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Exhibit
From the bestselling author R. O. Kwon, a powerful, blazing hot novel about a woman caught between her desires and her life.
At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant, young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to college sweetheart Phillip, in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is a glamorous, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night.
Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about a old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise; she's been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in her art, her body, and her sense of self changed forever. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Urgent, bold, and deeply moving, Exhibit how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?
At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant, young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to college sweetheart Phillip, in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is a glamorous, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night.
Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about a old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise; she's been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in her art, her body, and her sense of self changed forever. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Urgent, bold, and deeply moving, Exhibit how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?
223 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 21, 2024
238 people are currently reading
17043 people want to read
About the author
R.O. Kwon
7 books996 followersR.O. Kwon is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Exhibit, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, which was published in 2024. Kwon’s bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Prize. With Garth Greenwell, Kwon co-edited Kink, a New York Times Notable Book. Kwon’s books have been translated into seven languages and named a best book of the year by over forty publications.
Kwon’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, New Yorker, Time, Vanity Fair, Guardian, and elsewhere. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States.
Kwon’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, New Yorker, Time, Vanity Fair, Guardian, and elsewhere. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 474 reviews
July 15, 2025
if a book has a low average rating, is categorized as lit fic, and is about a woman destroying her life...i'm in.
even if i should be out.
i think there's a thin line between masterfully mysterious lit fic and deliberately obtuse, underedited lit fic. i badly wanted to make this into the former but it was the latter.
there were a few basic inconsistencies that contributed (like a friend who knows a lot about the world of ballet spreading the word that a famous up-and-comer quit on purpose, when in actual fact she broke her ankle mid-performance in front of an audience who could hear her bone snap?)...
but the larger issue is the confusion at the sentence level. this writing feels obscure and hard to parse. it takes effort to read and the result is not worth the re-analyzing. good writing =/= difficult writing — in my experience and/or opinion, the two have little overlap.
it's an overwritten style that almost feels like kwon is writing into synonyms — so many phrases are weird walks into words that fit awkwardly. "I'd marvel at his altering." "Spoil the image, but I'd find the sight ideal." "If I forgot, thin lifts bit through soil, the lapse like skin tearing." "If a friend had taught me this shit, I'd have thought it false." "I got asked, at times, if, with the triptychs, I had regrets." (that one i just included because it's comma city.)
it reminds me of when i dabbled in creative writing as a kid and would try to think of a specific word and, failing, put a slightly wrong one in.
except, like, every sentence.
bottom line: tough when work is pretentious and yet not good.
even if i should be out.
i think there's a thin line between masterfully mysterious lit fic and deliberately obtuse, underedited lit fic. i badly wanted to make this into the former but it was the latter.
there were a few basic inconsistencies that contributed (like a friend who knows a lot about the world of ballet spreading the word that a famous up-and-comer quit on purpose, when in actual fact she broke her ankle mid-performance in front of an audience who could hear her bone snap?)...
but the larger issue is the confusion at the sentence level. this writing feels obscure and hard to parse. it takes effort to read and the result is not worth the re-analyzing. good writing =/= difficult writing — in my experience and/or opinion, the two have little overlap.
it's an overwritten style that almost feels like kwon is writing into synonyms — so many phrases are weird walks into words that fit awkwardly. "I'd marvel at his altering." "Spoil the image, but I'd find the sight ideal." "If I forgot, thin lifts bit through soil, the lapse like skin tearing." "If a friend had taught me this shit, I'd have thought it false." "I got asked, at times, if, with the triptychs, I had regrets." (that one i just included because it's comma city.)
it reminds me of when i dabbled in creative writing as a kid and would try to think of a specific word and, failing, put a slightly wrong one in.
except, like, every sentence.
bottom line: tough when work is pretentious and yet not good.
June 15, 2024
3.2 " a kaleidoscope of what might have been" stars !!
This is a bit of an awkward and difficult review to write as I was rooting for this book wholeheartedly. Instead this was a very mixed experience that often did not sit well with me. We have an immensely talented (but perhaps overconfident) author put out a novel that could have been a cultural psychosexual feminist tour de force but instead we are left with something extremely beautiful but sometimes felt manufactured, overly clever and well artificial. I felt that Ms. Kwon sacrificed depth, truth and authenticity for prowess, gratuitousness and dare I say it...EXHIBIT(ionism).
The prose is exquisite, the vision is important and imperative but the final result felt superficial and dare I say it...a tad lazy.
A good reading experience but a hugely missed literary opportunity....
I have great faith that this author can put out something more meaningful and not just darkly gorgeous.
This was my Pride Read of 2024. Happy Pride everybody....
June 15, 2024
For the life of me, I could not get into this: There is so much packed into Kwon's second novel, both aesthetically and when it comes to themes, that the text appears to be constantly pulled apart by centrifugal forces. What's the center, you ask? Well, that's the next problem: Religion? A marriage under duress? Queer desire? BDSM? Art? Everything of the above and more?
Main character Jin is not only a photographer grappling to find inspiration, she's also an ex-evangelical whose half-Argentinian movie-producer husband suddenly wants to have children, although they had agreed otherwise. Enter Lidija (assumed name, she's Korean like Jin), an injured ballerina, so also a momentarily stifled artist, who as a dom wants to and knows how to fulfill Jin's desire for sexual power play.
I applaud Kwon for finding the courage to write against shame and sexual stigma, which Kwon has explained was a very difficult endeavor (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...). Alas, the will to write dense poetic prose tends to overpower the whole text, as does the impetus to add all kinds of minor issues. IMHO, the connection between creative and sexual expression should have been at the center, aspects like a Korean ghost haunting the story are a great idea theoretically, but then mainly work as a distraction.
