Reading this book was an experience in confirmation bias. I knew what to expect and it didn't disappoint. However, even though I wasn't particularly engrossed by the book, I still wish it had been longer.

This novel is a weird, believable dystopia of human-made environmental disaster and end stage capitalism. It's a little unsatisfying in a very deliberate way. So happy to have this translation.

I've never read an "eco-thriller" before, but clearly I need to explore this genre more often. I loved the feminist angle of Ku-en's novel -- it's definitely piqued my interest in Korean literature!

This book was both funny and scary, and the writing was really good. At first, I felt that the book dragged a little, but after the first 100 pages or so, the plot started to pick up.

Yona Ko works at a travel agency in South Korea that specializes in trips to disaster areas. A ten-year veteran, Yona is feeling disillusioned by her job and concerned that she is going to get a "yellow card" because things are happening to her that have happened to others who have had a yellow card and subsequently lost their jobs. She decides to resign, but her supervisor rejects the resignation and sends her one on of the disaster area trips that is being considered for removal from the company's offerings. The decision for removal is supposed to hinge on Yona's opinions and evaluation after her trip. Yona's trip is unremarkable, but on the way back to Korea, she gets separated from her travel group. Finding herself back in Mui, the disaster area island, she discovers the disaster she visited was essentially fabricated and a corporation is planning a bigger, more horrific disaster in order to increase tourism.

This book caught me quite off guard - I was expecting a lighter, beachier, vacation-y story. It was a lot more on the horror and thriller side! There was a line of believability to a travel company that specializes in sending people to natural disaster areas, and then corporations and the government turning a blind eye to creating fake disasters that cost human lives in order to line their pockets.

This was a very short book, more like a long-ish short story than a novel. There is a dryness and "flatness" to the characters that I always feel is common in short stories, and is true of this book. Even with this consideration, it was a very interesting and unique read.

I found this book to be slow and predictive. I did feel the storyline was different and unique. It was a short read that did not take long to read.

Yona Ko has been the travel coordinator at Jungle Travel in Korea for ten years. They specialize in disaster packages with natural calamities like earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions.
After being sexually assaulted by her boss, she is sent on a working vacation to the fictional country of Mui, to decide if the Desert Sinkhole experience should be kept in their disaster tour collection.
It ends up being a big disappointment.
When Yona becomes stranded in the country, she gets caught up in a dark plan to manufacture a disaster that is tour worthy, but at what cost to the people that make Mui their home?
This eco-thriller shows the tragic underbelly of the tourist industry and society's obsession with disaster.
It started out slowly, but picked up the pace with more action toward the end.
The characters were odd and quirky, but strangely charming.
The writing was cryptic and didn't really draw me in, it had a dry quality to it that never quite captured my attention.
Thank you Counterpoint Press for the e-ARC via NetGalley.

The Disaster Tourist was an incredibly interesting and thoughtful read. I had some trouble getting into it originally, but it really picked up speed about halfway through when you begin to understand that several people plan to fake a catastrophe to encourage tourism to the island. The end of the book was very profound and left me thinking about the cost of tourism as well as the cost of ambition. I look forward to selling this title.

Interesting atmospheric read. Yona is a coordinator for Jungle, a disaster tourism company. Her life begins to unravel when a predatory supervisor sets his sights on her. Yona is sent to evaluate a failing attraction, a sinkhole in Mui. Underwhelmed by the experience, Yona winds up stranded in Mui and uncovers a conspiracy to engineer another disaster and save the failing attraction.

"The Disaster Tourist" is a crazy, quirky little novel. I enjoyed the overall storyline, but I don't think this novel will be memorable for years to come. It's decent and unexpected but something was lacking. It's a mixed bag for me.

Thank you, Netgalley and Counterpoint Press for the digital ARC.

I really love what this book was trying to do and appreciate its intention and story to call out the way we as global citizens react to disasters and disaster zones and also with a side eye to certain forms of ecotourism and activism that supposedly benefit local people affected by disaster, climate change or hardship. I loved the premise of a down-trodden disaster tour coordinator, Yona, who is absolutely burned out designing and planning tours to disaster zones. The themes of sexual harassment in the workplace were unexpected but they added a powerlessness and realism to Yona’s experience working at disaster tour package company, Jungle. When for office political reasons Yona is sent to the island of Mui to evaluate whether the tour package to that destination should be cancelled, she finds that a major investor in Mui is not ready to be cut off from Jungle without a fight and indeed wants Yona’s help in designing the greatest disaster of all to ensure that Mui remains a disaster tour destination regardless of the collateral damage.

I feel like this novel has potential to be really interesting. I went into it predisposed to liking it and feel like the first 25% went by really quickly. Unfortunately, I feel like this began to drag a little and lost its way in the middle parts till the last 25% or so. The blurb more or less summarizes the high points and I feel like the climax and resolution were approached a little abruptly towards the end whereas some of the key portions of the book could have been moved to occur earlier when the book lost its way. There’s an unexpected love story which kind of felt rushed and random and out of the blue with the way it was thrown in and ultimately, whereas if it had been introduced earlier, it had the potential to ground the book a little- rather than being shafted in near the end. I just wasn’t a fan of the pacing and plotting of this book. I think the innovative concept, the message and the author’s style of describing characters and places and events early on deserved a bit more than what we got. Admittedly, this is a translation so perhaps it’s just not reading in English as it would in the original language.

