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Gdzie zachodzi słońce
Gdzie zachodzi słońce to liryczna opowieść o świecie, w którym tajemniczy wirus błyskawicznie zdziesiątkował ludzkość. Jedna z ocalałych, młoda kobieta o imieniu Dori, przemierza skutą lodem Syberię, balansując między zaludnionym południem, gdzie zbrojne bandy napadają na podróżnych i północą, gdzie brak zapasów zabija szybciej niż zaraza.
Los Dori nieoczekiwanie splata się z losem płomiennowłosej Jiny, drugiej Koreanki rzuconej na antypody zaludnionego świata. W postapokaliptycznej rzeczywistości, którą rządzi prawo pięści, a zaufanie odłożyć należy do lamusa, między dwoma kobietami zaczyna rodzić się uczucie.
W tej polifonicznej powieści drogi autorka kreśli różne sylwetki miłości, jedynego reliktu człowieczeństwa w świecie nakrytym szarą opończą śmierci.
Los Dori nieoczekiwanie splata się z losem płomiennowłosej Jiny, drugiej Koreanki rzuconej na antypody zaludnionego świata. W postapokaliptycznej rzeczywistości, którą rządzi prawo pięści, a zaufanie odłożyć należy do lamusa, między dwoma kobietami zaczyna rodzić się uczucie.
W tej polifonicznej powieści drogi autorka kreśli różne sylwetki miłości, jedynego reliktu człowieczeństwa w świecie nakrytym szarą opończą śmierci.
178 pages, Hardcover
First published June 30, 2017
33 people are currently reading
2937 people want to read
About the author
Jin-Young Choi
8 books17 followersDr. Jin-Young Choi is Professor of English at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. She has translated two novels, numerous short stories and tales. Her Saturday columns in The Korea Herald were collected into one volume form One Woman’s Way. All of her translated short stories were published in Korean Literature Today.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
February 7, 2024
A truly gorgeous cover encapsulates a quite traditional end of the world story (think of Mad Max in the snowy tundra) that takes long strides to arrive at the conclusion that love can even withstand the end of the world
The story of To the Warm Horizon is in a way similar to The New Wilderness, The Road, The Stand, More Than This, Station Eleven, Oryx and Crake and many other dystopian/post apocalyptic tales. A virus leads to the collapse of society (Covid-19 got nothing on this virus, moving from 100.000 to 500.000 deads in a day in South Korea) and a family flees Korea in two trucks (I’m not sure how they’d end up in Russia with the military zone between the South and North). How Jina manages to to push her child into Dori in such grim circumstances is also a bit unclear, and them meeting again later while one is on foot and another is traveling per truck (with gasoline not being a major issue after the breakdown of civilization?) through giant Russia is a mystery.
The prose in general is light on details of the new world and the sketchy details provided raise a lot of questions how well thought out and realistic Jin-Young Choi tries to be. Like somewhere 1/3 in, everyone blames Dori, new to a group and it’s just a bit lazy storytelling in my view, unexplained and posited as a fact, and later I was just baffled how does Dori ends up having a gun all of the sudden.
There are some claustrophobic scenes at the end that are very like The Testaments stadium scenes, and I feel overall this is the problem with this book: this kind of story has been done before, and it has been done better, and I felt that the characters could and should have been much more fleshed out to have an emotional impact.
The story of To the Warm Horizon is in a way similar to The New Wilderness, The Road, The Stand, More Than This, Station Eleven, Oryx and Crake and many other dystopian/post apocalyptic tales. A virus leads to the collapse of society (Covid-19 got nothing on this virus, moving from 100.000 to 500.000 deads in a day in South Korea) and a family flees Korea in two trucks (I’m not sure how they’d end up in Russia with the military zone between the South and North). How Jina manages to to push her child into Dori in such grim circumstances is also a bit unclear, and them meeting again later while one is on foot and another is traveling per truck (with gasoline not being a major issue after the breakdown of civilization?) through giant Russia is a mystery.
The prose in general is light on details of the new world and the sketchy details provided raise a lot of questions how well thought out and realistic Jin-Young Choi tries to be. Like somewhere 1/3 in, everyone blames Dori, new to a group and it’s just a bit lazy storytelling in my view, unexplained and posited as a fact, and later I was just baffled how does Dori ends up having a gun all of the sudden.
There are some claustrophobic scenes at the end that are very like The Testaments stadium scenes, and I feel overall this is the problem with this book: this kind of story has been done before, and it has been done better, and I felt that the characters could and should have been much more fleshed out to have an emotional impact.
April 18, 2021
우리는 어디로 가?
우리는…… 여름을 찾아서.
여름은 어디에 있는데?
나는 손가락으로 태양을 가리켰다.
저기, 해가 지는 곳에.
미소는 혀로 사탕을 굴리며 내 손을 꼭 잡았다.
Where are we going?
We’re … looking for summer
Where’s summer
I pointed to the sun
There, over the horizon. Where the sun sets.
Rolling the candy in her mouth, Joy held my hand.
To the Warm Horizon is Soje’s translation of the Korean original 해가 지는 곳으로 by 최진영 (Jin-Young Choi), with the cover designed by Choi Jaehoon/werkgraphic.com.
It is published by Honford Star - see below for more on the publisher.
To the Warm Horizon is a post-apocalyptic novel as well as a love story between two women, quite consciously (see the interview below) The Road but with female characters and queer romance at its heart. Although a more direct influence is Christophe Bataille’s Annam, which is read by two of the characters in this book.
In the novel’s prologue - playing the part of a voiceover in a movie - one of the characters, Ryu, writing 40 years later recalls when she first heard on the news that a strange virus was spreading in a different country, that the virus would mutate with every new vaccine. At first life carries on as normal and people aren’t that concerned. But this is much worse than Covid-19 (the original novel was written before this in 2017, although after the much-more-deadly but more-controllable MERS outbreak in Korea).
Soon 100,000 people die in Korea in one day, and more the next. Public order and society largely collapses, causing worse effects than the virus itself, including a strong belief that eating the liver of a young child may provide immunity.
The novel’s characters are all from South Korea but have fled the country to Siberia and are now, initially separately, travelling across Russia trying to find shelter and food and supplies that haven’t already been looted. One recalls that however troubled and basic her life was before:
We had a heated floor that kept us warm and a roof that sheltered us from rain and snow. If I felt scared and repulsed by the world, I could close my bedroom door and hide under my desk and listen to music. Water and kimchi were in the fridge, rice in the rice cooker, and instant ramen in the cupboard. I could turn on the light.
Dori and Joy are sisters who lost their parents to the virus, and the Dori, in her early twenties is looking after her younger sister, who is deaf and mute.
Jina is a young woman travelling with her gradually depleted extended family, of mixed race although this (as well as Joy’s deafness and Dori’s sexuality) isn’t particularly commented on by the characters in the novel, but simply who they are (see the translator interview below).
Gunji is a teenage boy, who was bullied both at home, by his father, and at school. He lived near Jina in Korea, and has tagged along with her family, although not to all of their liking.
Ryu is a middle aged woman, whose school-age daughter was lost to the virus, now travelling with her husband and son.
Incidentally Joy is called 미소 in the original which was Romanized as Miso in the first version of the translation, but 미소 literally means Smile, and Joy does seem a better choice (and Miso in English carries some unintended meaning, whereas in Korean the equivalent dish is 된장, doenjang).
Jina first meets Dori when Jina’s extended family find an abandoned house where the two sisters are already sheltering. The exchange that follows has the translator (as with Cursed Bunny by the same publisher) doing a great job in rendering Korean-accented English in English:
Jina did not put up her guard with me.
—You’re from Korea, right?
I, on the other hand, did not let my guard down. Jina scratched her cheek, looking at me as I said nothing in response.
—A-im peurom Koria.(*)
Out of the blue, she spoke English.
—Wheo al yu peurom?
I sensed a slight Gyeongsang dialect.
—Naiseu tu mit yu.
She took another step toward me and extended her hand.
—If it’s not this either . . . Hajimemashite.
After greeting me in Japanese, Jina quietly gazed at me for a moment, fixed her fur hat, and switched back to Korean.
—Don’t worry. We’re not bad people. No one’s infected, and we don’t eat kid liver. We’re going to spend the night right out there and leave in the morning . . . But still, I won’t tell anyone that I saw you here.
* I would imagine the original Korean was 아임 프롬 코리아
This instead a story for much world building - the characters themselves have little idea what is going on in the wider world - but rather mostly at a personal level. The experience of the five is brutal - much like war, the virus seems a good ‘excuse’ for widespread rape, and even for the five it can be a kill-or-be-killed world - but also poignant, particularly in the strong relationships between the characters, all of whom narrate chapters in the first person.
Overall - a thoughtful novel and one I'd recommend to others, but one that didn’t completely grab me. 3.5 stars
Notes and sources
Translation pitch from the Smoking Tigers collective:
https://smokingtigers.com/to-the-warm...
An extract from the original translation (as noted the young girl is called Miso here):
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/a...
A discussion between author and translator:
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/d... - and the original Korean discussion https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/d...
Translator: In past interviews, you’ve cited Christophe Bataille’s Annam and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road as inspirations for Horizon. Could you give a brief introduction?
Author: Annam is about French Dominican missionaries who go to Vietnam. The novel is fast-paced and very beautiful. The characters are beautiful and noble, even under miserable circumstances. As you turn the pages, drunk on the sentences and the story and the vibe, what remains is the love of two people who you didn’t expect to fall in love. I wanted that love, what you can call the core of that novel, in my novel as well. With The Road, I borrowed what I wanted in my own apocalyptic narrative. Since The Road is, after all, about a father and his son, I was curious what would happen if the protagonists were women.
...
