2.5 stars. The farther I get away from this book (haha, why do I suck at keeping up with reviews so much, I read this 2 months ago lolsob), the less I like it. And I didn’t particularly like it that well when I read it. It’s tough with translated fiction because who knows if it’s the translation you’re not liking, the original story, or if it’s just that the story doesn’t work well in a different language. This felt like it should be a dark, dark comedy of sorts, but that maybe the comedy bit got lost in translation. Not sad I read this because it wasn’t a terrible intro to Korean lit, just wish it hadn’t faded for me so fast.
Lordy this book is violent, just a warning. Reseng is an assassin who was raised by a cranky named Old Raccoon in headquarters called The Library. Ironic because those books never seem to be read by anyone other than Reseng. He is the ultimate yes man, always carrying out someone else’s plans without questioning why or even asking who was giving the orders. When things go awry on a job, some very carefully plotted plans get thwarted and he comes to the attention of the “plotters” as someone creating trouble.
The book summary I read before picking this book up mentioned female plotters which is why I was drawn to this book and those female plotters were indeed great. However, they don’t appear until pretty late in the game so it didn’t live up to my expectations of what this book would be about. I hate when summaries put together by publishers mislead you and you end up reading something completely different than you thought. You’d think publishers would learn that’s not a great way to endear your readers.
