I tried to read this, but gave up about 1/4 of the way through. It was definitely a DNF for me. I would still read more by the author. However, I just didn't connect with this story.

2/5 Stars

DNF at 12% - There is too much going on for me here. Perhaps it's the stream of consciousness-esque writing style, as one minute the protagonist is commenting on someone's clothes and the next she's taken a deep dive into memories of family. Then she's revisiting some mythology and finally she's talking about her "imaginary friend," who I assume is going to actually be that folklore character from she was talking about a few pages ago.
There are a lot of details, but the details are only what the protagonist takes in. She perseverates a lot.
Again, I'm sure there will be a lot of people who fall in love with this novel for good reason. The protagonist is a Korean American woman studying speculative physics on the South Pole. She talks a lot about her family upbringing and what it was like growing up Korean American. She's got a lot going on inside her mind, potentially some unaddressed mental illness. There's a lot going on! It was just too overwhelming for me to invest myself in it.

I am a little torn by this book and how to review it; I loved the way Hur paints this complicated picture of familial ties and misunderstandings but I just couldn't get situated in the whole setting. I was confused from the get-go where the story was picking off -- are we in the future? Are we in a post-apocalyptic world? That confusion along with the ghosts of the past and folklore really threw me off. I only connected with the book about halfway in when Elsa finally returns home for a family emergency. I also want to be cognizant that my lack of knowledge for Korean folklore may have hindered me from connecting with the main character and Elsa's overall quest to find truth from the old stories. I got lost in the physics' analogies (what is a neutrino!) and didn't really care for all the science stuff BUT it's still freakin' awesome to have a Korean American female protag who is a kick-ass physicist.

With all this said, I really do think the book needs props for the way it names the good intentions and missed expectations of first-generation Asian immigrants for their progeny. Yes, it's a trope when it's simplified but this book shows how complicated families are and how complicated their dreams are for the second-generation.

There's also so much in this book that addresses the Asian American identity struggle: "I always felt like a shapeshifter too --moving across America, across class, from Gardena to my blue-blood patrician schools, and now among the NordicTrackers. But it's not code-switching--I don't adapt in order to fit in or translate myself back and forth. I can't peel off my Asian face anyway. But how else to explain why my skin feels false, ill-fitting or suffocating--depending on which borders and spaces I cross?"

Some of the character dynamics confused me and maybe it was intentionally vague to keep readers' on their toes. The plot has you guessing who is telling lies to whom: was Elsa's mom truly delusional or is Chris the one who is manipulating the family? Is their father violent and evil or was he just misunderstood? There's a lot of nuance to each character and Hur did that exceptionally well. I didn't understand Oskar's push to show up every time even though he had been burned and ghosted by Elsa repeatedly -- that was probably the one storyline I feel could have been eliminated but it also felt like his presence in the story was a relief from all the other storylines.

I think I'll end here: if you're okay with the natural and spiritual worlds blending and you're comfortable with science-talk, this is the book to pick up.

I’m always a sucker for books where immigrant children attempt to understand their parents, because what am I if not a raging masochist. Folklorn took a unique approach to that kind of story, couching the narrative in magical realism and folktales.

There were several things that worked for me with this book— it was incredibly well-researched and thoughtful down to the last detail. The book spans three continents and pays close attention to each setting. The spooky elements of the story were delicately handled. The narrator was so dry and acerbic and equal parts self aware and absolutely delusional. The resolution sort of broke my heart but I loved how it did. The conundrum of trying to figure out how much of you is shaped by your culture versus revealing some essential part of you was explored really beautifully. The brother character fascinated me.

Things that didn’t work- pacing. I think it dragged in several places— it took me weeks to read this just to push ahead in parts where I felt disconnected from the narrator and uninvested in the events.

Still, a solid read, and an interesting approach to a narrative I’ve seen in different forms before. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my unbiased opinion!