Translator: Something I’ve been curious about is that Jina has red hair and gray eyes. Much later in the novel, Dori wonders why Jina’s hair is red, but it goes unanswered, right? How did it happen? Is it dyed? Is she not Korean?
Author: I intended her to be mixed race. One of Jina’s grandparents or ancestors was a foreigner, but I didn’t explain that [in the novel]. The reason is . . . You know, there’s not a single person who thinks it’s weird for Jina and Dori to love each other. They just accept it. In the way that I simply presented queerness, I wanted to do the same for mixed-race identity and disability. I thought that the idea that this requires some kind of explanation was absurd.
See here - https://modernpoetryintranslation.com... - for an essay by the translator where they discuss the use of the term 언니.
Honford Star
Honford Star’s mission is to publish the best literature from East Asia, be it classic or contemporary ... By working with talented translators and exciting local artists, we hope to see more bookshelves containing beautiful editions of the East Asian literature we love.
Until this year their Korean literature had been classic literature from the 1st half of the 20th century:
Sweet Potato: Collected Short Stories by Kim Tongin, translated by Grace Jung:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Endless Blue Sky by Lee Hyoseok, translated by Steven Capener:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae, translated by Anton Hur
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
But for 2021, their K-lit focus turns to the contemporary, in terms of authors, and the future in terms of subject matter.
Tower, translated by Sang Ryu from the original 타워 by 배명훈 (Bae Myung-hoon) - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Cursed Bunny translated by Anton Hur from 저주토끼 by 정보라 (Bora Chung) - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And this novel
To the Warm Horizon translated by Soje from 해가 지는 곳으로 by 최진영 (Jin-Young Choi) -
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Honford Star’s mission statement refers to talented local artists, and the cover work is alway stunning. See here for the press's general approach: https://booksandbao.com/asian-cover-a....
It is also great to see the translators named on the front cover, and the Korean title and author’s name, written in 한글 (hangeul) on the flaps.
우리는…… 여름을 찾아서.
여름은 어디에 있는데?
나는 손가락으로 태양을 가리켰다.
저기, 해가 지는 곳에.
미소는 혀로 사탕을 굴리며 내 손을 꼭 잡았다.
Where are we going?
We’re … looking for summer
Where’s summer
I pointed to the sun
There, over the horizon. Where the sun sets.
Rolling the candy in her mouth, Joy held my hand.
To the Warm Horizon is Soje’s translation of the Korean original 해가 지는 곳으로 by 최진영 (Jin-Young Choi), with the cover designed by Choi Jaehoon/werkgraphic.com.
It is published by Honford Star - see below for more on the publisher.
To the Warm Horizon is a post-apocalyptic novel as well as a love story between two women, quite consciously (see the interview below) The Road but with female characters and queer romance at its heart. Although a more direct influence is Christophe Bataille’s Annam, which is read by two of the characters in this book.
In the novel’s prologue - playing the part of a voiceover in a movie - one of the characters, Ryu, writing 40 years later recalls when she first heard on the news that a strange virus was spreading in a different country, that the virus would mutate with every new vaccine. At first life carries on as normal and people aren’t that concerned. But this is much worse than Covid-19 (the original novel was written before this in 2017, although after the much-more-deadly but more-controllable MERS outbreak in Korea).
Soon 100,000 people die in Korea in one day, and more the next. Public order and society largely collapses, causing worse effects than the virus itself, including a strong belief that eating the liver of a young child may provide immunity.
The novel’s characters are all from South Korea but have fled the country to Siberia and are now, initially separately, travelling across Russia trying to find shelter and food and supplies that haven’t already been looted. One recalls that however troubled and basic her life was before:
We had a heated floor that kept us warm and a roof that sheltered us from rain and snow. If I felt scared and repulsed by the world, I could close my bedroom door and hide under my desk and listen to music. Water and kimchi were in the fridge, rice in the rice cooker, and instant ramen in the cupboard. I could turn on the light.
Dori and Joy are sisters who lost their parents to the virus, and the Dori, in her early twenties is looking after her younger sister, who is deaf and mute.
Jina is a young woman travelling with her gradually depleted extended family, of mixed race although this (as well as Joy’s deafness and Dori’s sexuality) isn’t particularly commented on by the characters in the novel, but simply who they are (see the translator interview below).
Gunji is a teenage boy, who was bullied both at home, by his father, and at school. He lived near Jina in Korea, and has tagged along with her family, although not to all of their liking.
Ryu is a middle aged woman, whose school-age daughter was lost to the virus, now travelling with her husband and son.
Incidentally Joy is called 미소 in the original which was Romanized as Miso in the first version of the translation, but 미소 literally means Smile, and Joy does seem a better choice (and Miso in English carries some unintended meaning, whereas in Korean the equivalent dish is 된장, doenjang).
Jina first meets Dori when Jina’s extended family find an abandoned house where the two sisters are already sheltering. The exchange that follows has the translator (as with Cursed Bunny by the same publisher) doing a great job in rendering Korean-accented English in English:
Jina did not put up her guard with me.
—You’re from Korea, right?
I, on the other hand, did not let my guard down. Jina scratched her cheek, looking at me as I said nothing in response.
—A-im peurom Koria.(*)
Out of the blue, she spoke English.
—Wheo al yu peurom?
I sensed a slight Gyeongsang dialect.
—Naiseu tu mit yu.
She took another step toward me and extended her hand.
—If it’s not this either . . . Hajimemashite.
After greeting me in Japanese, Jina quietly gazed at me for a moment, fixed her fur hat, and switched back to Korean.
—Don’t worry. We’re not bad people. No one’s infected, and we don’t eat kid liver. We’re going to spend the night right out there and leave in the morning . . . But still, I won’t tell anyone that I saw you here.
* I would imagine the original Korean was 아임 프롬 코리아
This instead a story for much world building - the characters themselves have little idea what is going on in the wider world - but rather mostly at a personal level. The experience of the five is brutal - much like war, the virus seems a good ‘excuse’ for widespread rape, and even for the five it can be a kill-or-be-killed world - but also poignant, particularly in the strong relationships between the characters, all of whom narrate chapters in the first person.
Overall - a thoughtful novel and one I'd recommend to others, but one that didn’t completely grab me. 3.5 stars
Notes and sources
Translation pitch from the Smoking Tigers collective:
https://smokingtigers.com/to-the-warm...
An extract from the original translation (as noted the young girl is called Miso here):
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/a...
A discussion between author and translator:
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/d... - and the original Korean discussion https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/d...
Translator: In past interviews, you’ve cited Christophe Bataille’s Annam and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road as inspirations for Horizon. Could you give a brief introduction?
Author: Annam is about French Dominican missionaries who go to Vietnam. The novel is fast-paced and very beautiful. The characters are beautiful and noble, even under miserable circumstances. As you turn the pages, drunk on the sentences and the story and the vibe, what remains is the love of two people who you didn’t expect to fall in love. I wanted that love, what you can call the core of that novel, in my novel as well. With The Road, I borrowed what I wanted in my own apocalyptic narrative. Since The Road is, after all, about a father and his son, I was curious what would happen if the protagonists were women.
...
Translator: Something I’ve been curious about is that Jina has red hair and gray eyes. Much later in the novel, Dori wonders why Jina’s hair is red, but it goes unanswered, right? How did it happen? Is it dyed? Is she not Korean?
Author: I intended her to be mixed race. One of Jina’s grandparents or ancestors was a foreigner, but I didn’t explain that [in the novel]. The reason is . . . You know, there’s not a single person who thinks it’s weird for Jina and Dori to love each other. They just accept it. In the way that I simply presented queerness, I wanted to do the same for mixed-race identity and disability. I thought that the idea that this requires some kind of explanation was absurd.
See here - https://modernpoetryintranslation.com... - for an essay by the translator where they discuss the use of the term 언니.
Honford Star
Honford Star’s mission is to publish the best literature from East Asia, be it classic or contemporary ... By working with talented translators and exciting local artists, we hope to see more bookshelves containing beautiful editions of the East Asian literature we love.
Until this year their Korean literature had been classic literature from the 1st half of the 20th century:
Sweet Potato: Collected Short Stories by Kim Tongin, translated by Grace Jung:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Endless Blue Sky by Lee Hyoseok, translated by Steven Capener:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Underground Village by Kang Kyeong-ae, translated by Anton Hur
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
But for 2021, their K-lit focus turns to the contemporary, in terms of authors, and the future in terms of subject matter.
Tower, translated by Sang Ryu from the original 타워 by 배명훈 (Bae Myung-hoon) - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Cursed Bunny translated by Anton Hur from 저주토끼 by 정보라 (Bora Chung) - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And this novel
To the Warm Horizon translated by Soje from 해가 지는 곳으로 by 최진영 (Jin-Young Choi) -
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Honford Star’s mission statement refers to talented local artists, and the cover work is alway stunning. See here for the press's general approach: https://booksandbao.com/asian-cover-a....
It is also great to see the translators named on the front cover, and the Korean title and author’s name, written in 한글 (hangeul) on the flaps.
August 17, 2025
me ha gustado mucho!!! como amante de las historias apocalípticas esta es mi movida total 🩷 me encanta cuando q el virus quede en un segundo plano y que en realidad hable d personaa y sus inquietudes, q van más allá de vivir o morir. No le pongo 5 estrellas porque en cierto sentido me ha resultado que iba un poco a trompicones en la narración !! pero os lo recomiendo :))
Read
June 15, 2021I genuinely don't know how to rate this, it was the most depressing thing I've ever read and the super-high-mortality virus that brought about this dystopian world was the least depressing part of it.