Still, I hope this ambitious text will find many readers who have an easier time enjoying the various layers the book has to offer and more patience when it comes to the meandering character of the pacing.
Main character Jin is not only a photographer grappling to find inspiration, she's also an ex-evangelical whose half-Argentinian movie-producer husband suddenly wants to have children, although they had agreed otherwise. Enter Lidija (assumed name, she's Korean like Jin), an injured ballerina, so also a momentarily stifled artist, who as a dom wants to and knows how to fulfill Jin's desire for sexual power play.
I applaud Kwon for finding the courage to write against shame and sexual stigma, which Kwon has explained was a very difficult endeavor (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...). Alas, the will to write dense poetic prose tends to overpower the whole text, as does the impetus to add all kinds of minor issues. IMHO, the connection between creative and sexual expression should have been at the center, aspects like a Korean ghost haunting the story are a great idea theoretically, but then mainly work as a distraction.
Still, I hope this ambitious text will find many readers who have an easier time enjoying the various layers the book has to offer and more patience when it comes to the meandering character of the pacing.
Read
March 24, 2024I wanted to like this but it wasn't a match. I think with this kind of novel, with this kind of prose, with this kind of "literary" feel, that it is always going to be pretty subjective and it either hits or it doesn't for each reader. But for me the prose, which often gave you just bits of things, edges of conversations, didn't dive into the themes the way I would have liked. Because these themes are really interesting to me! I've read other novels with similar ones and been captivated. But with this book it felt like coming into a room when everyone is leaving, like I'd missed all the substance. All I felt like I had was the prose and the style, whereas the characters only seemed to get farther and farther away from me.
January 27, 2025
2 ½ stars
for something that had the potential of being subversive this struck me as very vanilla and delivery wise cold. the novel tries to be cerebral but i found the author's use of random high-brow or obscure words a gimmick. still, the novel's clinical mood isn't wholly ineffective and i did appreciate (on paper) the themes and perspectives it sets out to explore. however, the lack of depth did hinder my reading experience. full review to come.
for something that had the potential of being subversive this struck me as very vanilla and delivery wise cold. the novel tries to be cerebral but i found the author's use of random high-brow or obscure words a gimmick. still, the novel's clinical mood isn't wholly ineffective and i did appreciate (on paper) the themes and perspectives it sets out to explore. however, the lack of depth did hinder my reading experience. full review to come.
March 5, 2024
Jin is a photographer married to Philip, her college sweetheart. She feels safe with Philip and loved by him yet there’s a disconnect between them that begins to grow when the topic of whether they’ll have children or not comes up. Philip imagines his life as a father while at times Jin can’t stomach seeing herself as a mother. Then there’s the fact that Jin is expressing an interest in exploring consensual violence within their sexual intimacy. However, Philip is unable to meet or even understand her desire for it. There’s a layer of suffocation that begins to build for Jin and starts to reflect itself in her creativity. That is until she meets Lidija, a professional ballerina on a break from her dance company due to an injury. Jin and Lidija begin slowly to get to know each other and share things they haven’t told others.
From page one I was sucked into Kwon’s stunningly poetic writing. The novel moves fast but not too fast with Kwon’s quick and sharp sentences. I needed about 300 more pages to this story though. The building tension between Jin and Lidija became sort of an obsession for me. I was turning the pages looking for something. More like studying something. Studying how two women who are strangers to each other turn towards one another in the way they do (won’t say how because SPOILERS). But that exploration of the thin line between friendship to desire is something that stood out so aggressively here for me because I wanted/needed more about these two. I love how Kwon interweaves religion and desires in her writing. How Kwon explores the stigmatization around kink, its impact, and the struggle with repression. I’d like more of this, please. I’ll leave you with a favorite quote:
“Lidija and I had rules in place. Holding out the bell, she’d signal a role change. I did as she said as long as I had the bell in hand. If I broke a rule, or didn’t listen to Lidija’s bidding, I’d fail. But I hadn’t learned yet where failing led. I didn’t intend to let Lidija down. If I let the bell fall, or Lidija fetched it, we’d drop back to being friends again. In and out, we’d slip, form-shifting, equals, then lopsided.”
From page one I was sucked into Kwon’s stunningly poetic writing. The novel moves fast but not too fast with Kwon’s quick and sharp sentences. I needed about 300 more pages to this story though. The building tension between Jin and Lidija became sort of an obsession for me. I was turning the pages looking for something. More like studying something. Studying how two women who are strangers to each other turn towards one another in the way they do (won’t say how because SPOILERS). But that exploration of the thin line between friendship to desire is something that stood out so aggressively here for me because I wanted/needed more about these two. I love how Kwon interweaves religion and desires in her writing. How Kwon explores the stigmatization around kink, its impact, and the struggle with repression. I’d like more of this, please. I’ll leave you with a favorite quote:
“Lidija and I had rules in place. Holding out the bell, she’d signal a role change. I did as she said as long as I had the bell in hand. If I broke a rule, or didn’t listen to Lidija’s bidding, I’d fail. But I hadn’t learned yet where failing led. I didn’t intend to let Lidija down. If I let the bell fall, or Lidija fetched it, we’d drop back to being friends again. In and out, we’d slip, form-shifting, equals, then lopsided.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 18, 2024
I’m one of the few people who enjoyed R.O. Kwon’s debut novel, The Incendiaries, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to pick up Exhibit. This new novel is as similar as it is extremely different from her first book, it’s one of these quiet literary fiction novels where very big things happen, but what seals the deal is the writing itself.
