Home Thread for 네버 라이 🏠 Week 9

[monace]

Welcome to the thread for https://learnnatively.com/book/b81a62977d/ !!

All discussions will take place within this home thread that will be updated each week with the current week number. So, make sure you use spoiler tags and indicate which part of the book you are going to refer to ahead of the tag to show respect to your follow-readers an any possible late-comers.

Summary

《네버 라이》 줄거리 요약 현재 트리샤와 이선 부부는 부동산중개인 주디가 소개해주는 집을 보러 다니고 있다. 현재 살고 있는 맨해튼을 떠나 교외에 있는 저택을 구하려고 한다. 주디가 인쇄해준 약도를 들고 찾아가게 된 웨스트체스터의 저택은 원래 3년 전 실종된 정신과 의사 에이드리엔 헤일 박사의 집이었다. 맨해튼을 떠날 때부터 조금씩 내리기 시작한 눈은 웨스트체스터의 저택으로 들어서는 갈림길로 접어들 무렵 절정을 이룬다. 이선이 운전하는 이륜구동 BMW로는 더 이상 운행하기 불가해 보일 만큼 폭설이 쏟아진다. 주변에 다른 집이나 모텔도 없어 트리샤와 이선은 어쩔 수 없이 현재 아무도 살지 않는 헤일 박사의 저택에서 하룻밤 머물기로 한다. 저택 가까이 다가가 보니 2층에 불이 켜져 있다. 아무도 살지 않는 집으로 알았는데 누군가 있다는 뜻이다. 저택으로 들어간 트리샤와 이선은 불이 켜져 있던 2층으로 올라간다. 어느새 불이 꺼져 있고, 방문을 모두 열어본 결과 사람이 머문 흔적은 없다. 트리샤와 이선은 다시 삐걱거리는 나선형 계단을 내려와 오랫동안 불을 피우지 않아 냉기가 감도는 집 안을 따스하게 덥히기 위해 벽난로에 불을 지핀다. 냉장고를 열어보니 아직 유통기한이 지나지 않은 음식이 있다. 헤일 박사는 이미 3년 전에 실종되었기에 이상하다는 생각이 들지만 일단 허기진 배를 채울 수밖에 없다. 외따로 떨어진 집이라 휴대폰이 터지지 않아 제설차를 보내달라고 할 수 없어 트리샤와 이선은 으스스한 저택에서 하룻밤 머물기로 결정한다. 트리샤는 오랫동안 비어 있었던 저택에서 하룻밤 머물자니 기분이 으스스한 반면 남편 이선은 마음에 꼭 드는 집이라면서 희희낙락이다. 심심풀이로 읽을 책을 찾던 트리샤는 책장을 둘러보다가 스티븐 킹의 《샤이닝》을 빼내려고 팔을 뻗는다. 책등을 잡아당기자 달칵 소리와 함께 비밀의 방이 드러난다. 트리샤는 비밀의 방에서 헤일 박사가 상담 치료 과정을 녹음해둔 테이프들을 찾아낸다. 헤일 박사가 남긴 테이프에는 놀라운 사실들이 들어 있다.