I read this because it was sapphic and i liked that it was a look at a post apocalyptic world through a female lense and it chose to center the love between two women as its only hopeful point. But that felt so marginal in the face of every single POV woman getting raped and going through the worst type of violence that i don't know if this left me with any hope. I feel like i am walking away from this book with an even worse opinion of humanity than i did before reading it, and my opinion of humanity wasn't high to begin with.
On the other hand, it was well written (and well translated), and i can't say that i didn't, if not exactly enjoy it because enjoyment would be the most misplaced word to use here, at the very least like reading this. I also don't know anything about the fiction situation in Korea and have no means to judge whether this was just another dystopian-novel-but-queer or if this is groundbreaking and the first book of its kind published in Korea, and i feel like that would make it easier to form an opinion on this.
TWs: deadly virus pandemic, typical post apocalyptic conditions (violence, gun violence, war), rape and attempted rape, mention of suicide and suicidal ideations, mention of self harm, concentration camps, and probably a lot more... basically prepare for everything
I read this because it was sapphic and i liked that it was a look at a post apocalyptic world through a female lense and it chose to center the love between two women as its only hopeful point. But that felt so marginal in the face of every single POV woman getting raped and going through the worst type of violence that i don't know if this left me with any hope. I feel like i am walking away from this book with an even worse opinion of humanity than i did before reading it, and my opinion of humanity wasn't high to begin with.
On the other hand, it was well written (and well translated), and i can't say that i didn't, if not exactly enjoy it because enjoyment would be the most misplaced word to use here, at the very least like reading this. I also don't know anything about the fiction situation in Korea and have no means to judge whether this was just another dystopian-novel-but-queer or if this is groundbreaking and the first book of its kind published in Korea, and i feel like that would make it easier to form an opinion on this.
TWs: deadly virus pandemic, typical post apocalyptic conditions (violence, gun violence, war), rape and attempted rape, mention of suicide and suicidal ideations, mention of self harm, concentration camps, and probably a lot more... basically prepare for everything
July 3, 2025
Nunca pensé que una distopía, una historia post apocalíptica y con ciencia ficción podría tener luminosidad y amor.
Hay citas hermosas que se adaptan a los tiempos actuales aún ¿sin estar viviendo el fin del mundo?
Hay citas hermosas que se adaptan a los tiempos actuales aún ¿sin estar viviendo el fin del mundo?
October 16, 2025
En un mundo arrasado por una pandemia, un grupo de supervivientes emprende un viaje hacia el oeste, buscando un lugar donde el frío y la desesperanza no los alcancen. En ese paisaje devastado, donde la humanidad parece haberse borrado, surge entre los personajes un vínculo inesperado que les devuelve algo de calor en medio del caos. Sin entrar en detalles, la novela nos sitúa en una travesía tanto física como emocional, donde cada paso se convierte en una forma de resistencia ante la extinción.
La historia está llena de símbolos que apuntan a esa lucha por conservar lo humano cuando todo parece perdido. El horizonte cálido que buscan las protagonistas encarna la idea de un refugio, de un lugar (real o imaginario) hacia el que avanzar para no rendirse. Los pequeños objetos cotidianos, como un pintalabios o una postal navideña, adquieren un valor enorme porque conectan a los personajes con el pasado, con lo que eran antes del desastre. En medio de la nieve y la violencia, esos gestos mínimos (una sonrisa, un abrigo compartido, un recuerdo) se transforman en símbolos de esperanza, de una dignidad que se niega a desaparecer.
El estilo narrativo de Choi Jin-young es directo y sobrio, pero lleno de sensibilidad. Alterna las voces de varios personajes, permitiendo entender la historia desde distintos ángulos sin perder la tensión ni la intimidad. Su prosa no necesita adornos: transmite las emociones con una claridad que resulta casi dolorosa. El tono fluctúa entre la dureza más cruda y la ternura más inesperada, consiguiendo que incluso los momentos de horror estén atravesados por una cierta luz. Hay una belleza contenida en su manera de narrar, una voz que confía en nuestra empatía y en la fuerza de los silencios.
Leída hoy, después de haber vivido una pandemia real, la novela resuena de forma inevitable. Aunque fue escrita años antes del Covid, su visión del colapso global y del miedo al otro parece premonitoria. Jin-young no busca recrear la catástrofe en clave científica, sino explorar lo que queda de la moral y del amor cuando el mundo se derrumba. Tal vez por eso su historia resulta tan inquietante y tan humana a la vez: porque no habla solo del fin del mundo, sino del modo en que intentamos seguir siendo personas dentro de él.
Me ha conmovido profundamente, sobretodo porque me ha recordado a La carretera, de Cormac McCarthy, por esa mezcla de devastación y ternura que ambos autores logran transmitir. Hay escenas que se quedan grabadas por su sencillez, por lo que sugieren más que por lo que muestran. Sin embargo, me ha faltado cierta resolución: esa sensación de cierre que una historia tan intensa parece prometer y que la autora prefiere dejar suspendida en el aire. Aun así, la lectura me ha dejado una huella fuerte, como un eco que persiste. Es un libro que me ha hecho sentir y pensar a partes iguales.
A nivel editorial, de Shiro libros solo echo en falta las solapas que den rigidez a la cubierta, sin estas tiene un aspecto "barato" que para nada hace justicia al interior del libro, que es impecable.
La historia está llena de símbolos que apuntan a esa lucha por conservar lo humano cuando todo parece perdido. El horizonte cálido que buscan las protagonistas encarna la idea de un refugio, de un lugar (real o imaginario) hacia el que avanzar para no rendirse. Los pequeños objetos cotidianos, como un pintalabios o una postal navideña, adquieren un valor enorme porque conectan a los personajes con el pasado, con lo que eran antes del desastre. En medio de la nieve y la violencia, esos gestos mínimos (una sonrisa, un abrigo compartido, un recuerdo) se transforman en símbolos de esperanza, de una dignidad que se niega a desaparecer.
El estilo narrativo de Choi Jin-young es directo y sobrio, pero lleno de sensibilidad. Alterna las voces de varios personajes, permitiendo entender la historia desde distintos ángulos sin perder la tensión ni la intimidad. Su prosa no necesita adornos: transmite las emociones con una claridad que resulta casi dolorosa. El tono fluctúa entre la dureza más cruda y la ternura más inesperada, consiguiendo que incluso los momentos de horror estén atravesados por una cierta luz. Hay una belleza contenida en su manera de narrar, una voz que confía en nuestra empatía y en la fuerza de los silencios.
Leída hoy, después de haber vivido una pandemia real, la novela resuena de forma inevitable. Aunque fue escrita años antes del Covid, su visión del colapso global y del miedo al otro parece premonitoria. Jin-young no busca recrear la catástrofe en clave científica, sino explorar lo que queda de la moral y del amor cuando el mundo se derrumba. Tal vez por eso su historia resulta tan inquietante y tan humana a la vez: porque no habla solo del fin del mundo, sino del modo en que intentamos seguir siendo personas dentro de él.
Me ha conmovido profundamente, sobretodo porque me ha recordado a La carretera, de Cormac McCarthy, por esa mezcla de devastación y ternura que ambos autores logran transmitir. Hay escenas que se quedan grabadas por su sencillez, por lo que sugieren más que por lo que muestran. Sin embargo, me ha faltado cierta resolución: esa sensación de cierre que una historia tan intensa parece prometer y que la autora prefiere dejar suspendida en el aire. Aun así, la lectura me ha dejado una huella fuerte, como un eco que persiste. Es un libro que me ha hecho sentir y pensar a partes iguales.
A nivel editorial, de Shiro libros solo echo en falta las solapas que den rigidez a la cubierta, sin estas tiene un aspecto "barato" que para nada hace justicia al interior del libro, que es impecable.
March 20, 2025
I, who is in the biggest reading slump, read this in one sitting!
To the Warm Horizon is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel originally written in Korean and the first queer novel to be translated into English. A pandemic has erupted overnight. In Korea, there are 100,000 deaths in one day and 500,000 the next, with the virus mutating with every new vaccine. The world as we know it has collapsed. And this new world is dangerous, bleak, and illogical—with some people even believing that eating the livers of children will provide immunity.
We meet four characters as they make their way across Russia in the winter—Ryu, Dori, Jina, and Gunji. Told in alternating POVs, as a reader, we are mostly left in the same dilemma as these characters—uniformed and disoriented. We only see small glimpses into their past lives and left with their present but fragile mindset as they remember, regret, analyze, plan, and live through this nightmare. We are never given the full picture of how they get to Russia or what their lives were truly like before the pandemic. We only experience the terror, violence, and grief of their new world.
And while I can see how this may be a bother for some readers, it had the opposite effect on me. I was both too frightened and captivated to look away. Frightened by the unknown and ugliness of humanity, but captivated by the grit and love of these characters. The author’s decision to strip the story of plot explanations felt purposeful and ultimately impactful for me as a reader. I felt the same foreboding as the characters and therefore wished for Dori and Jina to make it. Their love story isn’t an epic, but when set against the end of the world we are reminded that love is both delicate and resilient, just like human life. But more than the love story, this novel introduces marginalized characters in Korean society—queer, mixed-race, and disabled.
Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, this one is grim and bleak. But, it reminds us that people, whatever they look like or whoever they are, will find a way to exist and love.
CW: gun violence, violence, rape (off page), misogyny, war, death
To the Warm Horizon is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel originally written in Korean and the first queer novel to be translated into English. A pandemic has erupted overnight. In Korea, there are 100,000 deaths in one day and 500,000 the next, with the virus mutating with every new vaccine. The world as we know it has collapsed. And this new world is dangerous, bleak, and illogical—with some people even believing that eating the livers of children will provide immunity.