Exhibit follows a photographer named Jin Han, of the Han family. The Hans were cursed by a kisaeng and they are all doomed to die for love. Jin is haunted by this story as if it were a real threat and when we meet her, her life is in shambles: she’s lost her faith, her husband Philip has suddenly decided he wants a kid (she doesn’t), she can’t take photographs, and she’s come clean to Philip and told him she’s into masochism (he isn’t). Her life has been following a controlled path and now everything is chaos until she meets the ballerina Lidija Jung who lends her an ear and wants to help her out with some of her frustrations.
Before I started writing this review, I checked a few others and saw different theories about what this book is about. I think I’ll throw my own. I do think this is a book about the female body and what women owe to each other, but I think it’s mostly about control and chaos. There’s this line in one of Lizzy Mcalpine’s songs that goes ‘Lovely to sit between comfort and chaos,’ and this book felt like Jin’s comfort being shaken so hard she seeks a complete undoing to transform herself. Jiin talks about Ovid’s work in the book, and I think her whole journey is about an undoing that leads to a metamorphosis. And I’d argue this metamorphosis remains incomplete at the end, halted by something that happens(which I also interpreted as a test of faith? Idk, I have too many thoughts about this book).
I thought this was very good. The writing was impeccable and something I had not quite experienced before, I had to re-read bits all the time because of how indirect it is. I also found it interesting that Kwon told this story through narrative but also through mixed conversations - we are in the middle of dialogue, and what is not that direct dialogue, is Jin recollecting or retelling us a past/future conversation with Lidija. All the in-betweenness and atemporality of the narrative felt like a fever dream.
Another interesting thing I want to mention is Kwon’s decision to add hangul here. Jin refers to her mother as 엄마 and her dad as 아버지. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book use Korean in hangul as opposed to romanized.
When it comes to this book deals a lot with the art world (photography and ballet mostly, for obvious reasons), kinks (this shouldn’t be a surprise considering Kwon edited Kink: Stories), the female body (and how men expect to have rights on it and what it does), women, and hiding secrets. It’s also sapphic/bi.
Fave bits:
“Listen to us,” Lidija said. “Such ladies, living to serve the group. I, like you, require not a thing. In fact, I don’t quite exist.”
___
“Oh, I love that,” I said. I’d sat up, jolted. “People do love a dead girl.”
“If we die, we’re quiet.”
“With no opinions.”
“It’s the ideal girl.”
___
People may think us abject, pliant. Docile objects. It soiled us, this defiling lie. But plied with dirt, I’d plant a garden. Or so it began, an idea coiling the light.
___
Hostile spirits, I was told, used to be thought female. One idea being that, if a girl died ill-used, she’d lived pining for a reprisal long denied. Ditto, with a wife, such being the roles possible, back then, girl or wife. People felt disquiet: this rage, pent up, might find a place to go.
___
Kin split. Land, ripped apart. Invaded. Pillaged. In just the 1950s, more U.S. shells falling in Korea than in all of the Pacific through the 1940s. Spilt life fed this soil. I was forged in ash.
*ARC received for free. This has not impacted my review.
Exhibit follows a photographer named Jin Han, of the Han family. The Hans were cursed by a kisaeng and they are all doomed to die for love. Jin is haunted by this story as if it were a real threat and when we meet her, her life is in shambles: she’s lost her faith, her husband Philip has suddenly decided he wants a kid (she doesn’t), she can’t take photographs, and she’s come clean to Philip and told him she’s into masochism (he isn’t). Her life has been following a controlled path and now everything is chaos until she meets the ballerina Lidija Jung who lends her an ear and wants to help her out with some of her frustrations.
Before I started writing this review, I checked a few others and saw different theories about what this book is about. I think I’ll throw my own. I do think this is a book about the female body and what women owe to each other, but I think it’s mostly about control and chaos. There’s this line in one of Lizzy Mcalpine’s songs that goes ‘Lovely to sit between comfort and chaos,’ and this book felt like Jin’s comfort being shaken so hard she seeks a complete undoing to transform herself. Jiin talks about Ovid’s work in the book, and I think her whole journey is about an undoing that leads to a metamorphosis. And I’d argue this metamorphosis remains incomplete at the end, halted by something that happens
I thought this was very good. The writing was impeccable and something I had not quite experienced before, I had to re-read bits all the time because of how indirect it is. I also found it interesting that Kwon told this story through narrative but also through mixed conversations - we are in the middle of dialogue, and what is not that direct dialogue, is Jin recollecting or retelling us a past/future conversation with Lidija. All the in-betweenness and atemporality of the narrative felt like a fever dream.
Another interesting thing I want to mention is Kwon’s decision to add hangul here. Jin refers to her mother as 엄마 and her dad as 아버지. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book use Korean in hangul as opposed to romanized.
When it comes to this book deals a lot with the art world (photography and ballet mostly, for obvious reasons), kinks (this shouldn’t be a surprise considering Kwon edited Kink: Stories), the female body (and how men expect to have rights on it and what it does), women, and hiding secrets. It’s also sapphic/bi.
Fave bits:
“Listen to us,” Lidija said. “Such ladies, living to serve the group. I, like you, require not a thing. In fact, I don’t quite exist.”
___
“Oh, I love that,” I said. I’d sat up, jolted. “People do love a dead girl.”
“If we die, we’re quiet.”
“With no opinions.”
“It’s the ideal girl.”
___
People may think us abject, pliant. Docile objects. It soiled us, this defiling lie. But plied with dirt, I’d plant a garden. Or so it began, an idea coiling the light.
___
Hostile spirits, I was told, used to be thought female. One idea being that, if a girl died ill-used, she’d lived pining for a reprisal long denied. Ditto, with a wife, such being the roles possible, back then, girl or wife. People felt disquiet: this rage, pent up, might find a place to go.
