Greg Chun’s performance is a moving portrayal of Yunjae, a boy who has alexithymia—the inability to identify or describe his own—or anyone else’s—emotions. Despite the number of almonds that his mother has him eat daily, Yunjae’s amygdala (which is shaped like an almond), doesn’t grow, nor does his ability to process emotions. Yunjae’s troubles are magnified when tragedy strikes his family. A friend comes in the unlikely form of Gon, the local brute. Chun brings out Yunjae’s unemotional response to life with a matter-of-fact tone that contrasts with the voices of Yunjae’s emotional mother and wise, caring grandmother. Chun balances menacing anger and moments of sentimentality in Gon’s voice, revealing surprising tenderness behind the ruffian’s tough veneer. Chun’s compelling narration adds weight to this heartbreaking story. M.F. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Almond: A Novel
Narrated by Greg Chun
Won-pyung SohnUnabridged — 4 hours, 52 minutes
Almond: A Novel
Narrated by Greg Chun
Won-pyung SohnUnabridged — 4 hours, 52 minutes
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Overview
This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster.
One of the monsters is me.
Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends-the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that-but his devoted mother and grandmother aren't fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother's used bookstore is decorated with colorful post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say ""thank you,"" and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.
Then on Christmas Eve-Yunjae's sixteenth birthday-everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world, leaving him alone and on his own. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until troubled teenager Gon arrives at his school and begins to bully Yunjae.
Against all odds, tormentor and victim learn they have more in common than they realized. Gon is stumped by Yunjae's impassive calm, while Yunjae thinks if he gets to know the hotheaded Gon, he might learn how to experience true feelings. Drawn by curiosity, the two strike up a surprising friendship. As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people-including a girl at school-something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life in danger, it is Yunjae who will step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become a most unlikely hero.
The Emissary meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime in this poignant and triumphant story about how love, friendship, and persistence can change a life forever.
Editorial Reviews
"A boldly original piece of fiction, plumbing the depths of the human condition with plenty of humor along the way." — Entertainment Weekly
"In her debut novel, film director and screenwriter Sohn Won-pyung (with the assistance of translator Sandy Joosun Lee) has created a tender exploration of adolescence — a universal experience complicated here by extraordinary circumstances. This is one of those books that deftly straddles the line between young adult and adult fiction; it has such a gentle heart that readers of all ages will recognize and sympathize with the characters' struggles and celebrate when they ultimately triumph." — Salon
“Won-pyung Sohn understands that those who think, feel, and communicate differently aren't society's villains, they are its saviors. Her writing possesses seemingly unlimited empathy and tenderness.” — Madeleine Ryan, author of A Room Called Earth
“In what might be the first novel to feature a protagonist with alexithymia—an inability to identify and express one’s feelings—Korean novelist Sohn’s affecting debut arrives stateside. Raised by his grandmother and mother who worked diligently to guide him through everyday social interactions, Yunjae at 15 is effectively orphaned…. As Yunjae risks communication and connection, the eponymous almond—the undeveloped amygdalae of his brain—takes seed, and gives Yunjae the courage to claim 'an entirely different story. New and unknown.' Winner of the prestigious Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction in Korea, Sohn presents a 15-year-old neurodiverse protagonist with much resonance.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Almond is a tour de force — deeply engaging, engrossing, and troubling — a poignant allegory of the contemporary Korean condition that marks the debut of a new international talent." — Heinz Insu Fenkl, author of Memories of My Ghost Brother and translator of The Nine Cloud Dream by Kim Man-jung
“Delicate and heartbreaking. Like peeling a fruit, Sohn bares human emotion and questions the human condition with a gentle hunger.” — -Jamie Marina Lau, author of Pink Mountain on Locust Island
“In her debut novel, director and screenwriter Sohn makes the bold decision to choose an emotionally constricted first-person narrator, but the risk pays off. With the aid of a skillful translation…the novel will appeal fully to adults, but mature young readers who must cope in their everyday lives with the struggles of late adolescence will find themselves identifying with Yunjae and moved by his plight. A sensitive exploration of what it's like to live at life's emotional poles.” — Kirkus Reviews
"The narration by a young protagonist with a disorder that affects his ability to identify and express feelings will rightly draw comparisons to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, but Sohn's insightful depiction of an outsider's perspective on society around him will also please fans of other narrators who sharply consider the world at a remove, such as in The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Readers will treasure the opportunity to see the world through Yunjae's eyes and watch him as he grows." — Shelf Awareness
"Intense and moving...a phenomenal book that deserves a wide audience among readers." — Wall Street Journal
"A boldly original piece of fiction, plumbing the depths of the human condition with plenty of humor along the way."
Won-pyung Sohn understands that those who think, feel, and communicate differently aren't society's villains, they are its saviors. Her writing possesses seemingly unlimited empathy and tenderness.”
Almond is a tour de force — deeply engaging, engrossing, and troubling — a poignant allegory of the contemporary Korean condition that marks the debut of a new international talent."
