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A review by icicle84
Fox Girl by Nora Okja Keller
5.0
Unforgettable.
I can’t universally recommend the book. It’s VERY gritty, and contains triggers for nearly anyone who’s suffered any kind of abuse or difficult relationships, and plenty of people who haven’t.
But it’s highly moving and one of the most gut-wrenching books I’ve ever read. Perhaps if you’re not a very empathetic person you won’t connect with the characters - they can be unnecessarily mean and sniping at times, or they can be unrealistically calm and congenial at times you’d think the situation would call for more angst or even violence.
But they all come from dark backgrounds with significant trauma, and I disagree that this makes them unlikable. They’re pitiful, pathetic characters, but so are many of the people we pass in the street every day. We might call them ugly, undesirable, whores, idiots, any pejoratives our mind automatically settles on, without ever comprehending the trauma that could be in their past. The thesis of the book comes in one sentence more than 2/3 of the way through: “I didn’t care if she was ugly for the rest of her life; I knew how to love the unlovable.”
Some complain about the quick jumps in time and ages being unclear, but if those are issues they’re minor ones, and potentially even helpful in understanding the horror or the timeless nature of living the life these characters lived. Sometimes you read and think a year mist have passed, then you realize it was only a few days. Are these girls 24, 20, 16? What’s happening in the outside world? None of it matters to them, immersed in the filthy underworld where their grimy, gritty lives consist only of wringing every won they can from their young bodies with the hope of having enough food to eat and luxuries like beaded necklaces and GIs who will buy them candy.
My only real complaint is probably that it’s not gritty enough. The author’s optimism shines through a bit unrealistically at points - while some of the circumstances are certainly possible, I fully expected far more tragedy in places (don’t get me wrong - this book is a smack in the face with a nail-ridden 2x4, but I fully expected to be decapitated at the end too). Maybe the few brief respites are just there to keep readers from jumping off a tall building.
That minor critique aside, it’s a superlative book, and one I won’t ever forget.
I can’t universally recommend the book. It’s VERY gritty, and contains triggers for nearly anyone who’s suffered any kind of abuse or difficult relationships, and plenty of people who haven’t.
But it’s highly moving and one of the most gut-wrenching books I’ve ever read. Perhaps if you’re not a very empathetic person you won’t connect with the characters - they can be unnecessarily mean and sniping at times, or they can be unrealistically calm and congenial at times you’d think the situation would call for more angst or even violence.
But they all come from dark backgrounds with significant trauma, and I disagree that this makes them unlikable. They’re pitiful, pathetic characters, but so are many of the people we pass in the street every day. We might call them ugly, undesirable, whores, idiots, any pejoratives our mind automatically settles on, without ever comprehending the trauma that could be in their past. The thesis of the book comes in one sentence more than 2/3 of the way through: “I didn’t care if she was ugly for the rest of her life; I knew how to love the unlovable.”
Some complain about the quick jumps in time and ages being unclear, but if those are issues they’re minor ones, and potentially even helpful in understanding the horror or the timeless nature of living the life these characters lived. Sometimes you read and think a year mist have passed, then you realize it was only a few days. Are these girls 24, 20, 16? What’s happening in the outside world? None of it matters to them, immersed in the filthy underworld where their grimy, gritty lives consist only of wringing every won they can from their young bodies with the hope of having enough food to eat and luxuries like beaded necklaces and GIs who will buy them candy.
My only real complaint is probably that it’s not gritty enough. The author’s optimism shines through a bit unrealistically at points - while some of the circumstances are certainly possible, I fully expected far more tragedy in places (don’t get me wrong - this book is a smack in the face with a nail-ridden 2x4, but I fully expected to be decapitated at the end too). Maybe the few brief respites are just there to keep readers from jumping off a tall building.
That minor critique aside, it’s a superlative book, and one I won’t ever forget.