과거 유명한 정신과 의사인 헤일 박사는 저택에서 환자들을 만나는 틈틈이 책을 써서 베스트셀러 작가의 명성을 이어가고 있다. 환자들을 진료하지 않는 날에는 브롱크스에 있는 무료 클리닉에 가서 의료봉사를 한다. 헤일 박사가 자주 만나는 환자들 중에는 외상 후 스트레스 장애 환자인 PL, 자기애성 인격 장애 환자인 EJ, 피해 망상장애 환자인 GW가 있다. 결혼을 앞두고 있던 PL은 약혼자와 친구 두 사람을 데리고 오두막 여행을 떠났다가 끔찍한 참변을 당한 여성이다. 오두막에 잠입한 강도는 PL의 약혼자와 두 친구를 칼로 무자비하게 찔러 살해한다. PL 역시 칼에 찔렸으나 가까스로 살아나 필사적으로 큰길까지 나가 지나가는 차를 세워 도움을 요청한다. 폭우가 쏟아진 날이라 범인의 발자국이나 흔적이 모두 지워지고 없다. PL은 겨우 목숨을 건지긴 했으나 외상 후 스트레스 장애 판정을 받고 헤일 박사에게 상담 치료를 받는다. EJ는 부모 재산을 물려받을 생각에 매몰돼 일자리를 구하려고 하지 않는 인물이다. EJ를 만나본 헤일 박사는 그가 자기애성 인격 장애라는 결론을 내린다. 자기애성 인격 장애는 자신의 업적을 과장하고, 타인으로부터 존경받길 갈망하고, 공감 능력이 현저히 떨어지는 경우를 말한다. GW는 다른 사람을 결코 믿지 못한다. 항상 누군가 자신을 죽이려 한다. 특히 재산을 노린 아들이 자신을 죽이려 한다고 의심하자 헤일 박사는 GW가 피해망상 환자라는 진단을 내린다. 헤일 박사의 남자친구 루크는 컴퓨터 기술자이고, 고교 시절 한때 해커로 활동한 전력이 있다. 루크를 만나 새로운 미래를 꿈꾸던 헤일 박사를 곤혹스럽게 만드는 환자가 있다. 두 사람 사이의 갈등은 점점 해결의 실마리를 찾을 수 없을 만큼 악화되는데…….

English summary

“Never Lie” Plot Summary Present day. Tricia and Ethan are looking at houses that Judy, a real estate agent, introduces them to. They are looking for a mansion in the suburbs, away from their current home in Manhattan. The mansion in Westchester, which Judy has printed out for them, was once the home of Dr. Adrienne Hale, a psychiatrist who disappeared three years ago. The snow, which has been falling steadily since they left Manhattan, reaches its peak as they approach the fork in the road that leads to the Westchester mansion. The snow is falling so hard that the two-wheel-drive BMW that Ethan drives is no longer drivable. With no other houses or motels nearby, Tricia and Ethan have no choice but to stay the night at Dr. Hale’s mansion, which is currently unoccupied. As they approach the mansion, they see a light on the second floor. This means that someone is there, even though the house is unoccupied. Tricia and Ethan enter the mansion and go up to the second floor where the light is on. The lights are now off, and they open all the doors, but there’s no sign of anyone staying. Tricia and Ethan head back down the creaky spiral staircase and light a fire in the fireplace to warm up the chilly house, which hasn’t had a fire in a long time. They open the refrigerator and find food that hasn’t expired yet. Dr. Hale has been missing for three years, which is odd, but she can’t help but feel hungry. Tricia and Ethan decide to stay the night in a spooky mansion because their cell phone doesn’t work and they can’t call for a snowplow to come to their house. Trisha is creeped out by the idea of staying overnight in a mansion that’s been vacant for so long, but her husband, Ethan, is thrilled because it’s his favorite place. Looking for something to read to pass the time, Tricia looks through the bookshelves and reaches for a copy of Stephen King’s The Shining. She pulls the spine and it snaps open to reveal a secret room. In the secret room, Tricia finds the tapes of Dr. Hale’s therapy sessions. Dr. Hale’s tapes contain startling revelations.

The past A renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Hale maintains his reputation as a best-selling author by writing books in between seeing patients at his mansion. When he’s not seeing patients, he volunteers at a free clinic in the Bronx. Among the patients Dr. Hale frequently sees are PL, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, EJ, who has narcissistic personality disorder, and GW, who suffers from paranoid delusions. PL was a woman who was about to get married when she, her fiancé, and two friends were horrifically attacked on a cabin trip. A robber breaks into the cabin and mercilessly stabs and kills PL’s fiancé and two friends. PL is also stabbed, but manages to survive and desperately walks out to the main road and stops a passing car to call for help. It’s been raining heavily, and the killer’s footprints and tracks have been washed away. PL barely escapes with his life, but he is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and receives counseling from Dr. Hale. EJ is a man who doesn’t want to work because he is obsessed with the idea of inheriting his parents’ fortune. After meeting with EJ, Dr. Hale concludes that he has narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by exaggerating one’s accomplishments, craving admiration from others, and a marked lack of empathy. GW can never trust others. When he suspects that someone is always trying to kill him, especially his son, who is after his fortune, Dr. Hale diagnoses him as paranoid. Dr. Hale’s boyfriend, Luke, is a computer technician who used to be a hacker in high school. Dr. Hale’s hopes for a new future with Luke are dashed by her patient. The conflict between the two men escalates to the point where they can’t find a solution. …

