Roberto
Contains spoilers
The synopsis: After an apocalyptic event 40 women found themselves locked in a basement and guarded by men. They receive food once per day, they are not allowed to touch each other, a light is always on which dims when it's time for bed. It seems like a sci-fi dystopian mystery, but it's actually a psychological and philosophical book with those things just playing a minor role.
There are no chapters, we are reading the written memoirs of our main character. She was just a little girl when she was thrown in the basement so she has memories only of this new world. While it's not quite a standard structure for the book, it has 3 acts each with its own distinct themes. The first one is not great, but it becomes better and better and I've read the last 100 pages in one sitting.
Spoiler (minor): the only spoiler is there is no spoiler, just like in life we don't always get all the answers.
While I was picking up 2 books on my list from a local bookshop I noticed they had a promotion 2+1, so I had to choose from that pile a third book. I picked this one because I liked the cover even if you should not judge a book by it. And even more ironically this is one of the messages in the book. But it gave me a good feeling and I have not read a south korean novel until now, so I decided now it's a good time to starts as I have already watched and enjoyed multiple films and tv shows from them.
Now to the book. It's a cute little story, like a Christmas hallmark movie. A homeless man, goes by the name Dok-Go, gets a job at a minimarket after finding and returning the owner's wallet, miss Yeom. The action starts in Autumn and goest past Christman and New Year until spring, so it can be a nice reading even in the winter holidays. Each chapter is from a different character's perspective and this is one of the strengths of the book. Some characters may seem one-dimensional from another one's perspective, but when you get to their story you learn more about them, you see how life does not always go as planned and people may not be able to deal with life in the best way.
After Dream gets his powers and restored his kingdom, he notices a few inhabitants are missing and begins to search for them. But the volume name Doll House refers to another character, a girl named Rose. She reunites with her grandmother, a woman who has slept most of her life because of Sandman's imprisonment and gave birth during that time. Then she starts the search for her brother, he went with her father after her parents' divorce. Rose is a human McGuffin, I found it to be the weak part of the story. The missing inhabitants are tied to Rose and they are really cool, especially the Corinthian with his cereal convention.
We get 2 really good side stories, one about an ancient princess and one about a man who receives immortality and meets with Dream every 100 years in the same pub.
In an era in which we are flooded with information it's clear that we need a way to organize the abundance of data. Some self help books can be very mystical and not at all practical, but this one contains concrete tips. Only after applying the lessons from these books for a few months I could say with certainty if it's good or not, but I'd say the start is pretty good. Can't say it's groundbreaking, we all know that it's good to take notes and organize them. What this book does well is to provide a framework from where to start to better organize our (digital) life.
A Language of Dragons' gives us Hunger Games vibes in a post-WWI world where dragons speak human tongues. The dystopian setting hits familiar YA notes, but offers enough novelty to stay interesting.
The protagonist is divisive – teacher's pet smart and ambitious, but with enough depth to make her compelling, unlike the supporting cast which are two-dimensional.
The book's biggest flaw? Despite promising an epic civil war between dragon-human factions, we mostly get stuck in a house with teenagers learning about the conflict through radio broadcasts.