The way Elsa describes her life serves as a pretty good description of the book:
"I'd grown up thinking of my life as some immigrant's kid bildungsroman, but then things took a sci-fi supernatural turn in Antarctica with some recent feathery flourishes of gothic horror. Now I'm tripping into a rom-com set-up."

Folklorn is a genre bending book that follows Elsa Park, a Korean-American physicist that studies sterile neutrinos ("the ghost particle's ghost") as she tries to de-mystify a family curse about folklore and destiny, all while navigating being a foreigner abroad, family tragedies, a child-hood imaginary friend resurfacing, and major career pivots.

This book was witty, reflective, and often funny, too. Although the book has a slow start (in which I admittedly found Elsa insufferable), I quickly grew attached to both her and her story. This book made me interested in learning more about Korean mythology, indulged me in providing interesting facts about physics and history, and forced me to reflect on my own identity and familial relations.

Although my family's story is so different than Elsa's, I found her story so incredible relatable. I think this book is the best fictional portrayal of Asian-American immigrant identity I've read in a while. Too often, struggles are generalized, families characterized, and pain homogenized. This book didn’t do any of that, homing in on specifics that makes Elsa and Oskar’s stories unique, relatable, and all the more real.

I loved the format of the book, with overarching metaphors, myths inserted between the pages containing her stories, and swoon-worthy letters pushing along plot and providing context.

The only thing keeping this book from being a 5-star read is how seemingly perfect Oskar is. A little too quick to forgive, a little too willing to help, and a little too composed, Oskar’s only flaws lived in his past and we get them all settled and wrapped up in a nice little bow at the end.

Overall a great read that I would recommend to mythology fans, readers who like to reflect on identity and family, and honestly all my Asian-American friends.

Thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Folklorn is a novel by Angela Mi Young Hur from publisher Erewhon Books, which as a new publisher of off-beat SF/F and magical realism has really been putting out a ton of great stuff. So I was already going to be interested in Folklorn anyway but I've also seen some high praise for it on twitter by a few writers I follow. So yeah, I was really excited to pick up this one to see it for myself.

And Folklorn is like few novels I've read honestly, but it is absolutely tremendous. A story of magical realism following a first generation Korean-American physicist feeling torn between worlds, between the stories of her seemingly gone-mad mother and the abuse of her now aged father, the racism and prejudice she has felt all over the world, and how all of those things seem to haunt her wherever she goes - literally perhaps as she begins to see her childhood imaginary friend guiding her toward...something. Don't get me wrong, it's not an American story really (it takes place as much in Sweden and also begins in Antarctica), but it absolutely the story of a woman, due to her Korean heritage and family, always seemingly out of place no matter where she goes, and it's utterly fascinating and compelling from beginning to end, even as it's often difficult to read.

Trigger Warning: The story features an abusive (physical) father and what can arguably be considered an abusive (verbally) mother, although such scenes are more often described than actually seen in the physical violence sense.

-----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Elsa Park is an experimental physicist nearing the end of her time at a station for particle measuring in the Antarctic. Seemingly on the path to potential scientific greatness, Elsa finds herself filled with unease over family tradition she has long fled - a family of Korean immigrants to America who have always been haunted by their past. Elsa's father is haunted by the inheritance he felt he ought to have had in Korea and responded with anger and violence, while her mother was seemingly haunted by a daughter stillborn in Korea until she had a mental breakdown and became catatonic. Elsa's brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia in college, believing himself Jesus' brother but helped Elsa flee to boarding school at 14 and then to college in Sweden, far away from the family seemingly falling apart.

But even getting away from her family couldn't stop Elsa from noticing how people first in America, and then in Sweden and even Antarctica reacted to the clear outsider Korean face among them. And when she begins seeing her old imaginary friend in the Antarctic and hears of her mother suddenly speaking again of old stories and Elsa's long lost sister, Elsa finds herself seemingly lost in both past and future. Soon she finds herself hunting down not just hypothetical subatomic particles, but the stories of her family and heritage, seeking answers to transform her life out of the depths of her past.
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Folklorn is a hell of a book, one which is hard to explain or review or even talk about without verging into literary and worldly criticism. At one point the protagonist thinks to herself: "I'd grown up thinking of my life as some immigrants kid bildungsroman, but then things took a sci-fi supernatural turn in Antarctica with some recent feathery flourishes of gothic horror. Now I'm tripping into a rom-com set-up." And yeah all those things are there, although the book settles quite clearly after that point into magical realism, in the form of an imaginary friend from Elsa's childhood returning to haunt her at various points to push her forward in some unclear direction.