Reading schedule

We have landed on a 9-week schedule, here is a breakdown of each week’s reading assignment:

Week	Final chapter
1	Chapter 4
2	Chapter 11
3	Chapter 18
4	Chapter 23
5	Chapter 29
6	Chapter 36
7	Chapter 42
8	Chapter 48
9	Epilogue

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Will you be joining?

• Yes!
• No
• Maybe…

[NihongoLearner19]

Week 1 Thoughts: I don’t usually read thrillers but I’m enjoying this so far. It feels seasonally appropriate to read something a bit scary and creepy. Speaking of which, ugh, what a creepy house. Teresa’s husband seems a bit sketchy. I wonder what secret she’s been hiding from him? The murdered psychiatrist seems like a bit of a strange character, albeit one with an annoying agent. I wonder if/how she died. Will this be a Jane Eyre type of situation? I’m excited to find out.

As for the Korean side of things, I’m finding this to be a good level for me! I’m glad that I’m reading it in Kimchi for lookups, but the words are largely common nouns and adjectives, like lightbulb, dust, snowstorm, etc., so it’s good practice.

I can’t promise I won’t read ahead, but I’m quite busy at the moment so I’m not sure I’ll be able to even if I’d like to

[HopeWaterfall]

Wait, does Kimchi reader work with Ridibooks even with the DRM? Or do you have a workaround for that?

I’ve been holding off on getting Kimchi reader because I was thinking that it wouldn’t be worth it between physical books and everything I read on Ridi, but if it does work with Ridi, now that’s an entirely different story

[bizoo]

you need a workaround but I got you covered, sending you a DM.

[suadang]

there’s a software to solve the issue (not available on Mac).

[DFG]

First time using natively forum so hopefully can keep up ^^.

First week reading is a fun setup. classic lil cabin in the woods energy! tho it seems to be rather self aware about it haha. The regular cliffhangering is kinda wild but at least it helps keep the pacing going. Was a little worried that the chapter in the past would take up a lot of time but we cut rather quickly back to the present.

Not too much to say about the characters atm. Agree with the other poster that something feels off about the husband but could be me reading into it too much. 주디 is kinda sus for setting up this arrangement fr tho. I wonder if she will appear later on. And the psychiatrist is interesting. Anyway lots of secrets and questions building up to spill out later on.

With the weather getting colder these days this feels like a good book pick
also lotta nice lil words here and there. fav so far gotta be 먹통 me thinks.

[monace]

@DFG

First time using natively forum so hopefully can keep up ^^.

Welcome to the forums!! Always so exciting to have new Korean learners join the community

Thoughts on week 1 (really just thoughts on the husband):

그날 밤 나는 일 년 넘게 사귄 남자친구에게 전화해 미안하지만 결혼하고 싶은 사람을 만났으니 헤어지자고 통보했다.