What was successful was the introduction of the ways tourism and even ecotourism and environmental activism can prey on the local people it purports to assist. I feel like this was a call out to us all to evaluate the impact of our tourism practices as well as a satirical look at the length big investors will go to exploit local people and natural resources whilst pretending to be following sustainable principles. But even then, this novel didn’t fulfill its promise and delve deeply into those issues through Yona’s experience. It’s almost like Yona is in a bubble and because the story is told from her perspective in a way, we’re in a bubble with her and we don’t really get to sink into the themes and the plot, and like her we’re floating on the periphery of the story. Ultimately I loved the idea and message of the story and certain elements of it, I just didn’t personally find the execution to be “for me.” To me, it lost its way a little and meandered a lot from what was on its way to being a stellar read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from CounterpointPress in exchange for an honest review.

Yona Ko, works as a disaster vacation curator for Jungle. She scours the news each morning looking for the newest plane crashes or earthquakes, and determines whether she has a new location to plan an itinerary around. She's really good at her job - maybe because she understands the mind of a disaster tourist - but for some reason she isn't viewed as a good employee, and is starting to be harrassed by her boss. Her workplace is not employee friendly. As Yona contemplates her options, Jungle offers her a vacation in the form of work. She gets to choose between a few underperforming packages and go on a vacation - rating it at the end for the company. This is all made more uncomfortable by Yona's knowledge of how her own company works. She knows that she's following a path of escalating bad treatment travelled by other employees who have quit or been fired. The work culture in this book is awful. Funnily, they use American obsession with work as motivation to work harder - as if it is something to strive towards.

Honestly, Yona's whole work life is a disaster. She's awkward. She allows events to spiral out of control because she takes no control. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but reading this book made <i>me</i> uncomfortable as she encountered and went along with one strange event after another. Maybe therein lies the charm - reading Yona's story enveloped me in the disaster tourist fold, as I journeyed through Yun Ko-eun's carefully curated tour of Yona's life, <i>3 days, 3 nights</i>, as events escalate on her own disaster tour until she is faced with the option of being a horrible human working at Jungle, or a horrible person working on a new venture. 3.5/5, would recommend.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an e-copy via Netgalley.

Disaster tourism is great concept, and something that I’m sure actually happens: touring the sites of tragedy. Not to see a monument or memorial, but to see the aftermath of devastation.

Our protagonist, Yona, works for the disaster tourism company, Jungle. They offer all-inclusive packages catered to each disaster zone. Following an incident at work, Yona is given the opportunity to take one of Jungle’s disaster tours. She proceeds to learn about the inner workings of her company, and herself.

I really enjoyed this novella. The writing is engaging and literary, but to the point. Yona’s motivations and feelings, as well as the commentary on society, are clear to the reader. Yona’s journey took a few turns I wasn’t expecting, and I liked the characters she met along the way. The ending was satisfying and posed the overall themes well.

This is such a unique, strange book - probably one of my first reads translated from Korean, and one of the most interesting eco-thrillers I've read in a while.

Yona Ko is a thirty-something year old Korean woman who works for a disaster tourism company called Jungle. That's right - disaster tourism. Jungle organizes trips to natural disaster zones for tourists to visit, making them more thankful for the lives they have. Yona is one of the trip planners who's recently fizzled out at her job. When she lets her manager know that she's thinking of quitting, her manager tells her to go on a vacation at Jungle's expense - to visit a site that Jungle is thinking of removing from its programs. Yona chooses Mui, the site of a twenty-year-old desert sinkhole in Vietnam.

When she gets to Mui, she understands why Jungle is thinking of cancelling this trip - it's an old disaster, not particularly grisly or interesting, and the sinkhole has been filled with water so it's more like a resort than a disaster site. When Yona experiences some trouble on her way back to Korea at the end of the trip, she finds herself back in Mui and discovers a plot to make Mui great again (for lack of a better phrase). The town is highly dependent on the tourist income from Jungle, and realizing that it's on the verge of disappearing, the town's leaders plan a new disaster to get Jungle interested once more. Yona gets wrapped up in this plot, for better or for worse.

I liked the plot of this book - it's inventive and new, something I can't compare to any other book I've read. But the execution was a little awkward, I'm not sure if due to the translation or the original work. The pacing was a little bit too slow in the beginning then too fast in the end, and the characters were all alienating and off-putting. It's a relatively fast read at about 200 pages, so I'm sure any reader would tear through it fairly quickly. I can easily see this being adapted into a more visual medium that tells the story better - the whole story, particularly the ending, deserve a fantastic visual execution. Thank you to Counterpoint for the ARC!