___
Kin split. Land, ripped apart. Invaded. Pillaged. In just the 1950s, more U.S. shells falling in Korea than in all of the Pacific through the 1940s. Spilt life fed this soil. I was forged in ash.
*ARC received for free. This has not impacted my review.
March 23, 2025
stunning writing, no plot just vibes which is fine, i just don't know if i got it lol
June 8, 2024
Not for me. The author mistakes violence for intimacy and edge.
I also found the story and the characters’ thoughts to be a bit of a mess. I kept re-reading pages convinced that I had missed sentences that would have helped the dialogue and decisions make sense.
I also found the story and the characters’ thoughts to be a bit of a mess. I kept re-reading pages convinced that I had missed sentences that would have helped the dialogue and decisions make sense.
May 26, 2024
Reading this book is like slipping into a lucid dream; the prose is so lush, bordering and often crossing into poetic, and the images in the novel so striking; a scene where the main character is in her studio surrounded by flower parts comes to mind as one of many that will linger.
This story is elliptical and indirect; at times I wasn’t sure if I was in the past or the present, and with the ending, I’m not entirely sure of what happened; I can see a couple of possible outcomes and don’t have surety of any of them.
None of that detracts from the beauty of this book, though; if anything, the ambiguity enhances the dream-like experience.
This is an important exploration of women in modern times; even with supportive, loving husbands/partners, how much (invisible) work still defaults to women, and how women’s desires are often ignored or suppressed, how women who do not wish to have children are viewed as aberrant.
This book is only 200 pages and I read it one sitting without meaning to; I really could not put down. I wish it had been 200 more.
This story is elliptical and indirect; at times I wasn’t sure if I was in the past or the present, and with the ending, I’m not entirely sure of what happened; I can see a couple of possible outcomes and don’t have surety of any of them.
None of that detracts from the beauty of this book, though; if anything, the ambiguity enhances the dream-like experience.
This is an important exploration of women in modern times; even with supportive, loving husbands/partners, how much (invisible) work still defaults to women, and how women’s desires are often ignored or suppressed, how women who do not wish to have children are viewed as aberrant.
This book is only 200 pages and I read it one sitting without meaning to; I really could not put down. I wish it had been 200 more.
Read
June 30, 2025It's either 2 or 4 stars.
This is one of the most conflicted reading experiences I’ve ever had. I feel like it's undeniably beautiful and the author's prose is lyrical, sharp, and deeply vulnerable, it’s also ugly in a way that made me genuinely uncomfortable—not just emotionally, but physically.
When I say the writing is “ugly,” I don’t mean it’s poorly done. It’s raw. It's honest. But when I say the story is ugly and disgusting, I mean it. The characters, their choices, the relationships—left me disturbed. And not in a way that helped me grow or reflect. Just uncomfortable.
I just feel traumatized
This is one of the most conflicted reading experiences I’ve ever had. I feel like it's undeniably beautiful and the author's prose is lyrical, sharp, and deeply vulnerable, it’s also ugly in a way that made me genuinely uncomfortable—not just emotionally, but physically.
When I say the writing is “ugly,” I don’t mean it’s poorly done. It’s raw. It's honest. But when I say the story is ugly and disgusting, I mean it. The characters, their choices, the relationships—left me disturbed. And not in a way that helped me grow or reflect. Just uncomfortable.
I just feel traumatized
April 15, 2024
ARC gifted by the publisher
Jin Han, a young photographer at the crossroads of her career, meets the alluring ballerina Lidija Jung at a party. As they become more entangled, both women's lives will never be the same.
EXHIBIT asks the question of when a woman's body is on display (pregnancy, motherhood, gratitude) and when one is asked to hide (sexuality, desire, menstruation, kink). Kwon's poetic prose flows seamlessly between Jin's family stories, her feverish relationship with Lidija, and her disintegrating marriage.
Another fascinating aspect is the juxtaposition between art and the artist. Jin's transformation from an artist who objectifies through lenses to becoming the subject of her own work and Lidija's body/skills as the center of critique gave me a lot to think about how we separate an artist's body from their work.
A love child between THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY (C Pam Zhang) and MEMORY PIECE (Lisa Ko), I devoured EXHIBIT in a day and can't get enough of it!
-
initial thoughts
When is a woman’s body forced on display and when is one asked to hide? This is the theme in EXHIBIT that stands out to me the most. There’s also a religious aspect that I don’t fully grasp.
The writing is very lit fic that reminds me of A LAND OF MILK AND HONEY and the nebulous style has a hint of MEMORY PIECE. I loved how this book made me think about my body, my choices, my fate. Highly recommend to lit fic lovers who enjoy experimental writing styles!
Jin Han, a young photographer at the crossroads of her career, meets the alluring ballerina Lidija Jung at a party. As they become more entangled, both women's lives will never be the same.
EXHIBIT asks the question of when a woman's body is on display (pregnancy, motherhood, gratitude) and when one is asked to hide (sexuality, desire, menstruation, kink). Kwon's poetic prose flows seamlessly between Jin's family stories, her feverish relationship with Lidija, and her disintegrating marriage.
Another fascinating aspect is the juxtaposition between art and the artist. Jin's transformation from an artist who objectifies through lenses to becoming the subject of her own work and Lidija's body/skills as the center of critique gave me a lot to think about how we separate an artist's body from their work.
A love child between THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY (C Pam Zhang) and MEMORY PIECE (Lisa Ko), I devoured EXHIBIT in a day and can't get enough of it!
-
initial thoughts
When is a woman’s body forced on display and when is one asked to hide? This is the theme in EXHIBIT that stands out to me the most. There’s also a religious aspect that I don’t fully grasp.
