or secret histories of the Korean Provisional Government, or perhaps compilations of conspiracy theories based on coincidences. It all read to me like a colossal series of inside jokes. Filled with wit and references ranging from the identifiable to the obscure to the imagined, it took me weeks to get through this because I kept getting sidetracked looking up so many things.

There is a present-day narrator based upstate in Dogskill, NY, named Soon Sheen (at present), a middle aged dad of 7-yr old Astoria and husband to Nora, formerly a writer and currently veteran Rung 10 worker at global tech giant GLOAT. We are introduced to all his friends in tech and publishing, and they all have multiple names or identities or doppelgängers, everybody's family members show up somewhere eventually with all their own convoluted backstories, even place names differ historically for example Seoul aka Keijo under Japanese occupation.

Interspersed between Soon Sheen chapters are those about unrelated sci-fi writer Parker Jot, an African American veteran of the Korean War who sells his self-published 2333 series from his family's appliance store he runs with his wife Flora né Edwards and daughter Tina Jotter Pang. Tangential stories abound concerning Tina's ex-husband Wilson, and their daughter Mercy; Parker's publisher D.M. Zephyr aka Dot, Hank Woods a correspondent, a historic doctor Inky Sin, somebody called O K Kim and also Iwata Shusaku, Sadako the spy aka Bae Jeong-ja, Fred Nobody aka Frederick C. Nieman (né Leon F. Czolgosz), Jack London as in the actual Jack London, Philip Jaisohn, né Suh Jae-p'il, somebody called Thomas Ahn, a lot of hockey lore, Douglas MacArthur and his father Arthur MacArthur, contemporary author Cha Hak-kyung aka Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, et al.

At one point "a man compiles a book so vast that it resembles a theory of the world, made up of newspaper clippings of scientific anomalies, accounts of disasters, human-interest stories with an ironic angle or bizarre detail." And I thought, oh that's just what Same Bed Different Dreams reads like to me. Intriguing, beguiling, but all over the place. I'm so glad I read it.

Alright, American Millennials - Put this on your TBR list, but wait till winter. When you have time and focus. You'll need a map, a familiarity with Korean history and Wikipedia at all times.
I started this read as an ebook and quickly got overwhelmed and lost interest. I then picked up the audiobook to listen along and the change in narrators and pronunciations made a world of difference. I think I still need to do a re-read to fully appreciate this. It's an unusual premise that takes some time to adjust to and reminded me of How to Lose the Time War (my all time fave book) in that sense.
There is historical fact and fiction woven throughout the story, so you'll need to be able to tell the difference. Both are quite unbelievable so it can be hard to tell the difference.
This book is definitely worthy of your time and effort to really immerse yourself in. I look forward to reading some of Park's other novels after I re-read this and some Korean history!

DNF at 30%. It's just not for me, but I didn't hate my time with it. I always appreciate a good Peter Greenaway reference, but I don't know enough about Korea to pick up on the false history parts so I ended up dropping this one.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the arc. This book is structured in a really interesting way, and explores an alternate history of Korea, It has interesting elements of secret societies and conspiracies. I personally was a little confused when I started reading the book, but as I went on, it got more and more interesting. I especially enjoyed the interludes between dreams.