Thank you Counterpoint Press for this copy of The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun for review on Netgalley. Translated by Lizzie Buehler from Korean, this eco thriller is a quick and fun read.

I am not sure how much of The Disaster Tourist I can share without ruining the shocking ending but I will tell you this is one I could not stop talking about. It’s a little slower paced for a thriller, probably placing it more in the drama end of the spectrum for me. The beginning is especially slow as it sets up Yona, our protagonist, to go on one of the trips she plans for her company and why she might make some of the choices she makes in the end. Yona designs “disaster travel” packages for a tour company. Maybe helping to clean up after a recent tsunami or climate event. She becomes the target of her handsy boss and feels like she might be getting pushed out. When her boss sends her on a fact finding mission on one of their packages under review, she jumps at the chance. From there the real crazy story happens and it’s a good one.

This was a short book but definitely one I recommend, especially if you are looking for a change from the usual thrillers. There is a lot going on in the second half of this book and once you get there, you’ll be hooked, I promise.

In "The Disaster Tourist", Yona works for a travel company in South Korea, which has an interesting specialty- they create and book disaster vacations. They cater to tourists who want to learn about and experience areas that have been hit by disasters (e.g., tsunamis, sink holes, etc.) After being harassed at work, Yona attempts to quit, but instead is sent on a journey to evaluate one of the company's vacations and decide whether to keep it on their list of options or not. When she arrives at Mui, she finds an island that is lacking in opportunity and a decreasing amount of tourists. In order to increase tourism back to the island, a disaster is planned, and Yona is asked to be involved in the planning. The book evolves into a thriller, when things go not according to plan. This book is an interesting mix of suspenseful and a critique of people's fascination with disasters. Also, one can reflect on what happens when the livelihood of a community depends on the exploitation of it by others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for this ARC for review.

The Disaster Tourist is part literary vacation, part colorful commentary on everything from travel to disaster to the meaning of life. Yona Ko gets stuck on the tiny island of Mui after a business trip for her disaster travel company goes disastrously wrong and ends up making a devil's bargain with some shady characters who are trying to bring money to the poverty-stricken region. The descriptions of Mui are lush and evocative, and Yona's inner musings on travel, life, and love make for a thought-provoking read.

Title: The Disaster Tourist
Author: Yun Ko-eun
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: Four
Review:

"The Disaster Tourist" by Yn Ko-eun

My Speculation:

The title says it all "The Disaster Tourist," as this author delivers to the readers one unique story.
We find that a travel agency employee will get involved and stuck in quite a disaster travel zone [Mui]. I will say that the plot to the story was creative and will keep you turning the pages; however, the story kind of left me wondering what in the world is happening? After being sexually assaulted by her boss at work [The Jungle, a Korean tourism Company] and then as punishment sent to a disaster resort, will this heroine Yona be able to make it out of there alive? Why had Yona agreed to go to this remote island of Mui? Well, it was to be her 'job to experience this vacation as a tourist and then see whether it's worth this company's renewing their contract.' But, Yona didn't know that she would be drawn into quite a twisted plot to sustain this island, at all cost.

I will say there is so much going on that some of the parts of the story were a little hard for me to grasp; however, this was quite an original story that was unlike any other books I have ever read.

Thank you to Net Galley for such an interesting read!

Original and unsettling. I was blown away by this seemingly simple story. This was my first time reading Yun Ko-Eun and I will seek out more of her work in the future.

Yona's story resonated with me on many levels. My mind keeps replaying certain parts of the story over and over. Definitely atmospheric.

After while crocodile.

Dark tourism! monolithic corporations! ethical dilemmas! meta, surreal plotlines!
Thanks to Counterpoint Press and NetGalley for the free e-copy.
Yona works for Jungle, a travel company which designs vacation packages centering around various disasters. After Yona starts being targeted at work, she is encouraged to take a breather by going on a trip to one of Jungle’s less successful locations to assess if they should continue to offer the package. But soon after her trip to Mui begins, she realizes that this island is not willing to give up their partnership without a fight. This South Korean cli-fi (fiction about effects of climate change) is a compelling, chilling ride full of unexpected twists and turns, with striking, stark writing and a morally ambiguous narrator.

The book brought up so many themes that merit further discussion. It explores office culture and harassment, as well as one’s culpability in unconscionable situations as a “cog in the wheel.” It provides a deep dive into the many nuances about the problematic elements of tourism. From ecotourism to “ethical” tourism, many of these trips allow—and even encourage— travelers to leave a location pitying the residents and feeling grateful for their own lives. Who benefits from tourism in these communities? What facades are put up for visitors expecting a very specific experience?

My main critique is that some of the messages were a little heavy-handed, when I think the reader could have handled more subtlety. Overall, this was a unique, fast-paced read that I would classify as dystopia-lite (did y’all know disaster tourism already exists?!). This would be a great pick for August’s Women in Translation Month!

TW: sexual harassment and assault, ableist language, mass death, colonialism