Joshua Glasgow’s Reviews > The Vegetarian > Status Update

The book is now following Yeong-hye’s sister, but the narrator is still male even though they’ve occasionally had a female voice interrupt to offer Yeong-hye’s wandering “poetic” thoughts. No reason a woman couldn’t narrate this portion. Also, the word “superfluity” has been used like 3 times in this book, which is weird, but I also saw the word in the other book I’m currently reading. Very weird!

It’s now about Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law, who is attracted to her and—I’m lost on how this happened exactly—has convinced her to pose nude for him as part of an art project. Also, there seem to be hints that she’s literally turning into a plant. I don’t know what to think about the fact that the story is largely being told from these gross men’s perspectives, rather than Yeong-hye’s own.

It’s almost comical how offended everybody is by the wife’s vegetarianism. It is definitely over the top. The interstitial poetry chapters from her POV aren’t very good and, weirdly, she spent a recent one thinking about how nice and round her breasts are. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was written by a man. I know it was not, though.

I went a few days without a new audiobook. I finally landed on this one because it’s just 5 hours long. I’ve heard good things about this, I think. I’ve at least heard ABOUT this one, whether that’s good or bad. Not about it enough to know what to expect—just enough to know the title. So far the male lead is loathsome and the performer who’s narrating sounds like a robot, so I’m not sold yet…