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Review of Untold Night and Day, by Bae Suah

October 9, 2025

I’ve been meaning to write this review of Untold Night and Day by the Korean author Bae Suah a long, long time. Until now I hesitated, the reason being I didn’t feel it’s the kind of book that can be easily described (let alone reviewed) with words. I felt I needed something else – literally another work of art; keep reading! – to properly express what a masterpiece this short novel is.

You see, Untold Night and Day is so out of the ordinary that it utterly defies traditional categories of literary criticism. Genre? Plot? Characters? These concepts break down when dealing with such a masterpiece, such an authentic writers’ book.

I’ll try anyway. Just as a sign of respect toward Bae Suah, who gave the world such a stunning piece of art.

Suffice to say, I’ve read it five times already in less than three years and will surely repeat it again. It’s the kind of book that actually demands such a thing.

Untold Night and Day, image of Seoul, Korea.
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Review of I Fear My Pain Interests You by Stephanie LaCava

July 22, 2024

I picked I Fear My Pain Interests You, by Stephanie LaCava, looking for a literary-fiction story with strong psychological undertones. What I got instead was “the next Great American Novel“, but let me be upfront: I mean this in the worst possible manner, using it entirely ironically.

Indeed, my motivation behind writing a review for this novel was very simple: I absolutely loathed it. This is the kind of pointless drivel you’d expect from 15-year-old edgelords thinking they’re writing avant-garde literature. I know, I used to be one.

Another fun fact: I almost gave up on the novel at the 90% mark, which would’ve been an amazing thing to do, but I sadly had to finish it since I’d decided to write this review.

Of course, that I hated I Fear My Pain Interests You is not very… interesting to you. But why I hated it might be, because it reveals a lot about how and why literature is written nowadays – in the US (see earlier note) and places copying the US.

i fear my pain interests you; image of woman screaming
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Review of The Glasgow Coma Scale

June 24, 2024

Whenever I go to the library, trying to find something to read, I often end up frustrated. Call me picky if you want. Yet as I’m going through the blurbs (nowadays even they are buried beneath the asinine, useless “INSTANT BESTSELLER!” tags), what I see is more and more authors overly enamored with plot. I decided to write this review of The Glasgow Coma Scale by Neil D.A. Stewart before I’d read ten pages of it.

The reason?

Because it at least didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. The blurb didn’t promise some sort of epic saga spanning three continents and six decades, or some sort of in-between state between fantasy and reality.

As it turned out, it was actually a damn well-written book to boot. Truly, a masterclass on what quality literature should be.

review of Glasgow coma scale. photo of street graffiti.
Much of the book is about juxtaposition, the interplay between antithetical qualities. Yet at the same time, the title of the book is not only a reference to the location where the events take place – Glasgow, Scotland – but also the eponymous test assessing brain damage and response to stimuli. In a novel about giving up, this becomes a highly relevant metaphor
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