The Hole: A Novel Hardcover – August 1, 2017

I loved reading The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun (translated by Sora Kim-Russell)!I was hooked on that feeling of hopelessness and despair in attempting to wake up from a nightmare that endlessly continues day-to-day. This book is one that consists of an entirely new world away from the typical horror or thriller full of bullets and murderers.In fact, this book is for one who loves psychological spins, rattles, and turns. This book is for also one who loves the psychological roller coaster flying up and down. You will attempt to get off the ride screaming and crying but loving every second, yelling at the top of your lungs “let’s do that again!” once it ends.The Hole by Hye-Young Pyun discusses the new life of someone who wakes up disabled, but this is not a triumph story. This is a sickening journey of someone trapped not just physically, but also mentally within their own life mistakes and failures.Strap yourself in for the ride and don’t forget: there are...To see my full review, please visit my site at FLY INTO BOOKS (dot) com :)

[Somewhat spoilers herein.]What a clever novel. You're led through the story by a limited third-person point of view-- and I think your ability to grasp the tiny nuances framed oh-so-innoculously by the narrator will hinge on how sensitive you are to picking up on the red flags associated with this type of toxic dynamic. By the end, you will have secondhandedly experienced it, in how you're drawn in to empathize heavily with the protagonist, only to have him reveal hints of sharp details that cut through the initial Nice Guy illusion at the very end.Oghi is accomplished, driven, and self-made. And he deals with a wife who is unfortunate in life but fortunate enough in love that she has found a good husband in him. The impact is definitely more of a psychological punch than an emotional one, which fits the type of person the author was meaning to portray through Oghi.There is no explicit villain in the traditional westernized sense, because human beings simply are messy and wonderful like that. But there is a central source from which all the drama stems, and the blame-shifting is done so subtly that you simply accept it for what it is. A somewhat dry (due to the character POV, I'm guessing, since I haven't picked up the author's other works yet), but quick read, that could possibly be considered a "fridge thriller" for how enjoyable it is to think about in retrospect.

I liked the premise of the book. It was Ok but not a page turner. I expected the ending to be more thought provoking.

For such a short novel, it really took a long time to get to a point. I spent 90% of the story waiting for something to happen and spent the other 10% thinking "that was it?" Maybe some of the mystery and suspense got lost in translation, and the original Korean conveyed a more horrific tone. For me, this book was slow-paced, predictable, and fairly boring.

An unvarnished story about the complexities of love, careerism, and the invisible pragmatism and sacrifice that fuels the dreams of those we love, and how it can turn sour and dark when the balance tips too far from one side to another. I read this in a day or so, and Hye-Young Pyun's writing made Oghi's (main character) struggle vivid and human in its fears, momentary reliefs, contrasts, and conflicts.

Most boring book I've ever read I think.

This is a strange book. Admittedly I was expecting a book a little more like Cipher when I started. It is a quiet story, with a invisible dread that lurks in the corners but never shows its head. If you are the kind of person that likes introspective, reflective novels, this is a good one to consider. That being said, the ending comes unexpectedly and may leave some readers feeling cheated.

The images stay in your head of a crippled man who can speak trying to escape his mother in law

Ok, so it won the Shirley Jackson award...whooptie doo! The blurbs mention that it's "the Korean take on [Stephen King's ]'Misery' -- and certainly it has parallels to it. However, if you've read Edogawa Rampo's 1927 short story "The Caterpillar" you can't help but find 'The Hole' excruciatingly derivative. Maybe I've read too much Asian mystery stories, but I could see this one coming a mile away...and -- for me -- there was no tension or pathos in the narrative.