The writing is very lit fic that reminds me of A LAND OF MILK AND HONEY and the nebulous style has a hint of MEMORY PIECE. I loved how this book made me think about my body, my choices, my fate. Highly recommend to lit fic lovers who enjoy experimental writing styles!
July 11, 2024
2.5 stars
Not going to lie-I had high hopes for this book-I thought the premise sounded interesting, I think R.O.Kwon is such a fascinating author, but just like The Incindiaries, I felt that this book didn't live up to its hype. The storyline and characters had such promise and I love the idea of exploring queerness, desire, loss of faith, and art, but none of the plot or characters were really fleshed out and then the book just ended. I know a lot of reviewers have mentioned Kwon's literary prose/writing style, and I didn't have a problem with that, but the dialogue was SO BAD. Nobody repeats the person's name they are talking to multiple times in conversation. Basically, all the issues I had with The Incindiaries showed up in Exhibit: slow storyline, vague characters, bad dialogue, and abrupt endings.
Also, for a book that was heavily marketed for its exploration of kink in relationships, there was barely any mention of it. More importantly, I'm not an expert in BDSM, but I'm pretty sure choking someone without their express consent goes against the rules. Anyway, I'm sure I will read R.O. Kwon's next book, regardless.
Not going to lie-I had high hopes for this book-I thought the premise sounded interesting, I think R.O.Kwon is such a fascinating author, but just like The Incindiaries, I felt that this book didn't live up to its hype. The storyline and characters had such promise and I love the idea of exploring queerness, desire, loss of faith, and art, but none of the plot or characters were really fleshed out and then the book just ended. I know a lot of reviewers have mentioned Kwon's literary prose/writing style, and I didn't have a problem with that, but the dialogue was SO BAD. Nobody repeats the person's name they are talking to multiple times in conversation. Basically, all the issues I had with The Incindiaries showed up in Exhibit: slow storyline, vague characters, bad dialogue, and abrupt endings.
Also, for a book that was heavily marketed for its exploration of kink in relationships, there was barely any mention of it. More importantly, I'm not an expert in BDSM, but I'm pretty sure choking someone without their express consent goes against the rules. Anyway, I'm sure I will read R.O. Kwon's next book, regardless.
June 12, 2024
I tried … I really, really tried. Or -as this absurdly self-important, pretentious “author” would have it- I, tried. I tried, yes.
Gosh! I read the NYT review and was intrigued. Typically I love Asian writers.
But it was, just, not, to be.
Well, all kidding aside: it was simply impossible for me to get through this drudge of a novel, even though I rarely (rarely!) give up on a book!
Gosh! I read the NYT review and was intrigued. Typically I love Asian writers.
But it was, just, not, to be.
Well, all kidding aside: it was simply impossible for me to get through this drudge of a novel, even though I rarely (rarely!) give up on a book!
October 10, 2023
Intense book. I’m obsessed with Kwon’s sentences. They are quick and sharp. This character was layered and smartly written. I couldn’t put it down.
immediate_dnf
August 7, 2024DNF @ 23%
Written in the sparsest of sparse language, this odd work of lit fic is probably meant for someone—but that someone ain't me.
On the surface, it should have worked. It's about a couple who've been together for many years, only now, the husband wants kids and the wife is't interested. It's about racism, featuring a predominantly Asian-American cast. It's also queer, as the FMC is bisexual and starts up (what is billed as, but I never got that far) a torrid affair with a ballet dancer she meets at a part. Add in some lines about "obsession" and "kink" and I was sold.
In the end, the prose is so stylistic that it was too strange for its own good.
Written in the sparsest of sparse language, this odd work of lit fic is probably meant for someone—but that someone ain't me.
On the surface, it should have worked. It's about a couple who've been together for many years, only now, the husband wants kids and the wife is't interested. It's about racism, featuring a predominantly Asian-American cast. It's also queer, as the FMC is bisexual and starts up (what is billed as, but I never got that far) a torrid affair with a ballet dancer she meets at a part. Add in some lines about "obsession" and "kink" and I was sold.
In the end, the prose is so stylistic that it was too strange for its own good.
May 23, 2024
I wanted to like this book, however the literary style made the entire story hard to follow. The themes, characters and backdrops were clouded as the author seemed to communicate in incomplete thoughts. Coupled with several storyline jumps and timeline skips back and forth, the story wasn't robust enough to remove frustration with the literary style at bay.
June 18, 2024
Intense, potent, vivid, dark. I will say I expected slightly more k*nk based on all the press around the book, but I was still surprised by the descent into sexual intensity that we got. The last ~50 pages of this took my breath away.
Read
June 16, 2024While Exhibit isn’t my usual cup of tea, I can’t help but notice how stark, real and striking this novel is in its precision of language and capturing of the side of relationships not usually discussed in novels. If you’re ready for a slow, nearly eerie intricate examination of people’s innermost, pick this one up.
June 23, 2024
Jin Han is a photographer who is married to her college boyfriend and seemingly living the life of her dreams, at least on the surface. But underneath, there are murmurs and whispers of want. We see Jin as an artist struggling to find inspiration, as a wife feeling betrayed by her husband’s sudden and new desire for children, and as an ex-evangelical navigating her repressed sexual desires. And it isn’t until she meets Lidija Jung, a professional ballerina, at a lavish party in Marin that the whispers turn into howls. The two women bond and their lives are changed by their shared desire for pain, pleasure, and artistic drive.