We meet four characters as they make their way across Russia in the winter—Ryu, Dori, Jina, and Gunji. Told in alternating POVs, as a reader, we are mostly left in the same dilemma as these characters—uniformed and disoriented. We only see small glimpses into their past lives and left with their present but fragile mindset as they remember, regret, analyze, plan, and live through this nightmare. We are never given the full picture of how they get to Russia or what their lives were truly like before the pandemic. We only experience the terror, violence, and grief of their new world.
And while I can see how this may be a bother for some readers, it had the opposite effect on me. I was both too frightened and captivated to look away. Frightened by the unknown and ugliness of humanity, but captivated by the grit and love of these characters. The author’s decision to strip the story of plot explanations felt purposeful and ultimately impactful for me as a reader. I felt the same foreboding as the characters and therefore wished for Dori and Jina to make it. Their love story isn’t an epic, but when set against the end of the world we are reminded that love is both delicate and resilient, just like human life. But more than the love story, this novel introduces marginalized characters in Korean society—queer, mixed-race, and disabled.
Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, this one is grim and bleak. But, it reminds us that people, whatever they look like or whoever they are, will find a way to exist and love.
CW: gun violence, violence, rape (off page), misogyny, war, death
March 6, 2022
I had high expectations for this one (I blame the gorgeous cover), but it felt sort of pointless? It was very but not really character-focused, yet I did not understand anybody's goals, strategies, or logic.
I felt Choi did not give us a good enough description of the dystopian scene either - it felt they all needed to be desperate, but why? The main character had the chance to get food and only grabbed a couple of cans, I guess food is not an issue. There is a virus killing everyone, but there's no information about the symptoms nor how people get it. I don't get why people were leaving their countries, I don't get why people moved in groups, I don't get the new "international conflict" that is mentioned at the end, etc. I felt this lacked world-building and otherwise if this had had a desperate landscape or a proper explanation about what was happening in the world (rather than just a paragraph that had no logic, in my personal opinion), this would be really good.
Before I leave this sad review here, I just want to mention the translator Soje is awesome and she has this really cool e-zine named Chogwa that y'all should check out. It has Korean-to-English translators doing their own take at the same poem/work, and it's super interesting how the way they interpret it impacts the words they pick. I really wanted to love this because I think Soje is such a cool individual, but I hope the next work I choose (translated by her) rocks my world.
Trigger warnings:
I felt Choi did not give us a good enough description of the dystopian scene either - it felt they all needed to be desperate, but why? The main character had the chance to get food and only grabbed a couple of cans, I guess food is not an issue. There is a virus killing everyone, but there's no information about the symptoms nor how people get it. I don't get why people were leaving their countries, I don't get why people moved in groups, I don't get the new "international conflict" that is mentioned at the end, etc. I felt this lacked world-building and otherwise if this had had a desperate landscape or a proper explanation about what was happening in the world (rather than just a paragraph that had no logic, in my personal opinion), this would be really good.
Before I leave this sad review here, I just want to mention the translator Soje is awesome and she has this really cool e-zine named Chogwa that y'all should check out. It has Korean-to-English translators doing their own take at the same poem/work, and it's super interesting how the way they interpret it impacts the words they pick. I really wanted to love this because I think Soje is such a cool individual, but I hope the next work I choose (translated by her) rocks my world.
Trigger warnings:
February 18, 2023
I’m going to survive very quietly. I’ll protect good things until I die.
Oooof. This was very bleak, but it has to be one of my favourite pieces of translated fiction I've ever consumed, just in terms of the writing. The plot concerns a near future dystopia, where the world has fallen to pieces after a global pandemic (this was written in 2017; yikes!) Everything is anarchy, and we're following various characters as they flee Korea and travel around Europe and try to survive. I don't think this is spectacularly written or anything (in fact, it has quite a lot of my formatting nitpicks and I'm surprised I was able to even read it) but something about the way the author phrased certain ideas or came at a concept very simply would often really get to me. In some ways, you could tell it was translated, because things would sometimes be phrased in a really specific way that I've never seen before? And idk, I love stuff like that.
Fearing separation, we embraced to become one, as if to show each other our bare hearts, as if to check what this was before naming it. As if sharing each other in this way was our only hope brushing past us.
The narrative is very disjointed; you don't get a very concrete sense of time, and we jump from different POVs without any real order to it. That did fit the mood though, with all the chaos and the pain. There's a really wonderful f/f love story in here, and I'm also weak for narratives about finding love in bleak situations. So many horrible things happened, and it was written about so starkly, but Dori and Jina's story really touched me. I also adored the sisterly bonds in here, as well as Ryu ruminating about her life as a wife and mother. So many great little gems of writing contained in this little book. (Also, now I'm super curious to read 'Annam'.) I'm glad I'm in a place now where I can read this kind of dark pandemic fiction; this was pretty special. Kudos to the translation for keeping the nuance of what I'm sure was already a very skilfully written book in the original Korean. I don't know if I can really recommend this for the plot (the timeline and the way things fell out didn't seem the most plausible) but I just really liked the writing.
Content warnings:
What could I ask of Joy in my dying moment? I love you. I will ask her to look after love.
May 12, 2021
KBS Korea 24 @KBSKorea24
“On #KoreaBookClub, @BarryPWelsh shares #ChoiJinyoung's '#TotheWarmHorizon,' a #queer #lovestory "set against the backdrop of a #dystopian, #postapocalyptic world." Originally published in 2017, the gripping story takes place after humanity is devastated by a deadly #pandemic. The English @honfordstar version was translated by #literarytranslator @sojeflux, and Barry also talks about an interview with Choi and Soje that delves into the inspirations behind the #novel. Tune in”
19:10-20:00 KST, Mon-Fri on KBS WORLD Radio.
Download the KBS Kong / KBS WORLD Radio Mobile apps or subscribe to the Korea 24 podcast for your daily updates!
#KBSWORLDRadio #KBS월드라디오 #Korea24 #코리아24 #책스타그램 #북스타그램 #bookstagram #book #reading #최진영 #해가지는곳으로 #Koreanliterature #queerliterature #KoreanLiterature
(http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/progra...)
“On #KoreaBookClub, @BarryPWelsh shares #ChoiJinyoung's '#TotheWarmHorizon,' a #queer #lovestory "set against the backdrop of a #dystopian, #postapocalyptic world." Originally published in 2017, the gripping story takes place after humanity is devastated by a deadly #pandemic. The English @honfordstar version was translated by #literarytranslator @sojeflux, and Barry also talks about an interview with Choi and Soje that delves into the inspirations behind the #novel. Tune in”
19:10-20:00 KST, Mon-Fri on KBS WORLD Radio.
Download the KBS Kong / KBS WORLD Radio Mobile apps or subscribe to the Korea 24 podcast for your daily updates!
#KBSWORLDRadio #KBS월드라디오 #Korea24 #코리아24 #책스타그램 #북스타그램 #bookstagram #book #reading #최진영 #해가지는곳으로 #Koreanliterature #queerliterature #KoreanLiterature
(http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/progra...)
June 28, 2022
Rep: Korean cast, sapphic mcs
CWs: rape, violence
CWs: rape, violence
Read
April 15, 2025Además de que las historias de supervivencia y apocalipsis tengan un huequito cálido en mi corazón siempre, este libro hace una cosa muy tierna y concreta a la que le tengo un cariño especial, que, además, me hace pensar mucho en la posibilidad del afecto incluso en los terrenos más hostiles, en los restos de la humanidad y la capacidad de vislumbrar la belleza en los peores escenarios, dentro de la violencia y el dolor, dentro del horror del que uno mismo es capaz.
Llegó a mí en un buen momento, en el que estaba (y sigo estando) especialmente sensible hacia la amabilidad del mundo, dispuesta a recibirla, a apreciarla y a agradecerla. Espero y deseo de corazón que mucha gente lea esto y lo mire con el mismo cariño.
Llegó a mí en un buen momento, en el que estaba (y sigo estando) especialmente sensible hacia la amabilidad del mundo, dispuesta a recibirla, a apreciarla y a agradecerla. Espero y deseo de corazón que mucha gente lea esto y lo mire con el mismo cariño.
June 28, 2025
A: ¿Cuántas veces has pensado en lo que harías si colapsara el mundo, si pareciera que ha llegado el fin?
Conforme acompañas a las protagonistas de esta novela distópica —unas hermanas, un matrimonio, una chica de pelo rojo y su familia— aceptas con naturalidad la verosimilitud de los hechos, crece la tensión y la intriga, sientes miedo ante lo realista y cercano que es lo que se narra. Y eso último es para mí su gran acierto: es realista porque es humano, porque en mitad del caos nos está hablando de lo que somos, de los momentos que nos componen, de lo que es estar vivo. La disección de Choi Jin-young es precisa y nos reconocemos en ella.
Conforme acompañas a las protagonistas de esta novela distópica —unas hermanas, un matrimonio, una chica de pelo rojo y su familia— aceptas con naturalidad la verosimilitud de los hechos, crece la tensión y la intriga, sientes miedo ante lo realista y cercano que es lo que se narra. Y eso último es para mí su gran acierto: es realista porque es humano, porque en mitad del caos nos está hablando de lo que somos, de los momentos que nos componen, de lo que es estar vivo. La disección de Choi Jin-young es precisa y nos reconocemos en ella.
July 27, 2025
Dori, Miso, Jina, Geonji in another universe you are all happy together.
May 3, 2021
When strangers meet on the road, on the run from a disease, a lot can happen. While some are able to salvage what’s left of their humanity, others play the game of survival in hopes of a better future. The further the story progresses, the more you and some of the characters in the book wonder if there is no other way. It’s interesting to see what such a harsh situation does to one’s character, morals and dreams. You can’t follow the transformations in full detail, the book is too short for that, but you can compare the different outcomes.