It's an unclear direction because Elsa's whole life has been moving in an unclear direction, pushed by her constant feeling of outsiderness due to her race, her heritage, and her family. Elsa has lived in the US, then in Sweden, and then in Antarctica, and has always felt on the outside in large part due to her race and the different stereotypes those played into - stereotypes that she even sometimes internalizes (especially in the beginning, where she in a state of insomniac-looniness begins seeing a Mongolian graduate student as a replacement for herself). Whether she was expected to be the brilliant one in the US despite a blue collar family or expected to be a sex worker by racist assholes in Sweden muttering things as she passed by, she has never stopped feeling like an Other. And so she always feels without a home - as she's never been to Korea, and would immediately be exposed as an Other there as well - despite having spent years in these places. These experiences of course are not limited to Elsa - a similar experience is felt by another Swedish Academic she begins a relationship with, Oskar, a Korean adoptee by a Swedish family from a foster mother who couldn't understand what she was doing wrong in taking unwanted Korean children away from Korea and trying to raise them color-blind in Sweden.

Elsa however adds to this all with her tragic family history that she can never escape. Her father and mother left a war-torn Korea (sorta) and always acted like things were on the verge of disaster in various different ways. For her father, who felt cheated out of his inheritance, and then suffered physical violence from a robber, he became abusive towards his wife and kids, even if more verbally than physically towards the kids, never being able to understand his kids potential wants for a different future. For her mother, it led her to act dangerously, even becoming a prominent loan shark, even as she spun Korean folktales for her kids, folktales that never quite seemed to make sense....up until the one day when Elsa was 14 where her mother claimed her family was haunted by their ancestors tragedies and that Elsa had a long lost sister her mother left behind in Korea instead of actually being stillborn. After that day, Elsa's mother became catatonic, and the pressure of Elsa's mother and father led her brother seemingly to have his own mental breakdown and diagnosis of schizophrenia, leaving him to leave college and come back home.

For Elsa,, these family tragedies leave her adrift, and her attempt to escape it fails at the start of this story when her imaginary friend from way back when returns and her mother wakes up from her catatonia for one last comment about Elsa's supposed sister. Indeed, there are clear parallels in her shift in research to focus on a hypothetical and perhaps long-shot particle and her attempt to discover truth and meaning in her family heritage, the heritage she can't escape, and the stories based upon Korean myth that her mother tried forcing on her before breaking down. It doesn't help that all these stories seem to feature tragedies being inflicted upon the Korean girls who are the subject of them, and that she can't quite remember the last of these stories.

Over the course of the novel, Elsa struggles to put this all together, falling between worlds and seemingly being unable to put them all together - Elsa the brilliant scientist, Elsa the Korean-American girl in a White world, Elsa the girl from a family filled with mental health problems, - all at the same time. It all leads to a fascinating conclusion where Elsa, through discovering the past - and how it fits in with others like Oskar and her brother - comes to a realization about transformation for both herself and her theorizing.

I'm not sure if I'm making much sense in the above, and really the only solution is to suggest you read Folklorn, a tale of science, of history, of the influence of race - especially the influence of race - and how it all ties together. This is very much a book for power in this regard, especially as an answer for anyone who claims race doesn't matter, because for Elsa, it and her family heritage and history - and for Oskar with the same - it cannot be escaped. And Elsa - and Oskar - won't escape it by the end, but they may come together with conclusions that will allow them to move forward despite it, by not simply running away from it as Elsa did for so long, but by trying to put it together - and perhaps more interesting, trying to put together what they are NOT - with who they actually are.