I absolutely loved this book. The writing felt like photographs—snapshots of scenes, moments caught in the in-between of past and present, pleasure and pain, suffocation and inspiration. It is the kind of poetic, bold and daring writing that I love for it always makes my heart flutter and keeps me on my toes. And this book had me in knots (in a good way) the whole time I was reading it. The tension between Jin and Lidia had me in a chokehold and would not let me go. As Kwon explored the dichotomy of female desire and shame, and the expectations and limitations of both through these two women and the kisaeng, I found myself both enraged and thrilled.
With themes of faith (or the loss thereof), sexual repression and desire, self-identity, and artistry, this book was a study of an intersection of identities that one can hold with or without their permission. Sometimes because of how we were raised and how we were told to behave, women have always lived with limitations on their identity. This book shows how there is beauty in the unseen, in the abstract, and sometimes even in the violence.
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
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i'll never be the same again. obsessed with what Kwon did here.
full rtc.
I absolutely loved this book. The writing felt like photographs—snapshots of scenes, moments caught in the in-between of past and present, pleasure and pain, suffocation and inspiration. It is the kind of poetic, bold and daring writing that I love for it always makes my heart flutter and keeps me on my toes. And this book had me in knots (in a good way) the whole time I was reading it. The tension between Jin and Lidia had me in a chokehold and would not let me go. As Kwon explored the dichotomy of female desire and shame, and the expectations and limitations of both through these two women and the kisaeng, I found myself both enraged and thrilled.
With themes of faith (or the loss thereof), sexual repression and desire, self-identity, and artistry, this book was a study of an intersection of identities that one can hold with or without their permission. Sometimes because of how we were raised and how we were told to behave, women have always lived with limitations on their identity. This book shows how there is beauty in the unseen, in the abstract, and sometimes even in the violence.
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
------------------------------------
i'll never be the same again. obsessed with what Kwon did here.
full rtc.
did-not-finish
June 8, 2024Was so excited to read this book without realizing I'd read the author before and couldn't engage with their prose. Same thing here. It's so sparse and euphemistic and flowery and more like a colletion of poems really. I just can't handle that kind of thing in a novelistic frame of mind.
Sorry what? Sorry? What? Nice poem but I didn't want to read a poem today.
“I fell in love. It had to be a secret. She and I, we kept it. Pulled up, her skirt flared open. She had petal skin. Insults attend a kisaeng’s life, but she’d also lived in silk, idling in orchid baths. She hadn’t pushed grass in her mouth, then dirt, while half a village died. She thought it prudent to trust in, of all the options, people. I shit you not. It left her wide open to this rough, uncaring world. But I’d stand guard.”
Sorry what? Sorry? What? Nice poem but I didn't want to read a poem today.
May 14, 2025
Erotic. Subversive. Cunning, sharp, and true. A knife in the gut and beautiful needlework, tilted and fluid. Hands poised and raised, a beautiful and shifting dance of shadow and light. Women and their mouths. Their hair and tongues and soft flesh. Leather. Bruised fruit. Bent over, decaying and begging. Hungry and full. Beautiful. Submissive. Passionate. Artist. Dancer. Bend me backwards on the stage again, she is saying. Taste me. Know me. And you. I will capture your essence there, frozen in time. Just as we have become flesh. Something a little bit dark. Begin again. I will find you there.
November 21, 2023
This book reads like a dream where you know you’re asleep but can’t quite manage to wake up all the way. Snatches of moments, half-lit scenes, and oblique references meditate on art, faith, friendship, expectations, and filial responsibility. The writing is juicy and crisp and each sentence is a jewel. I recommend reading this in one sitting if you can to fully appreciate the themes.
NetGalley provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
NetGalley provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
December 2, 2025
Just off the top, the fact that the epigraph is from The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector is wild.
This book has the passive-declarative style of a “poet” of the I’m-too-good-for-instagram-but-am-I, spoken-word-for-the-age-of-individualism, I-own-a-thesaurus-but-I’m-still learning-how-to-use-it variety. I liked some of it, particularly certain word choices and the soothing rhythm, but the prose never felt fully wrangled, and as I went along I realized that the main reason I liked it more than your average poem was that the lines just followed each other one after the other, so I didn’t have to look at a bunch of blank page and think about the wasted paper.
A major issue for me was the odd, disorienting tense mismatches: “I went to the store. I’d wander the aisles. Seeing its skin glisten, I bought a peach. I figured to eat it in the sun outside.” (Not an exact quote, but it could be.) I’m almost entirely certain they were an intentional style choice. You could make the case that the pace is at the same standstill the protagonist is - in her marriage, in her art, in her emotional/mental/religious development, in her submission to Lidija. However, I had a sneaking suspicion that it’s just Kwon’s style and having now read the first few pages of The Incendiaries, her other novel, I think option two is more likely to be the case.
I knew this was lit fic going in (ie, about the personal and social malaise of privileged, heteronormative artists), so in theory I should have been less annoyed by the pointless and (unintentionally) uninspiring (non)ending.
In fact the aspect of the story that fell flattest, for me, was the way it portrayed religion. Some of Kwon’s best writing is in the letters her protagonist writes to the Lord, ie the Christian god in whom she’s lost faith. Unfortunately the book never moves past an understanding of religion that is fundamentally childish, ie, you’ve realized Santa isn’t real and you can’t move past it. “But the gifts,” you weep, “I loved the gifts so much - now I can never have a gift again, gifts are meaningless now, I guess all I can do is cry.” Like… get it the fuck together! I’m sorry, I realize that this toddler-level understanding of Christianity is one that many Christians hold, but frankly they should be embarrassed. Christianity existed before 1950! Pick up a fucking book! Take some ownership over the ways in which you choose to understand the world!