Most characters mourn their lost lives, but some suddenly feel alive and kicking because they escaped a miserable situation at home. Those who stick to their dreams draw strength from that and follow their own path. The newfound simplicity gives them a sense of relief and they find that they are now able to pay attention to their loved ones. Others are absorbed in the status quo and do what everyone else does to survive. None of the main characters reaches the end of the book without a scratch.
To a Better Place
The story is slow-paced. The characters keep heading for a “better place” during a Russian winter. No one ages and time does not pass in increments of days and years. The idea of a dystopian world struck by disease is not a new concept and has been done many times before. It was up to the characters to make it a gripping story, but it took them quite a while to reach me. By the time they did, near the epilogue, it was too late. That epilogue, however, was very good.
Prolong their suffering?
The middle of the story was weaker. I liked the voices of Ryu, Joy and Gunji more than Dori and Jina. When Dori was drawn to Jina at the beginning of the book, it was a bit sudden because you had only just met her without knowing much about her. Jina’s attraction to Dori was easier to accept because it was stated more explicitly. I think the book was too short for their story and they needed more words to properly share their feelings with the reader. Gunji’s account of what happened to Dori should not have hit me harder than Jina’s or Dori’s.
To the Warm Horizon is a good example of a book whose ending you don’t really want to get to because the hardships get worse with each page. But as long as some people have dreams and are able to love, there is hope. If I ever find myself in a situation like this, I think I’ll just stay home instead of hiking into Russia.
Conclusion
To the Warm Horizon was a little disappointing for me. If Ryu or Joy had been the narrator of the entire book, I would have liked it better because I was more interested in what they had to say.
Most characters mourn their lost lives, but some suddenly feel alive and kicking because they escaped a miserable situation at home. Those who stick to their dreams draw strength from that and follow their own path. The newfound simplicity gives them a sense of relief and they find that they are now able to pay attention to their loved ones. Others are absorbed in the status quo and do what everyone else does to survive. None of the main characters reaches the end of the book without a scratch.
To a Better Place
The story is slow-paced. The characters keep heading for a “better place” during a Russian winter. No one ages and time does not pass in increments of days and years. The idea of a dystopian world struck by disease is not a new concept and has been done many times before. It was up to the characters to make it a gripping story, but it took them quite a while to reach me. By the time they did, near the epilogue, it was too late. That epilogue, however, was very good.
Prolong their suffering?
The middle of the story was weaker. I liked the voices of Ryu, Joy and Gunji more than Dori and Jina. When Dori was drawn to Jina at the beginning of the book, it was a bit sudden because you had only just met her without knowing much about her. Jina’s attraction to Dori was easier to accept because it was stated more explicitly. I think the book was too short for their story and they needed more words to properly share their feelings with the reader. Gunji’s account of what happened to Dori should not have hit me harder than Jina’s or Dori’s.
To the Warm Horizon is a good example of a book whose ending you don’t really want to get to because the hardships get worse with each page. But as long as some people have dreams and are able to love, there is hope. If I ever find myself in a situation like this, I think I’ll just stay home instead of hiking into Russia.
Conclusion
To the Warm Horizon was a little disappointing for me. If Ryu or Joy had been the narrator of the entire book, I would have liked it better because I was more interested in what they had to say.
June 6, 2021
I’m not a fan of dystopian novels, so I was surprised that I enjoyed this novel.
Fleeing S. Korea, after a swift moving pandemic turns civilization into a Mad Max style survival of the fittest and most brutal, are Dori, hardened after losing both parents, and traveling alone with her beloved young sister Joy, stealing, even killing to keep herself and Joy alive; Ryu, a jaded, harried working mother who drives out of Korea with her husband and young son, after burying their daughter; Jina, traveling with her tyrannical, ruthless father and what remains of their extended family, and Gunji, the bullied boy from school that Jina begs her father to allow in the box trucks loaded with food, water, gasoline and guns as they all travel in search of safety, not knowing if or where they might find it.
This is the first LGBTQ novel translated from Korean and the heart of the novel is the love between Jina and Dori. The story is well written and well paced as the groups each face their own struggles to survive and to find direction, but what drives the stories of each group are not the expected skirmishes for food, fuel, and shelter, but the battles for love: Jina’s fierce battle to maintain her belief in the goodness of people, especially her father, Dori’s struggle to allow herself to love Jina, Gunji’s need to love himself, and Ryu finding that after losing her home, job, security, and daughter, that there is something more important than life and death: it’s making sure her son and husband know that she loves them.
It’s probably more of a 3.5 novel, but for me to enjoy a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel it has to be good, so I rounded up to a 4 and can honestly recommend it.
Fleeing S. Korea, after a swift moving pandemic turns civilization into a Mad Max style survival of the fittest and most brutal, are Dori, hardened after losing both parents, and traveling alone with her beloved young sister Joy, stealing, even killing to keep herself and Joy alive; Ryu, a jaded, harried working mother who drives out of Korea with her husband and young son, after burying their daughter; Jina, traveling with her tyrannical, ruthless father and what remains of their extended family, and Gunji, the bullied boy from school that Jina begs her father to allow in the box trucks loaded with food, water, gasoline and guns as they all travel in search of safety, not knowing if or where they might find it.
This is the first LGBTQ novel translated from Korean and the heart of the novel is the love between Jina and Dori. The story is well written and well paced as the groups each face their own struggles to survive and to find direction, but what drives the stories of each group are not the expected skirmishes for food, fuel, and shelter, but the battles for love: Jina’s fierce battle to maintain her belief in the goodness of people, especially her father, Dori’s struggle to allow herself to love Jina, Gunji’s need to love himself, and Ryu finding that after losing her home, job, security, and daughter, that there is something more important than life and death: it’s making sure her son and husband know that she loves them.
It’s probably more of a 3.5 novel, but for me to enjoy a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel it has to be good, so I rounded up to a 4 and can honestly recommend it.
July 5, 2025
Distopía asiática con ecos de "The last of us" y "Soy leyenda", un virus letal mutante que está aniquilando a la humanidad, una cruel lucha por la supervivencia... son algunas de las cosas que habían dicho de este libro. Yo obviamente me tiré de cabeza, y más viniendo de @shirolibros que ya sabemos que es calidad, y sí, creo que es una descripción bastante acertada, aunque desde luego es mucho, muchísimo más que eso.
A través de las voces de algunos personajes que se van alternando asistimos a este fin apocalíptico en el que los pocos supervivientes a la enfermedad inician un viaje de huida, en busca de la salvación o de un lugar seguro. Durante el camino, y a través de todas las situaciones que viven, se pone de manifiesto el cómo reaccionamos los seres humanos ante la desesperación y cómo se activa el instinto de supervivencia sobre todo lo demás. Hay violencia, miedo, desconfianza y egoísmo. Pero también quedan algunos resquicios de bondad y generosidad.
Para mí el punto fuerte, sin duda, son los personajes, su evolución, los vínculos que se crean y la forma en que se van transformando, sus luces y sombras, las dudas, los sueños y promesas, las cargas y heridas que les acompañan o forman parte de ellos, su pasado y tal vez un posible futuro... Son de esos que se quedan dentro y no olvidas. La narración es tan dura y desoladora como cercana y bella, cada diálogo, cada reflexión me ha conquistado. Ha sido como encontrar una pequeña joya inesperada, ¡ojalá lo leáis!
A través de las voces de algunos personajes que se van alternando asistimos a este fin apocalíptico en el que los pocos supervivientes a la enfermedad inician un viaje de huida, en busca de la salvación o de un lugar seguro. Durante el camino, y a través de todas las situaciones que viven, se pone de manifiesto el cómo reaccionamos los seres humanos ante la desesperación y cómo se activa el instinto de supervivencia sobre todo lo demás. Hay violencia, miedo, desconfianza y egoísmo. Pero también quedan algunos resquicios de bondad y generosidad.
Para mí el punto fuerte, sin duda, son los personajes, su evolución, los vínculos que se crean y la forma en que se van transformando, sus luces y sombras, las dudas, los sueños y promesas, las cargas y heridas que les acompañan o forman parte de ellos, su pasado y tal vez un posible futuro... Son de esos que se quedan dentro y no olvidas. La narración es tan dura y desoladora como cercana y bella, cada diálogo, cada reflexión me ha conquistado. Ha sido como encontrar una pequeña joya inesperada, ¡ojalá lo leáis!
August 22, 2021
I liked how there's no neat resolution for any of the characters in this story. It's a fairly standard take, but with compelling, mainly young, main characters, on the post-apocalyptic genre, and your enjoyment of it might depend on how much patience you have for that fact. I'm not very invested in genre, especially science fiction, anymore, so one thought that kept striking me was that something like this doesn't feel as vital or urgent as the dystopias or novels of collapse written when these things hadn't become tropes. Books like JG Ballard's early novels. At this point, over a century of genre fiction has failed to prepare us in any meaningful way for an age of climate catastrophe and a raging pandemic, so I'm inclined to take a novel like this a lot less seriously than I once did. There's a lot about love towards the end, but at least it's mostly balanced out by lack of clear happy-ever-afters. The translation felt clunky at times, rendered in an unlovely and very American English, but there are nuances of human insight in the original that shine through in places, suggesting an author with a subtle intelligence to go with her imagination.
June 14, 2024
Absolutely devastating...I loved it.
February 15, 2024
I can’t overstate how disappointed I am in this book. It has an absolutely killer premise: a post-apocalyptic sapphic love story where two women come together despite the horrors of a desperate humanity. But the world made no sense, with each new detail creating more questions. I won’t list all of my questions to avoid being tedious but the virus apocalypse and it’s aftermath made no sense, and the human behavior in this story made no sense. People did things for absolutely no reason for 170 pages and then it ended.
So maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense? Maybe it was all a metaphor for the chaos of the human existence as a backdrop to a queer couple finding strength in each other? If that was the case you’d think the relationship would be more developed, but it was extremely simplistic. Girl meets girl, girl protects girl, girl gives nice gifts to girl, girls are separated, girls are later reunited, the end. It was cute, I’ll give it that, but I gained nothing.
Also this book is less than 200 pages and alternates between five different perspectives. Also the prose is clinical and removed. Also these Korean characters keep meeting other Korean people in the post-apocalyptic Russian countryside and that doesn’t make any sense. Also people keep getting raped for no reason.
I didn’t like this book.
So maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense? Maybe it was all a metaphor for the chaos of the human existence as a backdrop to a queer couple finding strength in each other? If that was the case you’d think the relationship would be more developed, but it was extremely simplistic. Girl meets girl, girl protects girl, girl gives nice gifts to girl, girls are separated, girls are later reunited, the end. It was cute, I’ll give it that, but I gained nothing.
Also this book is less than 200 pages and alternates between five different perspectives. Also the prose is clinical and removed. Also these Korean characters keep meeting other Korean people in the post-apocalyptic Russian countryside and that doesn’t make any sense. Also people keep getting raped for no reason.
I didn’t like this book.
August 28, 2022
This was so beautifully written I didn't mind anymore reading an apocalyptic book (I thought it would be a fluffy read - that's what you get for not reading synopses).
The characters were endearing always thinking about their situation, life before and what it meant to be alive. There were the cruelties you come to expect from apocalyptic writing, but it was just mentioned and not drawn out in long detailed descriptions, which I clearly appreciated.
The characters were endearing always thinking about their situation, life before and what it meant to be alive. There were the cruelties you come to expect from apocalyptic writing, but it was just mentioned and not drawn out in long detailed descriptions, which I clearly appreciated.
May 31, 2025
książka o najgorszych instynktach, które budzą się w ludziach w sytuacjach skrajnego zagrożenia życia i o poszukiwaniu nadziei w tym ciężkim czasie
jej bezpośredniość boli, ale też uświadamia wiele rzeczy
4/5, bo myślę, że w dłuższej formie ta historia mogłaby wybrzmieć jeszcze lepiej
jej bezpośredniość boli, ale też uświadamia wiele rzeczy
4/5, bo myślę, że w dłuższej formie ta historia mogłaby wybrzmieć jeszcze lepiej
Read
March 21, 2025this was different than what i was expecting, but still fun and interesting
September 17, 2025
Wspaniała. Mocna.
Jak pozbieram wszystkie myśli to wrócę z lepszą recenzją, na ten moment napiszę tylko: jeśli szukacie dystopii nie o walce ze złym systemem, a takiej która pokazuje jak dystopijna rzeczywistość wpływa na zwykłych szarych ludzi, to będzie to lektura idealna.
Po prostu przeczytajcie.
Jak pozbieram wszystkie myśli to wrócę z lepszą recenzją, na ten moment napiszę tylko: jeśli szukacie dystopii nie o walce ze złym systemem, a takiej która pokazuje jak dystopijna rzeczywistość wpływa na zwykłych szarych ludzi, to będzie to lektura idealna.
Po prostu przeczytajcie.
September 16, 2025
HACIA DONDE SE PONE EL SOL de Choi Jin-Young
“¿Què dia sería hoy? ¿Habría empezado nuevo año? Ahora esas cosas ya no significan nada. Caminamos por el corazón del invierno. Aquí nadie cumple años y el tiempo no se mide por fechas.”
Faig la primera ressenya del mes de setembre amb un escenari postapocalíptic. Un virus letal ha segat la vida de la humanitat.
La història arrenca a Corea: “¿Has oído hablar de Corea?”. La Ryu, la Jina, el Geongi, la Dori i la seva germana petita, la Miso, fugiran de la certesa del no-res, cap a un destí incert i les seves vides es creuaran en el decurs del viatge.
Una novel·la polifònica, que ofereix diferents òptiques de les conseqüències d’un món devastat i alhora deshumanitzat que, com sempre, la pitjor part se l’enduen els nens i les dones.
M’ha agradat molt com l’autora obre la porta de la ment dels personatges, del seu passat i del present. Les llums, les ombres i el que cadascun d’ells representa: el coratge, la lluita, la tendresa, el futur, l’esperança, l’ambigüitat, l’amor, el dolor, la fredor. La incapacitat de protegir als que estimes.
La por i la desesperació et poden dur a l’amor? O a la barbàrie? La família et protegirà o esdevindrà el botxí?
L’autora fa un relat intimista que convida a la reflexió, et deixa un regust agredolç i unes espurnes d’esperança.
No espereu cap escena èpica, ni grans escenaris: Un hivern gèlid a Rússia.
A mi no en calen més ingredients.
Si t’agrada la literatura coreana on les dones prenen el protagonisme, els textos sense gaire retòrica i no necessites que tot estigui ben relligat, aquest llibre podria ser un encert per a tu.
No cal dir que @shirolibros , sempre és una garantia.🤗
Amb aquesta lectura faig una aportació al #setembredistòpic que, en aquest cas seria un setembre postapocalíptic, 😅 impulsat per la @lleixa84 💛
L’heu llegit? Us interessa aquesta autora?🤔
“¿Què dia sería hoy? ¿Habría empezado nuevo año? Ahora esas cosas ya no significan nada. Caminamos por el corazón del invierno. Aquí nadie cumple años y el tiempo no se mide por fechas.”
Faig la primera ressenya del mes de setembre amb un escenari postapocalíptic. Un virus letal ha segat la vida de la humanitat.
La història arrenca a Corea: “¿Has oído hablar de Corea?”. La Ryu, la Jina, el Geongi, la Dori i la seva germana petita, la Miso, fugiran de la certesa del no-res, cap a un destí incert i les seves vides es creuaran en el decurs del viatge.
Una novel·la polifònica, que ofereix diferents òptiques de les conseqüències d’un món devastat i alhora deshumanitzat que, com sempre, la pitjor part se l’enduen els nens i les dones.
M’ha agradat molt com l’autora obre la porta de la ment dels personatges, del seu passat i del present. Les llums, les ombres i el que cadascun d’ells representa: el coratge, la lluita, la tendresa, el futur, l’esperança, l’ambigüitat, l’amor, el dolor, la fredor. La incapacitat de protegir als que estimes.
La por i la desesperació et poden dur a l’amor? O a la barbàrie? La família et protegirà o esdevindrà el botxí?
L’autora fa un relat intimista que convida a la reflexió, et deixa un regust agredolç i unes espurnes d’esperança.
No espereu cap escena èpica, ni grans escenaris: Un hivern gèlid a Rússia.
A mi no en calen més ingredients.
Si t’agrada la literatura coreana on les dones prenen el protagonisme, els textos sense gaire retòrica i no necessites que tot estigui ben relligat, aquest llibre podria ser un encert per a tu.
No cal dir que @shirolibros , sempre és una garantia.🤗
Amb aquesta lectura faig una aportació al #setembredistòpic que, en aquest cas seria un setembre postapocalíptic, 😅 impulsat per la @lleixa84 💛
L’heu llegit? Us interessa aquesta autora?🤔
Read
January 19, 2023i have.... no idea how to feel.
people who were with me today or reading my messages as i progressed through this are definitely wondering why the hell this is on my favorites shelf. Read the review YOU'LL UNDERSTAND IM SORRY
I saw a couple other reviews that also could not star rate this book, and i agree - it would be impossible to encapsulate how this book made me feel and how much i liked it on a five-star rating. Honestly, even if you gave me 100 stars and told me to rate it out of 100, i don't think i could. This is somehow the most amazing book I've ever read, a book that ripped my entire perception of "living" to pieces. This is a book i couldn't put down and read in one day, and also a book that i never want to think about again.
All things considered, this book is horrific. it's graphic, disgusting, raw, and real. The best way I can describe it is a book that omits all pacifying details of what could possibly be the cause of what's happening and leaves the reader in the exact same situation as the characters - not knowing ANYTHING. I did not know anything about the virus, the apocalypse, how ANYONE got to Russia, none of that. The author selectively removes these details, so if Jina, Joy, Dori, Ryu and Genji don't know it, we don't either. And it works. The raw fear that the characters feel is SO believable, because we don't know any better! The tense use is so careful and cultivated and it just makes so so so much sense all the time. While reading you'll have no idea what is going on. that is also... exactly how all the characters feel. The character work was just done so well. If any of these characters had been even a tiny bit more bland reading this would have been unbearable because of how heavily we rely on how they feel, act, and what they do. you're able to fill in the gaps that are intentionally left by the author and suddenly the characters are just so real.(which makes it worse when all the bad things that could possibly happen to them.... happens to them)
I was so completely immersed throughout the book.. for good and bad. Nothing is sugarcoated. There are no words that are left out (TRANSLATOR DID SUCH A GOOD JOB). tbh this makes it..... not a very enjoyable read. i was constantly crying to my friends about how terrible and miserable this book made me feel but HONESTLY? that's what the writer did well. In no way is "To the Warm Horizon" supposed to be a cozy, nice, fluffy story. and i guess i hated it for that? But I didn't hate it. This story worked for me more than anything else ever has because it's just so SEPARATE from the "show don't tell" style because we are not only being TOLD EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING to the characters, we are also being shown, and since we have no leverage or knowledge to cushion that fall, we are also feeling it. honestly props to this author. i cried SO MUCH
Ok now on to the actual story.
One this is not pleasant. this is not happy. Idk if y'all are getting roped in by some review about HOPE but the despair is so bluntly in your face for the majority of the story. If you're looking for some post-apocalyptic banding together found family story you have not found it. This is a story about losing everyone, and holding on to the last shreds of humanity you have left. our main cast does a pretty good job of that (sort of.) but I couldn't say the same for the rest of the world. Basically every bad thing that could happen happens. It's pretty standard as to a post-apocalyptic narrative, but what actually made this book so different is the storytelling and the characters.
