🌰 Almond / 아몬드 / アーモンド - Final Section 4

Welcome to Section 4 of Almond / 아몬드 / アーモンド

Thank you everyone for reading along! Final section :tada:

Home Thread - :chestnut: Almond / 아몬드 / アーモンド / Almendra


Rough guideline for reading:

Week Start Date Chapters Pages
11 10th August 63 - 70 23
12 17th August 63 - End 23

Feel free to read at any pace!
But when commenting, please add spoiler tags by week, to allow for people reading at different paces.

1 Like

Just finished on my way home.

I really enjoyed this book. I did not particularly like the ending becauseit’s a bit too happy, too perfect and it’s happy because he is “fixed” ending. Like he didn’t need to be “fixed”. He was perfectly content the way he was. But up until that I would have given it 5 stars… now I’ll settle for 4. :sweat_smile:

2 Likes

Lol same here. I kind of felt it went off course with the crush on the girl(?) and how everything’s better and his brain suddenly changes or whatever. I really enjoyed the first half… I liked his new ‘friend’ who’s his polar opposite and seeing how the MC navigated the world. And how he got to know and understand more abt his family as he grew up… but at some point I didn’t like where it was going. Like I would’ve liked him to stay as he was but maybe have some strategies or new insights as he matured…? I feel like he grew so much during the book while meeting different people and then the ’he’s cured maybe!’ thing kind of ruined it for me. I still gave it 5 stars bc it did make me cry and it is YA in the end. It’s a very Korean style happy ending lol.

It was like the first book I read in Korean so I ate up every moment. I wonder if I’d feel the same now, having had more reading experiences lol. The novelty of reading in itself could have colored my memory :laughing:

4 Likes

I read it in English translation and totally agree with both of you. I absolutely loved the first half, then started to lose steam after the girl appeared in his life, and from then it gradually turned more and more into a typical YA book with a convenient happy ending and a message about love and acceptance etc etc. It really could do without all that, and be a much stronger book, I feel. I still liked it a lot though.

3 Likes

I’ve just finished too!

Definitely agree with you all above.

A sweet ending would have worked for me, with his Mum out of the coma, and his friendship with Gon continuing. But the fact he was also maybe ‘better/cured’ felt a step too far for me.

Another slight gripe, I did feel like the book jumped around genres a bit - from general school drama, general life at the book store with Dr. Shim’s bakery, to the graphic scenes, e.g. the mum/grandma’s murder, 針金’s place.

Overall though, I thought the book was great! Gon’s characterisation and the way he interacted with Almond over the story was really well done.

3 Likes