What a wild thing to do Also, she keeps describing her husband as the best partner and man there ever was, which is very suspicious to me. Who are you trying to convince, Tricia? Not me, not with arguments like that:

하지만 이선은 언제나 나에게 충실했다. 다른 여자들이 아무리 추파를 던져도 절대로 한눈팔지 않았다. The bar is on the floor

나는 이선이 대충 꽂아 넣은 책을 뽑아 원래 있던 자리로 옮겨놓는다. Careless man

I am tempted to find him sketchy also because I don’t like characters who keep finding excuses for clearly thriller-related happenings in thriller books. I know it is unreasonable to expect a character to know what genre they’re in, but come on. Footprints in the dust in an area where we never stepped ourselves? Must be a previous buyer. A glass of water on the counter? Heh, probably the realtor, though she has clearly not set foot in this house for days.
It’s like he hasn’t even read the synopsis.
Anyway, even though I would love to, I can’t be mad at him for that, because he is me. I am the most practical, there-is-a-logical-explanation-for-everything person you will ever meet. But I’m allowed to be that way because I live in the real world, Ethan should know better.

To say something in his favour, I like that his name is Ethan but the translator I use keeps using Lee-sun haha, Ethan but a little to the left.

I look forward to see where all of this goes, the synopsis already told us more than what we’ve read so far, so I’m excited about the secret room with its secret tapes! I’m also intrigued by the psychiatrist (speaking of names, I thought he was Adrian, turns out she’s Adrienne ).

---

Favourite new word has to be 매부리코, it’s fun to say, and sounds like bourricot ( donkey)
As for favourite new word that could also be useful (all due respect to 매부리코 but it’s not very high on my words-to-learn priority list) is 시야. It’s come up a few times, sounds fun, AND seems high frequency enough.

[monace]

Oh! I forgot the worst one!

Lights on on the second floor of this abandoned house we are trapped in? Oh, it’s probably… hum… Nothing. Don’t worry about it.

Get it together, Lee-sun. Your wife is asking all the right questions, be the perfect husband she thinks you are and stop dismissing her. You’re going to be murdered by whoever is upstairs and I will not feel sorry.

[DFG]

@monace

I like that his name is Ethan but the translator I use keeps using Lee-sun haha, Ethan but a little to the left.

I’m so used to seeing Ethan written as 에단 that even tho I knew it was Ethan I like to think he’s just called Lee-Sun now

[HopeWaterfall]

I had to double check that I was reading the right book, I was wondering why there was suddenly a Korean name . Nope, just an interesting choice on the translator’s end.

Speaking of translations though, I was also taken aback by 어워즈 (in the author’s description), why use that one when you could go with 어워드 or 상 instead?

(I’ll do an actual post with my thoughts once I finish this week’s part)

[monace]

I haven’t read that part, but I’m guessing maybe 어워즈 is used as the plural of 어워드? One 어워드 two 어워즈?
상 would probably make more sense.

[acire]

I’m intrigued and love the setup so far. Thoughts:

• Ethan is so toxic, why can’t he believe anything his wife says? I can’t wait for him to get jump-scared by something (unless he’s in on it?! whatever it is)
• What is Tricia’s secret?!
• Where TF is Judy?!

Words I marked:

• 눈보라 - snowstorm / blizzard. I love the way this word sounds.
• 유통기한 - shelf life. I keep running into this word and promptly forgetting it. Hopefully I can remember this time
• 가제본 - advance copy of a book

[HopeWaterfall]

Finally done with week 1! I’m not used to reading thrillers, but this is fine so far. It does feel a bit obvious though. Makes me want to have a very serious talk with the husband about not ignoring what his wife says and actually paying attention to what’s happening around him. How strange do things have to get for him to actually notice that something isn’t right? We’ll see, but I’m betting he’s still going to try to explain it all away logically in next week’s chapters.

Level wise, grammar is straightforward, which I expected considering this is a translation. I am seeing a bunch of new words however, so I’ve been mining some new words/sentences.

Something’s definitely going on with the portrait, and I want to know what. Is it just her imagining it? Would be disappointing, but fair. I’m realizing I haven’t actually checked beforehand whether this had supernatural elements or not, and I’ll just figure it out along the way. Idk what would be better, cameras in the portrait, or someone looking through the eyes of the portrait, or the ghost of the maybe dead doctor.

하지만 이선을 따라 주방으로 가는 동안 거대한 초상화의 녹색 눈이 나를 노려보고 있는 것만 같다.