I'm only going to go thru the characters I feel like I could make a useful commentary
First:Ryu. She's the first character we're introduced to, and honestly, I was not that interested in her for the first like quarter of the story. But once you get into it, you'll see that she's all about regret, and it's just so so sad. She had the most detail added to her life back in Korea, and it's certainly not something to skip past. The way she handled her life and comes to regret it is wrapped so beautifully with her inconclusive ending at the back half of the book.
Next: Dori. The best way I can describe Dori is unbelievably strong. Dori goes through hell and back. she watches her mother die, her father killed, and somehow gets her and her sister all the way to Russia. She has this attitude of mistrust, and it works for her. She and Joy survive being the only two in the world, but the worst starts to happen when Dori begins to trust in others. The question that she ends up asking throughout her chapters is, is the suffering worth it for love? Is what Dori gave up, a life solely based on survival with Joy, worth it to be with Jina? It's definitely an interesting narrative.
Finally: Jina. Jina was the character I was just so invested in. I don't know what it was, if she reminded me of myself, if I just connected with her because she was the only character who came into the book with the most humanity left in her. Her backstory, besides memories of her mother, is barely elaborated on: this is what is most fascinating. Her story within the book and even what is revisited from her past is based on others, how they associated with her, how others interacted with her. This is why her journey throughout the story is so incredibly important. I'm able to characterize her by the way she speaks, by the way Dori talks about her, by the way she looks and thinks about others. Jina changes a lot through the book - her perceptions of trust and love change drastically. But the biggest part is how she stays the same. As Jina faces traumatic event after traumatic event (tw: rape and assault here, actually just the whole book tbh), somehow, against all odds, she still is the same kind soul. How she interacts with Ryu specifically towards the end of the book melted my heart. I have honestly no idea how she lived through that and while being undeniably changed, still stayed true to her values. I LOVE U KWON JINA
Ok one last part. The concept of love in this world seems absolutely impossible. And you can clearly see the two extremes here: Ryu and Dan, who are able to admit they're not in love, but still need each other (or at least, Ryu's able to admit that to herself), and Jina and Dori, who are able to love each other in the most hellish landscape possible. This is just so representative to me - how, even after the world is destroying itself from inside out, people are able to indulge in love like this? Jina and Dori are so far separated for a big portion of the book, but how they feel really never changes. It's definitely not an empty or desperate kind of love. I might be describing this strangely but it's just very special. Another thing I want to mention that a lot of reviewers I saw didn't talk about is Gunji's "unrequited love" for Jina. It's something that's touched upon in the chapters that he has alone. This was something very interesting to me. Gunji feels as if he was saved by Jina, saved from himself and saved from remaining in Korea, where he had been tortured and bullied all his life. He calls this his love for Jina. But what he realizes at the very end is that he's not waiting for Jina's love - he is fine loving her all on his own. This is some kind of lonely love that also seems impossible in the world this story is set in, and it's appropriately set against this strange, eye-of-the-storm utopian backdrop that Gunji finds himself in at the end of the story (that I would not be surprised to find that it was a metaphor for something else)
conclusion:
MISERABLE, MISERABLE BOOK + sapphic rep, disabled rep, and mixed race korean rep???? i ate it up even tho i was lowkey dying through the whole book
most depressing shit i've EVER READ. be prepared to like feel the exact shit the characters feel. i do not recommend this book if ur going thru something
ok also I HOPE KWON JINA'S FATHER NEVER SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY
Also the end of the book is kind of a band aid but also basically an open wound like what happened to gunji and joy sorry I was busy with the waterfalls coming from my eyes
people who were with me today or reading my messages as i progressed through this are definitely wondering why the hell this is on my favorites shelf. Read the review YOU'LL UNDERSTAND IM SORRY
I saw a couple other reviews that also could not star rate this book, and i agree - it would be impossible to encapsulate how this book made me feel and how much i liked it on a five-star rating. Honestly, even if you gave me 100 stars and told me to rate it out of 100, i don't think i could. This is somehow the most amazing book I've ever read, a book that ripped my entire perception of "living" to pieces. This is a book i couldn't put down and read in one day, and also a book that i never want to think about again.
All things considered, this book is horrific. it's graphic, disgusting, raw, and real. The best way I can describe it is a book that omits all pacifying details of what could possibly be the cause of what's happening and leaves the reader in the exact same situation as the characters - not knowing ANYTHING. I did not know anything about the virus, the apocalypse, how ANYONE got to Russia, none of that. The author selectively removes these details, so if Jina, Joy, Dori, Ryu and Genji don't know it, we don't either. And it works. The raw fear that the characters feel is SO believable, because we don't know any better! The tense use is so careful and cultivated and it just makes so so so much sense all the time. While reading you'll have no idea what is going on. that is also... exactly how all the characters feel. The character work was just done so well. If any of these characters had been even a tiny bit more bland reading this would have been unbearable because of how heavily we rely on how they feel, act, and what they do. you're able to fill in the gaps that are intentionally left by the author and suddenly the characters are just so real.(which makes it worse when all the bad things that could possibly happen to them.... happens to them)
I was so completely immersed throughout the book.. for good and bad. Nothing is sugarcoated. There are no words that are left out (TRANSLATOR DID SUCH A GOOD JOB). tbh this makes it..... not a very enjoyable read. i was constantly crying to my friends about how terrible and miserable this book made me feel but HONESTLY? that's what the writer did well. In no way is "To the Warm Horizon" supposed to be a cozy, nice, fluffy story. and i guess i hated it for that? But I didn't hate it. This story worked for me more than anything else ever has because it's just so SEPARATE from the "show don't tell" style because we are not only being TOLD EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING to the characters, we are also being shown, and since we have no leverage or knowledge to cushion that fall, we are also feeling it. honestly props to this author. i cried SO MUCH
Ok now on to the actual story.
One this is not pleasant. this is not happy. Idk if y'all are getting roped in by some review about HOPE but the despair is so bluntly in your face for the majority of the story. If you're looking for some post-apocalyptic banding together found family story you have not found it. This is a story about losing everyone, and holding on to the last shreds of humanity you have left. our main cast does a pretty good job of that (sort of.) but I couldn't say the same for the rest of the world. Basically every bad thing that could happen happens. It's pretty standard as to a post-apocalyptic narrative, but what actually made this book so different is the storytelling and the characters.
I'm only going to go thru the characters I feel like I could make a useful commentary
First:Ryu. She's the first character we're introduced to, and honestly, I was not that interested in her for the first like quarter of the story. But once you get into it, you'll see that she's all about regret, and it's just so so sad. She had the most detail added to her life back in Korea, and it's certainly not something to skip past. The way she handled her life and comes to regret it is wrapped so beautifully with her inconclusive ending at the back half of the book.
Next: Dori. The best way I can describe Dori is unbelievably strong. Dori goes through hell and back. she watches her mother die, her father killed, and somehow gets her and her sister all the way to Russia. She has this attitude of mistrust, and it works for her. She and Joy survive being the only two in the world, but the worst starts to happen when Dori begins to trust in others. The question that she ends up asking throughout her chapters is, is the suffering worth it for love? Is what Dori gave up, a life solely based on survival with Joy, worth it to be with Jina? It's definitely an interesting narrative.
Finally: Jina. Jina was the character I was just so invested in. I don't know what it was, if she reminded me of myself, if I just connected with her because she was the only character who came into the book with the most humanity left in her. Her backstory, besides memories of her mother, is barely elaborated on: this is what is most fascinating. Her story within the book and even what is revisited from her past is based on others, how they associated with her, how others interacted with her. This is why her journey throughout the story is so incredibly important. I'm able to characterize her by the way she speaks, by the way Dori talks about her, by the way she looks and thinks about others. Jina changes a lot through the book - her perceptions of trust and love change drastically. But the biggest part is how she stays the same. As Jina faces traumatic event after traumatic event (tw: rape and assault here, actually just the whole book tbh), somehow, against all odds, she still is the same kind soul. How she interacts with Ryu specifically towards the end of the book melted my heart. I have honestly no idea how she lived through that and while being undeniably changed, still stayed true to her values. I LOVE U KWON JINA
Ok one last part. The concept of love in this world seems absolutely impossible. And you can clearly see the two extremes here: Ryu and Dan, who are able to admit they're not in love, but still need each other (or at least, Ryu's able to admit that to herself), and Jina and Dori, who are able to love each other in the most hellish landscape possible. This is just so representative to me - how, even after the world is destroying itself from inside out, people are able to indulge in love like this? Jina and Dori are so far separated for a big portion of the book, but how they feel really never changes. It's definitely not an empty or desperate kind of love. I might be describing this strangely but it's just very special. Another thing I want to mention that a lot of reviewers I saw didn't talk about is Gunji's "unrequited love" for Jina. It's something that's touched upon in the chapters that he has alone. This was something very interesting to me. Gunji feels as if he was saved by Jina, saved from himself and saved from remaining in Korea, where he had been tortured and bullied all his life. He calls this his love for Jina. But what he realizes at the very end is that he's not waiting for Jina's love - he is fine loving her all on his own. This is some kind of lonely love that also seems impossible in the world this story is set in, and it's appropriately set against this strange, eye-of-the-storm utopian backdrop that Gunji finds himself in at the end of the story (that I would not be surprised to find that it was a metaphor for something else)
conclusion:
MISERABLE, MISERABLE BOOK + sapphic rep, disabled rep, and mixed race korean rep???? i ate it up even tho i was lowkey dying through the whole book
most depressing shit i've EVER READ. be prepared to like feel the exact shit the characters feel. i do not recommend this book if ur going thru something
ok also I HOPE KWON JINA'S FATHER NEVER SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY
Also the end of the book is kind of a band aid but also basically an open wound like what happened to gunji and joy sorry I was busy with the waterfalls coming from my eyes
June 9, 2021
I haven't read a Korean author yet that I didn't like - in translation, of course.