Kwon is obviously trying to do SOMEthing with her protagonist’s childishness. I don’t think she really knows what, though, considering the book ends with Jin engaging in some child-level-magical-thinking (“I did a bad thing [cheated] and that caused my mom to fall, get a head injury, and die”) and then pulling the ripcord on (a) her marriage (b) her relationship with her dom/the woman she had an affair with and (c) her career, by chickening out of her gallery show. “I idled at the stoplight, until I kept going.” This is the last line in the book from the protagonist’s perspective, and we’re clearly supposed to find it complex but ultimately inspirational. Yes, she idled - but now she’s moving, with (a), (b), and (c) in the rearview mirror!
I’m unconvinced. In fact my main takeaway is that the protagonist is *still* acting like a child. She was idling? Sorry, no! She made some good/bad art, she cheated on her husband, she got involved in a d/s relationship with a hot ballerina - what part of that is idling? Calling it that just means that this protagonist is *still* choosing to pretend she’s passive and powerless. But I guess that fits with that same specific kind of ex-Christian mentality - there’s only purpose-through-religion, or purposelessness-outside-of-religion. The protagonist isn’t happy with her life so all she can do is blow it up and replace it with nothing. There’s still no understanding that building something positive outside of a certain cardboard-cutout version of Christianity is even possible.
Honestly I would see this book—particularly the way the protagonist struggles with her husband’s desire to have children—as not incompatible with the viewpoint of someone that will eventually go back to the version of Christianity they left. Eg, Jin can’t accept having a child because she’s still a child - that’s what the book seems to be implying, but that implies in turn that if and when Jin moves past her childishness and becomes a true adult, she will want a child. In other words, despite all the effort (the kink, the period sex, the friend who’s pro abortions) I don’t see that this story reaches beyond the framework it thinks it’s struggling against.
This book has the passive-declarative style of a “poet” of the I’m-too-good-for-instagram-but-am-I, spoken-word-for-the-age-of-individualism, I-own-a-thesaurus-but-I’m-still learning-how-to-use-it variety. I liked some of it, particularly certain word choices and the soothing rhythm, but the prose never felt fully wrangled, and as I went along I realized that the main reason I liked it more than your average poem was that the lines just followed each other one after the other, so I didn’t have to look at a bunch of blank page and think about the wasted paper.
A major issue for me was the odd, disorienting tense mismatches: “I went to the store. I’d wander the aisles. Seeing its skin glisten, I bought a peach. I figured to eat it in the sun outside.” (Not an exact quote, but it could be.) I’m almost entirely certain they were an intentional style choice. You could make the case that the pace is at the same standstill the protagonist is - in her marriage, in her art, in her emotional/mental/religious development, in her submission to Lidija. However, I had a sneaking suspicion that it’s just Kwon’s style and having now read the first few pages of The Incendiaries, her other novel, I think option two is more likely to be the case.
I knew this was lit fic going in (ie, about the personal and social malaise of privileged, heteronormative artists), so in theory I should have been less annoyed by the pointless and (unintentionally) uninspiring (non)ending.
In fact the aspect of the story that fell flattest, for me, was the way it portrayed religion. Some of Kwon’s best writing is in the letters her protagonist writes to the Lord, ie the Christian god in whom she’s lost faith. Unfortunately the book never moves past an understanding of religion that is fundamentally childish, ie, you’ve realized Santa isn’t real and you can’t move past it. “But the gifts,” you weep, “I loved the gifts so much - now I can never have a gift again, gifts are meaningless now, I guess all I can do is cry.” Like… get it the fuck together! I’m sorry, I realize that this toddler-level understanding of Christianity is one that many Christians hold, but frankly they should be embarrassed. Christianity existed before 1950! Pick up a fucking book! Take some ownership over the ways in which you choose to understand the world!
Kwon is obviously trying to do SOMEthing with her protagonist’s childishness. I don’t think she really knows what, though, considering the book ends with Jin engaging in some child-level-magical-thinking (“I did a bad thing [cheated] and that caused my mom to fall, get a head injury, and die”) and then pulling the ripcord on (a) her marriage (b) her relationship with her dom/the woman she had an affair with and (c) her career, by chickening out of her gallery show. “I idled at the stoplight, until I kept going.” This is the last line in the book from the protagonist’s perspective, and we’re clearly supposed to find it complex but ultimately inspirational. Yes, she idled - but now she’s moving, with (a), (b), and (c) in the rearview mirror!
I’m unconvinced. In fact my main takeaway is that the protagonist is *still* acting like a child. She was idling? Sorry, no! She made some good/bad art, she cheated on her husband, she got involved in a d/s relationship with a hot ballerina - what part of that is idling? Calling it that just means that this protagonist is *still* choosing to pretend she’s passive and powerless. But I guess that fits with that same specific kind of ex-Christian mentality - there’s only purpose-through-religion, or purposelessness-outside-of-religion. The protagonist isn’t happy with her life so all she can do is blow it up and replace it with nothing. There’s still no understanding that building something positive outside of a certain cardboard-cutout version of Christianity is even possible.
Honestly I would see this book—particularly the way the protagonist struggles with her husband’s desire to have children—as not incompatible with the viewpoint of someone that will eventually go back to the version of Christianity they left. Eg, Jin can’t accept having a child because she’s still a child - that’s what the book seems to be implying, but that implies in turn that if and when Jin moves past her childishness and becomes a true adult, she will want a child. In other words, despite all the effort (the kink, the period sex, the friend who’s pro abortions) I don’t see that this story reaches beyond the framework it thinks it’s struggling against.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 16, 2024
very difficult to get through. disliked the dialogue which felt pretentious and annoying, and how much time was spent referencing her husband considering you never really learn a thing about him. felt very difficult to understand her love for him because he was so empty. the writing style is interesting and unique. cerebral, clipped, poetic, and very annoying. it was exhausting to spend so much time trying to decode what I was reading, it was like trying to read this story when it was written at the bottom of a pool. the style obfuscated the plot to an extent that I feel I dont even understand what happened and I was so frustrated that i dont care. Theres BDSM stuff and religion and the struggle for autonomy as a woman and artist, but i kept asking myself what the hell the point of anything was and it felt like none of these themes went anywhere.