And then there’s

초상화의 녹색 눈동자가 나를 계속 따라오는 것 같아서 등걸이 오싹한다.

잘 지냈냐는 말은 비즈니스 세계에서 가장 무의미한 질문이다.

Which is so true, and not just in the business world either unfortunately. I still don’t get why this is a thing, why ask if you aren’t expecting an honest answer?

[monace]

@HopeWaterfall

Idk what would be better, cameras in the portrait, or someone looking through the eyes or the portrait, or the ghost of the maybe dead doctor.

Oh, I hadn’t thought of that! Now that you mention it, that’s probably what’s going on. Oh this gives it all a new creepy layer

[Kelorae]

Hey all,

Longtime natively lurker, first time book club participator.

Overall feels like an average thriller setup so far. Having not read the synopsis at all, I’m intrigued to see if there’s psychological/mindgame elements because of the reference to how to tell if someone’s lying in the prologue.

I’m probably going to mostly post my random thoughts or guesses on what might happen every week. Because I find it fun not so seriously try to guess what’s going to happen and see if I ever even got close along the way!

As for the husband, he’s definitely sketchy, but I wonder if it’s not just him being a dopey or bad husband, but because

he’s in on it/a killer/psycho. If you think about it, they met suddenly, got married quickly. It sounds like he loved bombed her, they’re looking for a place, and then nothing “fit their bill”. Then all of a sudden they’re driving out to a pretty much abandoned mansion in the boonies in the middle of a snowstorm. I read this weeks reading over a week ago and haven’t reread as I’m writing this so I might be misremembering, but as far as I remember there’s no reference to the main character actually having spoken to Judy about coming to this particular house, all presumed communication was through her husband, so what’s not to say that the husband hasn’t brought them there specifically for something nefarious unbeknownst of Judy at all with the pretext of looking for a house to keep his wife unsuspecting.

Either way, I like it so far. Didn’t feel particularly draining to read at any point so far.

[monace]

Welcome welcome! Glad to have you!

I agree, I don’t think Judy is in on this at all. I don’t remember either but it would be interesting to confirm that Tricia has indeed not spoken to Judy about this visit and everything was “agreed upon” through the husband, that would make him ten times sketchier than he already is.

[exp-1]

Hey everyone,

Wasn’t sure I wanted to participate at first, as thrillers are definitely not my favourite genre, and I usually don’t like reading translations when I can read in the original language, but since the book was so generously shared on discord ( ), I decided to give it a go. This week’s reading was a nice enough start that I’ll keep going for now !

Another book where I don’t like the male protagonist, but at least he’s not the narrator… I think most of my thoughts on this first part have already been shared here and there. I also read this last monday, so sharing from memory. The husband is so dismissive, I do not get what’s so lovable in his behaviour, whether from the past stories or as it’s unfolding in the present. I also find him very sketchy. His explanations for the weird events don’t make much sense. That would be Judy. It’s the moonlight reflecting ?!?! Come on.

The level of the book is just fine, picking up some daily life vocab which is always nice.

[monace]

We kick off week 2

See you all after finishing chapter 11

[bizoo]

I am reading this in physical paperback this time and am verrry lookup-lazy so I am going to be relying on this thread for the cool word finds.

only caught up w week 1 so far as i was sick this weekend but loving the hints at Tricia’s secret backstory (who did she kill?? she must have killed someone this is a thriller… how is it related to the missing doctor and the house? there’s no way they are in that house by accident! I am guessing she was a patient of the dr)

Lee Seon our fave kr man being either the world’s most oblivious man or the most obvious villian. Lowkey hope he’s just very blond. In my head he’s now being played by 박서준.

I also kind of hope the whole book plays out and then Judy pops up at the door like sorry i’m late! oh…oh my

someone actually lowkey spoiled the plot twist for me accidentally irl so i am just Not Thinking about it and reading on

So far a fun tropey read, and I’m not getting lost reading without lookups so far.

[exp-1]

박서준 haha I can’t unsee it. Hope you’re feeling better.