Elsa is a physicist studying in Antarctica when she unexpectedly starts seeing her childhood imaginary friend again. Soon after, she learns that her mother has passed away, so she must to return to her childhood home of California. Could it be that this imaginary friend is actually a ghost related to her mother in some way? Elsa tries to search for answers by uncovering her mother's secrets and dealing with her other family members.

I'm having a difficult time putting together thoughts for this book. It is an incredible perspective of a Korean American woman and how her experience has shaped her views and her life. It also explores dealing with grief, loss, abuse, and generational trauma. Much of this is explored through Korean folktales that Elsa's mother left behind that tie into a magical realism component of the story. There is a lot going on and it's at times can be a heavy read, but also very beautifully written. I don't think I've ever read such a genuine and believable perspective before; Elsa just felt so real.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a free eARC. All opinions are my own.

Folklorn was a beautiful read. I loved the interplay of family trauma, Korean myth, and diaspora feels, and the weighty subject of intergenerational trauma and depression/grief is dealt with deftly by the author.

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley and Edelweiss, and got approved for it on both sites. Thanks to Erewhon Books for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

TALE OF MANY TALENTS

I have to be honest: I expected something different when I requested this book - something where the magical realism angle was more prominent, or just incorporated in a different manner. Then again (and this is still me being honest), upon rereading the blurb after turning the last page, I realised that I hadn't been lied to or led astray, except by my own wishful thinking, since I love stories where magical realism permeates the whole narrative. I did appreciate Folklorn nevertheless, but keep in mind that I might not be the best audience for this kind of book.
Folklorn is, basically, the story of a woman (Elsa) growing up into a toxic family and experiencing different shades of racism in modern-day America, trying to establish her identity by distancing herself both from her family and her roots, and ultimately realising that the only way to become whole is to confront them both. Told in an alternation of present tense and flashbacks, peppered with mythical tales about women's sacrifice, dominated by a mother figure torn between thinking her line is doomed to repeat the tragedies of the past and hoping her daughter can break the curse, with a thread of magical realism and a dash of romance (not precisely instalove, but quite close), Folklorn is many things: a family epic with a broken center, populated by siblings who are part real, part imagined and part (maybe) lost; a bildungsroman; an immigrant saga; a testament to all the women who have been abused by their own culture; and even a physics textbook that doubles as a real-life paradigm.

FROM A DISTANCE

So, I was fascinated by this story (though its complexity may have lost me a couple of times, and it would probably benefit from a reread). On the other hand, it wasn't easy for me to relate to Elsa (or her brother, or her love interested for that matter), since I don't share her (their) background, nor any of her (their) experiences. The author did a good job of making me understand where her and her family were coming from, intellectually; the problem is, I lacked the deep connection I need for my enjoyment of a story to reach the next level. It's probably a Western culture thing, where we are quick to severe our links with the past if it becomes a burden, and to build a new identity for ourselves without acknowledging our roots, if only to stomp on them eventually. And yet, it couldn't not come into play for me. Also, Elsa's fixation with her mother's tales and her need to reconstruct them in order to understand her past (and maybe change her future) bordered on unhealthy to me, and I couldn't fathom how Oskar (her love interest) would put up with it after having known her only for a short time, most of which spent in a long-distance relationship. I understand that they share a common ground, and that he is a scholar who - by chance - is interested in the very source material Elsa is researching; then again, their relationship felt a bit forced to me, and the ultimate plot twist that linked their stories together, while nice, felt a bit convenient.
Bottom line, I don't regret reading Folklorn - despite its being a different book than I had anticipated - and I would encourage everyone interested in East-Asian lore, immigrant stories, family sagas and the female experience to try it. It was a book that I appreciated more with my head than with my heart, but it was an interesting read, with strong, often evocative writing molded around an eye-opening core.

Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur uses magical realism to explore Korean mythology, cultural identity, mental health, and the enduring bonds of family. The novel opens with Elsa Park, a Korean-American experimental physicist conducting doctoral research on neutrinos (also known as ghost particles). She is confident in her studies, has no filter, and a prickly disposition, making her decidedly unlikable to those around her—yet an interesting character for readers to follow. Upon learning of her mother’s sudden passing, Elsa is forced to return home, where she begins a journey of self-discovery as she explores the Korean folktales her mother has left behind.

As far back as she can remember, Elsa’s mother has warned her that the women in their bloodline are doomed to live out the traumatic events outlined in a series of Korean folktales. Elsa constantly questions the abiding narratives that define cultural hegemony, so it’s in her nature to doubt her mother’s warnings; however, when she begins to see the supposedly imaginary friend she had as a child, Elsa interprets it as a portent of things to come and realizes there must be more to her mother’s stories. It’s either that, or she’s inherited her mother’s mental health issues, and the former is somehow easier to stomach than the latter, so she commits herself to researching the origins of her mother’s stories.

Folklorn is an especially nuanced examination of identity and race as they pertain to immigrants and diasporic communities. Elsa’s parents moved to America to make a better life for themselves, although they could not outrun the problems resulting from their own personal flaws. In addition to generational traumas, Elsa and her brother Chris struggle with the “model minority” myth, as well as “the freedom not to be grateful, indebted and beholden” like their immigrant parents. And Oskar, whom Elsa meets while learning about her mother’s folktales, is a Korean orphan adopted by Swedish parents and raised to ignore his race completely. Together, these seemingly disparate narratives provide a robust, decolonized illustration of the immigrant experience seldom seen in other novels.

The narrative structure in this book is difficult to follow as it jumps across time and space and struggles to straddle the line between academic book project and contemporary novel. The first of three parts, which consumes a little over 40% of the novel, was most challenging to read. Dense language and physics concepts attempt to teach readers about Elsa’s doctoral work while juxtaposing her passion for ghost particles with the Korean folktales that continue to haunt her. However, it’s simply too tedious for non-experts to digest while also attempting to establish other expository details at the beginning of the book. Elsa’s work is easiest to understand during a brief conversation she has with a cab driver, where she uses a metaphor about ice cream flavors to explain her research to an ordinary person. I would argue that’s all we need to know about it. Simply because Elsa is always thinking about her work does not mean we need to read about her thinking about her work, particularly because the more interesting aspects of Folklorn are about her family’s heritage and the mystery surrounding her mother’s stories.

Similarly, much of the dialogue about Korean myth, provenance, and book history in the third part of the novel is so heavily academic that it feels like a chore to read unless I’m getting a CV line for my efforts. I like a well-researched novel just as much as anyone else, but many parts of Folklorn read more like a scholarly publication (or conversations and correspondence about one). I repeatedly became impatient with the plot and pacing while Elsa and Oskar waxed poetic about their research.

Execution of the magical realism in this novel is disorienting, but I’m beginning to think that’s by design. The Korean folktales are real insofar as they’re stories with histories that span across centuries, but Elsa’s spiraling mental state paired with ill-advised efforts to self-medicate left me confused as to how we ought to perceive her visions. Sometimes I’d be halfway into one of her hallucinations before I realized what was happening. In retrospect, I wonder if the point was to illustrate just how unsettling and frustrating the experience is for Elsa. It is this ambiguity that makes the novel’s conclusion strangely wistful yet satisfying.

As an Asian-American academic with immigrant parents in a diaspora community, I related strongly to much of the experiences Elsa describes, and I particularly enjoyed learning about her family in the portions of the novel that highlight her past and her time with her brother. I also appreciate that Folklorn tackles the ambitious task of unpacking the many aftereffects of colonialism that continue to impact Asian diaspora communities. However, I wish the novel focused less on Elsa’s academic personality so that this important story could be a little more accessible for readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for sharing an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I can absolutely see how some people would love this book. I happen to not be one of those people. The book fell on the magical realism side of fantasy and I wish it would have leaned into the folklore a bit more. I loved the interspersed folktales, but they did break up the plot. While I powered through to the end where the stories do all come together, this just wasn't for me. I could see this being interesting for someone trying to dip their toes into the fantastical, but who wants to hew closer to literary fiction.

