Ethan didn’t seem mad that Tricia was pregnant? I’m still trying to figure out why she is so timid around him. He’s annoying and gaslight-y, but I feel like she is also projecting something onto him.
I don’t think Ethan is EJ, at least from what we’ve seen so far w/ the flashbacks. Flashback EJ from 3 years ago seems incompetent, unstable, and broke, whereas Ethan now runs a company (am I remembering this correctly?) and has plans to buy a house and start a family. A change like that within 3 years seems unrealistic to me.
This week was kind of slow plot-wise, so I’m excited for next week. Maybe they’ll finally meet the other person in the house (?!)
New vocab:
사각지대 - blind spot
“대부분 부유한 전문직 남편을 둔 욕구불만 아내이거나 EJ처럼 부모에게 기대 사는 캥거루족들이다”. I’m guessing “kangaroo” is a term for like…someone who mooches off their parents?
Part 3: basically nothing happened and we stopped at a terrible place to stop
Edit: although I have to say that even though the EJ Lee Seon foreshadowing is going wild esp with the wine, I feel like Trisha should be able to recognize her husband’s voice???
Week 3 thoughts
First off, how are these people so at ease in a stranger’s house? A most likely dead stranger, sure, but still? The word of the week is 사생활 침해.
Seeing as the tapes resume, it seems EJ did find the funds to continue therapy, good for him(?) Also, when it got to the part about Cabernet sauvignon, I didn’t bat an eye, just thought “well there you go” because I am the target audience when it comes to red herrings. I eat it up each time, only to act like a surprised Pikachu when it turns out they are not, in fact, the bad guy. This is why book clubs are fun! Other people can do the critical thinking for me
Got a bit behind with the book clubs last week… Finally read week 3 yesterday. Will try to read week 4 today or tomorrow and then move on to the sci-fi one.
Not much happened in week 3, more of same, except as others have said, the personality Ethan is showing to Trishia/his current background doesn’t quite seem to match what we’re hearing on the tape. Still gaslighting Trishia at every possible opportunity and the " misunderstanding" about " hanging" the portrait was really weird though.
I had the exact same thought, but then this comment came up : “오싸하면서 낯설지 않은 느낌이다.” . And then there’s the bottle of wine… This is just a bit too much, so I do believe this will all just amount to nothing.
I just wanted to contribute that I read week 4. And also all the rest of the weeks. So I have taken myself out of the book club, I guess. Maybe I’ll be back around week 7, 8, or 9.
Discussion of the pace of the book: it gets pretty interesting around 2/3 of the way through, and then every section after that is interesting, so if everyone is keeping up I might suggest you do both week 5 and week 6 next week…
I’m ahead of schedule, but I am gonna update anyway, I’ll just blur everything, if that’s ok with everyone. Last book club I was planning to match the schedule to update, but then I ended up never doing it…
Still nothing happening, we were warned… I’m wondering, how do you write a book without a single interesting character ? They’re all so one-dimensional, and unlikeable at that.
Trishia’s inner monologe about Ethan is getting seriously annoying. She’s basically brainwashing herself that he’s the perfect man. ugh
FINAL THOUGHTS
I was planning to read and post week by week, but
it was so bad I decided to finish it in one go.
I am gonna be somewhat brief, just cause I don’t want to waste more of my time on this
I said there was no likeable characters, there are also no even remotely decent characters. How can litteraly all the characters in a book be trash ?
About “the twist”: a twist is only a good twist when it makes sense. I won’t go back and reread the first part to confirm, but to me it pretty much comes in contradiction to the whole set up of the first few chapters and many things that we were told through the INNER thoughts of a FIRST person narrator (not just her actions or what she says out loud). It’s one thing to deliberately hide facts that are known from the MCs, or have unreliable accounts to manufacture a twist, it’s another to have a twist comes as a shock just because it MAKES NO SENSE considering everything we read till that point. With a good twist, you should be able to look back, figure out the hints you missed, maybe see previous events in a new light… This, this is just disrespectful or even insulting to the reader. For instance, in 악의, we had hints we might be dealing with an unreliable source, although we’re reading it in the first person. Also, it’s not like Trishia’s just lying to herself in her inner thoughts, since we get the whole story explain through her inner thoughts at the end. “Ah, got you, didn’t I ? Here’s what actually happened.” W>T>F ? The laziest writing ever.
I actually went on goodreads to see what people had to say to evacuate my frustrations, and basically all the people who enjoyed it were saying : “it’s brillant, I did not see THAT coming.” Well, duh, of course you didn’t, cause IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE! The best comment I saw was in the the line of “it’s not a plot twist, it’s a plot hole”
Also, please explain to me the title. I think the MC was rewarded with a nice comfy life for all her lying. Something in the line of, “lie all you want, just make sure you’re not dealing with a sociopathic killer” sounds more appropriate ? (I guess the author didn’t think much either about lying to her readers … ? )
I have plenty of other rants I could go on, but I don’t want to waste more of my time.
im still reading! i have fully lost track of weeks and chapters and everything because my job is right now but i have somehow managed to keep reading just by having the book with me on all my train commutes so i will hopefully get a chance to put my thoughts in the thread even if it’s just an overall thoughts post once im finished.
so far this has been my face every time i manage 15 mins to read on the train these characters are all absolutely wild in their priorities and decision making.
Bit behind on the club pace but will post week 3 and 4 thoughts super quick hahaha
Week 3
tbh super fillery. got nothing much to say
Week 4
EJ is ew. kinda be weird if it was suddenly 이선 but i’ll take it at this point to get things stirrin. Luke is whatever but so far feels like setup for week 5 reading which will hopefully deliever some goods.
I got no thoughts on Trisha rn, feels a bit repetitive rn in order to pad the pacing between recordings/past vs the present.
Getting harder to stay on this one tbh but I’ll keep it going till the end so we can all rant together hahah.
I’m feeling the exact same way haha I probably would have dropped it sooner if it wasn’t for the book club, but I figure now we’re over halfway through, might as well find out what’s happening and complain about it with the group
I’m still trying to figure out why she is so timid around him. He’s annoying and gaslight-y, but I feel like she is also projecting something onto him.
these characters are all absolutely wild in their priorities and decision making.
