Snow Globe (Book review)

 

SnowGlobe by Soyoung Park

Enclosed under a vast dome. SnowGlobe is the last place on earth that's warm.

Outside snowglobe is a frozen wasteland, and every day, citizens face the icy world to get their jobs at the power plant, where they produce the energy snowglobe needs to keep running. Their only solace comes in the form of twenty-four-hour television programming streamed directly from the dome city.

    The residents of Snowglobe have everything: fame, fortune, and, above all, safety from the desolation outside their walls. In exchange, their lives are broadcast to the less fortunate, who watch eagerly, hoping for the chance to one day become actors themselves.

    Chobahm lives for the time she spends watching the shows produced inside snowglobe. Her favorite? The Goh Haeri show. Haeri is Snowglobe's biggest star一and, it turns out, the key to getting chobahm her dream life.

    Because Haeri is dead, and Chobahm has been chosen to take her place. Only, life inside snowglobe is nothing like what you see on television. Reality is a lie, and truth seems to be forever out of reach.

“That’s how we escape the burden of our own bleak existence, if only for a while: by immersing ourselves in the lives of those who get to live where the sun shines.”

I read this book because I had seen it in my friend's TBR一and because the cover was interesting. I didn't know much about it, and even after reading the back, I still didn't get the plot, but I read it anyway. Going into this book, I was imagining a dystopian book with action and survival against the cold, but it's not like that at all. It's all about celebrities and mystery. I mean, that's on me for reading the back cover while zoned out and reading it with my own false expectations. But either way, it still played out a lot differently than you'd expect.

    The whole book was translated into English, and as you can see, the book is Korean. The book started out pretty boring, and didn't have much going on, but, as you read in the description, the main character takes the celebrity's place and goes to become a tv star in SnowGlobe一because they don't want the main character of the show to die and they wanna keep making money, so they'll just lie to the world that she's still alive. Yeah, the plot around that was kinda lame. Like, I guess the book would be about how she finds out about the lies, and exposes the truth and all, but for most of it, they went along with the idea like it was ideal.

    I don't know if this was purposeful for feminism, but there were like... no guy characters. Her brother was gone the whole book, and there's some other guy, but he dies, and another guy, but he's in and out, and then there's one main boy character, who is like... friends with the main character but like.. not really? It just gave a lot of feminine energy and I didn’t like it as much.

    The plot一as weird as it was一got me slightly invested cause it had a lot of mystery. I did find myself enjoying some of the book cause it was so different then the usual, action-packed book. There was also no romance or anything emotional or anything to take away. And the characters aren't my favorites. I didn't really relate to or find myself liking them very much. I think the brother was the best one. And he wasn't in it much.

"A few moments of heavy silence tricked by. But then someone stifles a snort, and it's all over. The three of us dissolve into laughter that won't stop until there are tears in my eyes and my abs hurt. I can't even say what's funny."

    There is a second book, so my criticisms on this might've been better in the next. Maybe there's more to the second, but I haven't read it, and I don't think I will. The book had some interesting moments and definitely some weird ones, along with a lot of confusion. It might have been me, but I found myself confused often. And to warn you, there is some cursing. It's not consistent, but they do say the b, s, and d word a couple of times. I think they said the f word once, but that's it. There's also a 'nonchalant violence' in this book, as I would call it. They kinda kill people off and do random things, and no one's really fazed by it. 

    There's also not much outside the Globe. Most of the book is inside, so the whole Snowglobe idea, which was exciting, wasn't in it much. But I do think it may come into play more in the second. And the cliffhanger towards the second was kinda... bland? It was like, they finished the goal and won, or whatever, but it's still like... okay, what's next? So I don't really know what the second is gonna be like.

    Overall, the book kept me reading, and I guess it was sorta entertaining. It's not a book I would recommend, but if you decide to read it, it's not the worst thing. I love reading books like these with friends sometimes. Makes the journey more fun when you have someone to talk to and vent to about it.

"I 'd better be, with all the Botox I've been getting."

    Don't mind the weird quote, I just thought it was ridiculous and added it for some reason. I would rate it 2.5/10 and ages teen and up. I say more for teens, not cause it's too violent or inappropriate, but because it just seemed like a more mature read, and it has some cursing and mentions some things that a younger audience wouldn't understand. But yeah, hope this review helped!

-Jaybirdstweets