To the Warm Horizon, translated by Soje, is a literary comment on the fragility of our modern world, how dysfunctionally we live, and the consequences of global disaster. It is told in an elegantly sparse style, touching on the essential without unnecessary flourish. The kind of writing I like best, so kudos to Soje for conveying this particular tone in the translation.
Five characters tell their story in separate chapters each bearing his/her name. They have fled Korea, along with thousands of other refugees, after a virus spread and killed many people. With the chaos of the virus came a rise in marauding gangs, so life became untenable. The arduous journeys they make in their small groups and the brutal experiences they endure create a dystopian scene. Their journeys overlap in good and bad ways. One of the main encounters is between Jina and Dori, two young women who fall in love.
The novel has been labelled as queer because of this relationship and is the first of its kind in Korean literature, apparently, but that is only one aspect of the novel. Their relationship is handled delicately, conveying the gentleness and slightly forbidden but very natural wonder the characters feel about each other as they discover their love amid horrific circumstances, rather than focus falling heavily on their sexuality. In fact, it is their love that keeps them going, even after they have been separated.
Sexuality is something that Choi Jin-Young addresses matter of factly, echoing some of the sexual encounters I've read in the work of other Korean authors, where there is little regard or respect for the woman's pleasure. One character reminisces on her sexual relationship with her husband when they lived in Korea. It was perfunctory, at best, the most base kind of gratification for her husband, with no satisfaction for her at all.
As happens with major life upheavals, people think back on the past and reevaluate old beliefs, behaviours, and ways of life. The skewed aspect of some of our values is highlighted in this novel, pointing out how even when family is considered to be the most important thing in life, we spend much of our time working relentlessly, paradoxically ignoring family members in order to provide for them.
Apart from the physical trials and abuse the characters have to put up with as they make their way towards Russia in the hope that they will find refuge there, the author draws attention to language barriers, symbolic of crossing cultural divides, and how much more complex negotiation and survival becomes. Ultimately, however, survival is about human connection even in the most barren or hopeless situations. There is loss, horror, the ravages of war, but the tiniest glimmer of hope in love can help us through.
To the Warm Horizon, translated by Soje, is a literary comment on the fragility of our modern world, how dysfunctionally we live, and the consequences of global disaster. It is told in an elegantly sparse style, touching on the essential without unnecessary flourish. The kind of writing I like best, so kudos to Soje for conveying this particular tone in the translation.
Five characters tell their story in separate chapters each bearing his/her name. They have fled Korea, along with thousands of other refugees, after a virus spread and killed many people. With the chaos of the virus came a rise in marauding gangs, so life became untenable. The arduous journeys they make in their small groups and the brutal experiences they endure create a dystopian scene. Their journeys overlap in good and bad ways. One of the main encounters is between Jina and Dori, two young women who fall in love.
The novel has been labelled as queer because of this relationship and is the first of its kind in Korean literature, apparently, but that is only one aspect of the novel. Their relationship is handled delicately, conveying the gentleness and slightly forbidden but very natural wonder the characters feel about each other as they discover their love amid horrific circumstances, rather than focus falling heavily on their sexuality. In fact, it is their love that keeps them going, even after they have been separated.
Sexuality is something that Choi Jin-Young addresses matter of factly, echoing some of the sexual encounters I've read in the work of other Korean authors, where there is little regard or respect for the woman's pleasure. One character reminisces on her sexual relationship with her husband when they lived in Korea. It was perfunctory, at best, the most base kind of gratification for her husband, with no satisfaction for her at all.
As happens with major life upheavals, people think back on the past and reevaluate old beliefs, behaviours, and ways of life. The skewed aspect of some of our values is highlighted in this novel, pointing out how even when family is considered to be the most important thing in life, we spend much of our time working relentlessly, paradoxically ignoring family members in order to provide for them.
Apart from the physical trials and abuse the characters have to put up with as they make their way towards Russia in the hope that they will find refuge there, the author draws attention to language barriers, symbolic of crossing cultural divides, and how much more complex negotiation and survival becomes. Ultimately, however, survival is about human connection even in the most barren or hopeless situations. There is loss, horror, the ravages of war, but the tiniest glimmer of hope in love can help us through.
July 24, 2025
Nota: 4 sobre 5
Premisa:
La humanidad está tremendamente diezmada debido a un virus incontrolable. Jina y su familia migran intentando encontrar un emplazamiento más cálido. Dori y Miso procuran sobrevivir aferrándose a su vínculo fraternal, único lazo que les queda. Sus caminos se entrelazan, al igual que sus destinos.
Opinión:
La necesidad de supervivencia y adaptación a un contexto terriblemente hostil y amenazante genera situaciones con un potencial dramático deslumbrante. Por eso las distopías me llaman tanto la atención, porque llevan a sus personajes a límites difícilmente imaginables y eso produce reacciones inesperadas, limítrofes, genuinas.
La autora nos hace ir de la mano de personajes construidos con mimo y dedicación. Nos enseña la situación tan compleja a la que ha llegado la humanidad a través de su cruzada, esa búsqueda de un futuro mejor, o más bien posible. Al ser una novela coral, nos dispensa píldoras de información de manera constante y nos deja conocer paulatinamente a diferentes caracteres que aportan rotundidad y coherencia al relato.
Una situación tan plausible que asusta. Somos plenamente conscientes de lo que puede afectar a nuestra vida una amenaza mundial a nivel sanitario, por lo que ese hipotético futuro podría ser nuestro día a día dentro de unos meses. Lo que supondría perder nuestras raíces, nuestro hogar, a nuestra familia. En un mundo dominado por el vandalismo, la vi0lencia y la competitividad. Una pesadilla hecha realidad.
Y sí, todas estas razones me parecen ya suficientes para quedarme satisfecha con la lectura. Pero no se queda aquí, porque hay algo que me ha cautivado: la cercanía con la que está narrado, su emotividad y delicadeza. Se desgranan sentimientos y emociones complejas, mostradas sin recato ni vergüenza. Una narración que perdura gracias a su sensibilidad y esperanza, dentro de un mundo roto y decadente.
Me duró un suspiro. Entre los capítulos cortos que te impiden parar sin haber leído uno más y la necesidad de conocer el futuro de esas mujeres que te roban el corazón pasé la última página sin darme cuenta. Una propuesta con alma, brillo y sutileza.
Premisa:
La humanidad está tremendamente diezmada debido a un virus incontrolable. Jina y su familia migran intentando encontrar un emplazamiento más cálido. Dori y Miso procuran sobrevivir aferrándose a su vínculo fraternal, único lazo que les queda. Sus caminos se entrelazan, al igual que sus destinos.
Opinión:
La necesidad de supervivencia y adaptación a un contexto terriblemente hostil y amenazante genera situaciones con un potencial dramático deslumbrante. Por eso las distopías me llaman tanto la atención, porque llevan a sus personajes a límites difícilmente imaginables y eso produce reacciones inesperadas, limítrofes, genuinas.
La autora nos hace ir de la mano de personajes construidos con mimo y dedicación. Nos enseña la situación tan compleja a la que ha llegado la humanidad a través de su cruzada, esa búsqueda de un futuro mejor, o más bien posible. Al ser una novela coral, nos dispensa píldoras de información de manera constante y nos deja conocer paulatinamente a diferentes caracteres que aportan rotundidad y coherencia al relato.
Una situación tan plausible que asusta. Somos plenamente conscientes de lo que puede afectar a nuestra vida una amenaza mundial a nivel sanitario, por lo que ese hipotético futuro podría ser nuestro día a día dentro de unos meses. Lo que supondría perder nuestras raíces, nuestro hogar, a nuestra familia. En un mundo dominado por el vandalismo, la vi0lencia y la competitividad. Una pesadilla hecha realidad.
Y sí, todas estas razones me parecen ya suficientes para quedarme satisfecha con la lectura. Pero no se queda aquí, porque hay algo que me ha cautivado: la cercanía con la que está narrado, su emotividad y delicadeza. Se desgranan sentimientos y emociones complejas, mostradas sin recato ni vergüenza. Una narración que perdura gracias a su sensibilidad y esperanza, dentro de un mundo roto y decadente.
Me duró un suspiro. Entre los capítulos cortos que te impiden parar sin haber leído uno más y la necesidad de conocer el futuro de esas mujeres que te roban el corazón pasé la última página sin darme cuenta. Una propuesta con alma, brillo y sutileza.
September 20, 2021
this is an example of a book that was fine, but not extraordinary. the beginning looked promising i think, but the story fell flat for me for various reasons. first, I felt very detached from the story and the characters. i know that switching between points of view is a recurring writing technique used in post-apocalyptic novels, but I believe this book would have been better without it. i think I could've grown more attached to the characters. second, the ending. everything is quite vague and I feel like some details could have been given to make sense of what happens. everything felt rushed in the end, why? third, and maybe this is personal, I don't know. I'm so tired of cults/sects in every post-apo book...
overall? meh :/
-> good ideas, nice execution at the beginning, but quickly fell flat. I'm sad about it because I think it had a lot of potential - the romance, Joy's character, Gunjin as well...
overall? meh :/
-> good ideas, nice execution at the beginning, but quickly fell flat. I'm sad about it because I think it had a lot of potential - the romance, Joy's character, Gunjin as well...
January 16, 2022
Good but did not grab me enough. The language a bit lackluster for me. But a nice story.
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