February 12, 2024
I found Exhibit to be a difficult read. There are thoughts and feelings, but it seemed incomplete at times. The story moves slowly. Not a favorite read for me, which surprised me due to the authors many awards and accolades.
April 7, 2024
Good god!!! ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥 📸🩰👀👋🫦💧💧💧❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥 (Suffice it to say that this was a sexy, exhilarating, stunning crafted read!)
R. O. Kwon has a poet’s gift for language and a fearless handle on story.
R. O. Kwon has a poet’s gift for language and a fearless handle on story.
July 8, 2024
Sometimes I feel as if I were speedrunning diverse reading. I read the review a good two months in advance of publication, I tack on the hold before 99% (at least) of the reading populace knows it even exists, the hold swans in, I make room, and with the average book being 200-300 pages in length, I have it back on the shelf in one to two weeks. I missed the hype of Kwon's first novel, but when this came around with its kink and its queer and its non-whiteness, it would've been rather pathetic had I allowed it to pass me by. In any case, I know it's rather cheap to compare this to Han Kang's The Vegetarian, but when there's a similar functioning as major plot mechanic between both works, you have to wonder. Outside of that, this piece of writing's strongest double edge sword is the series of incisions it calls its prose, which works wonders when the light hits just right and throws the reader headlong out of the ring whenever it hits particularly harsh (and lord while I hate it when folks mewl about 'vulgarity', the expletive laden elegies of one lone long dead intermissioned more than they lined up the final shot). Of course, it could have all been my whiteness and increasing estrangement from that concept termed 'womanhood' and all its inextricable vernacular, but while I can claim a surface level engagement with the to and fro and the 'poor representation' versus the 'subversive progress', it all fell out with neither outright yea nor fervent nay on my part. Still, the topics concerned are important enough, especially with Hays Code 2.0 encroaching all the more on the self-sustenance of certain corners of Internet without which we would have long ago tumbled into fascist kyriarchy. Indeed, this may have left me rather chill, but I'm still thinking about that Kink: Stories, if only to keep the brainless little shitlords who see my stubbornly high follower count and think that the way to influencer valhalla is through my rabbithole of a descent off my front porch. Long story short, if you're wondering what the 'read of 2024' is (an exercise in insipidity if there ever were one), this certainly goes farther in earning the title than most.
January 24, 2025
lesbian babygirl
April 9, 2024
Jin Han is a brilliant photographer and in her marriage to her college love Phillip, she has been pressured to have a child. Lidija Jung is an injured ballet soloist. When they meet each other at a lavish party, they become entangled by their ambition and desires.
Jin and Lidija find in art - photography and ballet, respectively - inspiration, solace and meaning for life. Through the lives of a woman with kisaeng's spirit whose inner desires overlap another soul with her own ambition, Kwon excels at showing the way desires contrast with stereotyped image of Asian women. There is certain fragility in the pressures, in how the story highlights the body image, the public figure hidden of imperfection x private, living in hiding.
The old familial curse that haunts Jin is vividly painted in form of 'The Kisaeng's story' - the Korean tale mirrors the two female characters, in how woman's body is exhibited while also defying the social and cultural norms regarding Korean women. Furthermore, Kwon sharply examines religion and one notices that even faith seems unable to save in some circumstances (I wonder how much comes from the author's own experience).
This is a character-driven story, which singular prose (reminiscent of LAND OF MILK AND HONEY) might not be for everyone. The ideas and its delivery (however in a more abstract way) remind one of MEMORY PIECE. This is a novel that requires one to read between lines, to decipher and have one's own interpretation.
EXHIBIT feels like a meticulous character study, about womanhood and desires. In 200 pages, this book reads very literary fiction, innovative and experimental.
- note: this is perfect for buddy read as the reader will probably have some (if not a lot) of questions
[ I received an ARC from the publisher - Riverhead books . All opinions are my own ]
Jin and Lidija find in art - photography and ballet, respectively - inspiration, solace and meaning for life. Through the lives of a woman with kisaeng's spirit whose inner desires overlap another soul with her own ambition, Kwon excels at showing the way desires contrast with stereotyped image of Asian women. There is certain fragility in the pressures, in how the story highlights the body image, the public figure hidden of imperfection x private, living in hiding.
The old familial curse that haunts Jin is vividly painted in form of 'The Kisaeng's story' - the Korean tale mirrors the two female characters, in how woman's body is exhibited while also defying the social and cultural norms regarding Korean women. Furthermore, Kwon sharply examines religion and one notices that even faith seems unable to save in some circumstances (I wonder how much comes from the author's own experience).
This is a character-driven story, which singular prose (reminiscent of LAND OF MILK AND HONEY) might not be for everyone. The ideas and its delivery (however in a more abstract way) remind one of MEMORY PIECE. This is a novel that requires one to read between lines, to decipher and have one's own interpretation.
EXHIBIT feels like a meticulous character study, about womanhood and desires. In 200 pages, this book reads very literary fiction, innovative and experimental.
- note: this is perfect for buddy read as the reader will probably have some (if not a lot) of questions
[ I received an ARC from the publisher - Riverhead books . All opinions are my own ]
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