Folklorn is a very poetic book, full of magical realism and urban fantasy. I found the Korean folklore extremely fascinating and I learned a lot. There's so much to take in that I found it almost overwhelming and it took a while to get through it, but I'm glad I did. I enjoyed it enough to recommend it highly. Thanks to the publisher, the author, and Netgalley for providing the ARC for review.

Folklorn is a blend of family saga, a ghostly tale, Korean myth and an immigrant tale. The author writes poetically and it's very lit fic. I'm always in search of magical realism, fabulist fiction and urban fantasy. This book is very emotional and character driven keep that in mind. I could not give it a 5/5 because I did not expect it to lean more on the literary fiction side. but this is what makes genre bending so cool. Folklorn will be a hit at book clubs

I’ve given this a neutral 3 stars because I decided to DNF at 29%. Things I liked about it, which caused me to keep reading were getting to see Elsa’s perspective on the world and on her family as a 2nd generation immigrant to America. I also appreciated the amount of research and knowledge the author must’ve had about physics and other areas for Elsa to be able to talk in such detail at times about her work. Elsa was definitely a compelling character, and I regret not being able to see how her character might’ve developed throughout the book. The mystery of the Korean folklore that seems to haunt her also was very intriguing and had a lot of potential.

However, this book was falling short for me. The Korean folklore seeming to haunt her in memories of her mom and in these invisible things she is hearing and seeing, while a little alluring, was being presented slightly too drawn-out to be totally captivating. The way the plot jumps to flashbacks every now and then is something I often find interruptive in books, but actually didn’t mind so much in this book, except that I found all the flashbacks way better than the present story. Along with this, I found the writing style to be confusing at times. It was like Elsa’s thoughts would suddenly jump to something outside reality, and then come back to reality with no warning, leaving me blinking in confusion.

Overall, while there were some interesting mysteries here and some interesting characters, it was taking too long to get to any point, and was border-line tedious to read often due to the writing style.

Thanks to @netgalley for this gifted ARC!!
3.5 Folklorn is an surprising feat of sci-fi, fantasy and horror with the flavor of complex and dramatic contemporary literature. The novel tells the story of Elsa Park, an American physicist of Korean descent who while trying to discover the furtive existence of the neutral state neutrino, grapples with her own personal journey. It’s an intimate insight into both cultural and personal identity and directly explores topics of racism, misogyny, immigration, domestic violence and mental health.

What I loved about the book is that it is steeped in rich Korean folklore. It was such a treat to learn so much about the culture, read the stories and understand what it means to be a 2nd generation Korean immigrant. I also enjoyed the higher academic discussions philosophical and physics-related.
What I did not like is that the main character was very judgmental at times and I couldn’t relate to the way she expressed her thoughts when she saw another Asian woman, myself being a 2nd generation Argentinean/Hispanic immigrant that is not at all what I think or feel when I see another Hispanic woman. The writing is also a little disjointed leading to confusion at times.
Overall, this is a long but very good book. A little hard to get into at first but then midway all the connections start making more sense and becomes an captivating read.

Thank you netgalley for an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

I feel so bad about this, but I DNFed this book. I REALLY thought I would like this book: an exploration of mental health, the immigrant experience, family relationships, and Korean folklore, all with a female physicist main character? It sounds amazing, but the writing style was immediately not for me. I expected something beautiful and poetic, but it was not that. I just could not read it. I hope other people enjoy this more than me.

When starting this book, I realised that it just wasn’t a book for me. Unsure if it was because I was in a reading slump or if it’s cause it’s not my usual style.

Elsa’s family is full of broken people. And, even though she managed to get away, she’s somewhat broken, too. Folklorn, by Angela Mi Young Hur, is a story of damaged people trying to endure…and of Elsa’s efforts to do more than endure. All of this is seasoned with Korean folklore in the form of stories that Elsa’s mother warned would eventually come for her. Throughout the book, I wondered what was real, what was mental illness, and what just might be supernatural.