"In her debut novel, film director and screenwriter Sohn Won-pyung (with the assistance of translator Sandy Joosun Lee) has created a tender exploration of adolescence — a universal experience complicated here by extraordinary circumstances. This is one of those books that deftly straddles the line between young adult and adult fiction; it has such a gentle heart that readers of all ages will recognize and sympathize with the characters' struggles and celebrate when they ultimately triumph."
"The narration by a young protagonist with a disorder that affects his ability to identify and express feelings will rightly draw comparisons to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, but Sohn's insightful depiction of an outsider's perspective on society around him will also please fans of other narrators who sharply consider the world at a remove, such as in The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Readers will treasure the opportunity to see the world through Yunjae's eyes and watch him as he grows."
Delicate and heartbreaking. Like peeling a fruit, Sohn bares human emotion and questions the human condition with a gentle hunger.”
"Intense and moving...a phenomenal book that deserves a wide audience among readers."
In what might be the first novel to feature a protagonist with alexithymia—an inability to identify and express one’s feelings—Korean novelist Sohn’s affecting debut arrives stateside. Raised by his grandmother and mother who worked diligently to guide him through everyday social interactions, Yunjae at 15 is effectively orphaned…. As Yunjae risks communication and connection, the eponymous almond—the undeveloped amygdalae of his brain—takes seed, and gives Yunjae the courage to claim 'an entirely different story. New and unknown.' Winner of the prestigious Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction in Korea, Sohn presents a 15-year-old neurodiverse protagonist with much resonance.
"Intense and moving...a phenomenal book that deserves a wide audience among readers."
04/01/2020
Debut Award-winning South Korean screenwriter/director Sohn's intimate and surprising debut novel features Yunjae, born with a condition that limits his ability to experience or even recognize emotion; in his brain, the almond-shaped organs governing feelings are smaller than normal. But this novel is not about disability, instead examining our capacity to connect. Yunjae's mother works tirelessly to teach him how to manage in a world he can't read and reaches out to her own estranged mother, who becomes a sharp-witted, doting grandma. When they are lost in a terrible Christmas eve shooting (it's Yunjae's 16th birthday), he soldiers on, helped by a sympathetic neighbor. At school, his imperturbability stymies the gangsterish Gon, who initially bullies him but then befriends him while inadvertently leading him to a dangerous edge. Will Gon and Yunjae's secret crush, Dora, help Yunjae learn to feel? VERDICT Impressively portraying Yunjae's shrugged-shoulder calm and efforts to understand his world, Sohn offers a heartening study of human emotion.
Greg Chun’s performance is a moving portrayal of Yunjae, a boy who has alexithymia—the inability to identify or describe his own—or anyone else’s—emotions. Despite the number of almonds that his mother has him eat daily, Yunjae’s amygdala (which is shaped like an almond), doesn’t grow, nor does his ability to process emotions. Yunjae’s troubles are magnified when tragedy strikes his family. A friend comes in the unlikely form of Gon, the local brute. Chun brings out Yunjae’s unemotional response to life with a matter-of-fact tone that contrasts with the voices of Yunjae’s emotional mother and wise, caring grandmother. Chun balances menacing anger and moments of sentimentality in Gon’s voice, revealing surprising tenderness behind the ruffian’s tough veneer. Chun’s compelling narration adds weight to this heartbreaking story. M.F. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
2020-02-10
A Korean teenager struggles with a rare emotional impairment.
Soon Yunjae, a highly intelligent teenage boy who lives with his mother and grandmother in Seoul, suffers from alexithymia, a defect believed to be rooted in the amygdala—the almond-shaped region of the brain—that renders him incapable of expressing, or even identifying, his emotions. Yunjae’s antagonist, nicknamed Gon, has returned to his home after 13 years following a mysterious disappearance that saw him shunted among various foster homes and finally to a youth shelter. In that long exile, he’s become a hardened juvenile delinquent, bitter toward the father he believes abandoned him and acting out at every opportunity. When Yunjae becomes the victim of an act of random violence that shatters his life and thrusts him into an unwanted state of independence, Gon, sensing his classmate’s vulnerability, singles him out for special torment. The radical imbalance between Gon’s physical and emotional abuse and Yunjae’s inability to respond in any meaningful way fuels the novel’s escalating tension and justifies Yunjae’s blunt description of his story as one “about a monster meeting another monster.” But that imbalance subtly shifts as the two damaged boys inch toward something that looks like a friendship and becomes more complicated when a young girl named Dora enters the picture. In her debut novel, director and screenwriter Sohn makes the bold decision to choose an emotionally constricted first-person narrator, but the risk pays off. With the aid of a skillful translation, she conveys the hollowed-out feeling of Yunjae’s life and his almost inexpressible desire to overcome it, heightened by the contrast with Gon’s inability to control his rage. The novel will appeal fully to adults, but mature young readers who must cope in their everyday lives with the struggles of late adolescence will find themselves identifying with Yunjae and moved by his plight.
A sensitive exploration of what it’s like to live at life’s emotional poles.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940172629730 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 05/05/2020 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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