Elsa Park is one of the prickliest characters I’ve ever read. I can’t blame her, considering what she grew up with. Between her father’s anger, her mother’s possible madness, her brother’s scheming, and a lot of anti-Asian racism, she’s never really known peace or comfort. She’s always being pushed to be an obedient daughter or a “model immigrant.” The prickliness is Elsa’s armor. She uses it to fend off catcallers as well as potential friends. I’ll admit it took me some time to really understand what was underneath Elsa’s behavior.

We meet Elsa in Antarctica. She studied physics in high school. Her intelligence and drive have brought her to one of the most elite scientific stations in the world—and as far as possible from her family without actually leaving the planet. Her troubles have followed her, of course, in the form of a ghostly Korean woman only Elsa can see. Within a few pages, Elsa seems to be breaking down mentally. After a technological and then social disaster, she runs to Sweden to resume post-doctoral work. It’s there that she learns of a third disaster: her mother has died after years in a coma.

The plot of Folklorn spools out as Elsa finally returns to the United States and her remaining family. In flashbacks, we learn just how broken the Park family is. There are also interstitial chapters that consist of Korean folktales. All of these tales center on girls who are betrayed by their parents (usually their fathers) and sacrificed for the greater good. Sometimes the girls are rescued or rescue themselves. More often, they die. Before Elsa’s mother fell into her coma, she tried to convince Elsa that all the women in her family were cursed to become one of those folktale girls. After her mother’s death, Elsa throws aside her studies on neutrinos to puzzle out her mother’s stories.

This was a difficult book to read. Folklorn is the kind of book that always keeps readers guessing. We have to read very carefully between the lines to decide what’s real and what isn’t. Even once I decided what I thought was real, I still had big questions about the likelihood of Elsa being able to recover as she flits from place to place and project to project. What will it take to heal Elsa? What will it take for her to find a real home? It’s only at the very end that I got answers, although I can’t quite say that I’m satisfied by Folklorn. The ending is lovely but the preceding chapters kicked up so much psychological baggage that I’m still processing what I learned about Elsa and the Parks. This book absolutely needs a light-hearted chaser to wash everything away.

Folklorn is a dizzying and evocative new novel from author Angela Mi Young Hur, featuring a haunting piece of speculative fiction at once candid and whimsical. The storytelling in Folklorn demands your attention to fully appreciate the plot and narrative, which centers around ostensibly schizophrenic (is she or isn’t she?) Elsa Park, whose own fractured identity collides with a world of Korean folklore and family secrets.

The story spun me around and around, making me feel as increasingly unhinged as Elsa appeared to be. One drunk scene with her love interest Oskar reads like a fever dream, one where you’re self-aware, but actually, are you? In relating her story, Elsa is a study in that blurry but ever-present line between genuine authenticity and contrivance according to situational norms.

All in all, this book is poignant AF, as well as maddeningly atmospheric— at times creepy, even. I was continuously intrigued by the plot, but this was a stressful read: a telling tale of familial ties, mental illness, and the generational effects of being part of a wartorn diaspora.

I recommend Folklorn to anyone who enjoys speculative fiction, psychological suspense, and cerebral reads— particularly those that offer an #OwnVoices point of view. You may also enjoy this book if you’re into themes with elements of fable, myth, and folklore.

(Adapted from my full review on my book blog, iopenboxes.com)

I received an ARC of this title via NetGalley (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review.
A unique story for sure and a pleasure to read. We have a woman in STEM, a brother with a disability, Korean folktales, journeys across the world, and an unworldly Spector. Women throughout the centuries are shown to repeat their stories and the mirror to our world is easy to see. While there were a few times the pace of the story slowed down, the pleasure of having underrepresented and believable characters with a plot that will keep you intrigued. For lovers of folktales and strong women, this is for you.