Stars: 3 out of 5.

This was an interesting collection of short stories. I think the most interesting part for me was that those stories weren't set up in the Western world that most English speaking readers are used to. This isn't USA or UK or even Europe. All these stories are set up in South Korea.

You can learn a lot about the culture of a country by reading folklore and fictional stories written by native authors. So this was a fascinating excursion into the Korean psyche. I didn't gel with all the stories. I bounced off at least one of them, but I learned something new with each one.

I must admit that the first story about the ghosts in the subway station was my favorite though.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun and kooky read and I love how Shim wove each story. Shim has a very unique voice that, if it touches you right, has the ability to transport you.

This was a great short-story experience! The clash of contemporary civilization and whimsy was pleasantly unexpected and kept things interesting.

My favorite of the bunch were ‘A Meeting on the Gyeongui-Jungang Line’ and ‘Thank God It’s Friday.’ I appreciated the commentary on work-life culture in the first and while the second did remind me somewhat of the new Apple TV show Severence, the likeness is surely a positive. It’s a thought-provoking story.

I would recommend to those looking to read translated works with roots in magical realism.

I have a fascination by Asia, so I try to read as many Japanese, Chinese, Korean authors that I can, even some times people from other countries that have actually lived there, talking about their experience, and for me those books are interesting because in most of the time you can feel the soul of the author coming through the pages.

Thank God It’s Friday is a collection of 4 short stories, with two being more in sci-fi and horror side (like twilight zone) and the last two more in fantasy land, with dragons and magic. Is a kind of collection that will please most readers, even more if they do like the genre. My two favourite stories where the first two “Meeting on the Gyeongui-Jugang Station” and “Thank God it's Friday”, they reminded me very much of twilight zone, the other two stories I read but I didn’t care much for those, magic and dragons is something that I only looked for in harry potter books. This book is a short read, I actually read this book in a couple of hours, and I still recommend it, it is worth the time, and the stories make you think.

What put me off a bit is maybe the translation, I am not sure of that, but it felt like it was someone without much experience translating books that worked in this book, actually the language seems to improve from story one to the fourth one.

Thank you NetGalley and Hongik Kim for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!
3.5 out of 5
i can honestly only give feedback and a review for the two (of four total) short stories that are Sci-Fi (other two are fantasy which are not my vibe)

quick and fun reads, 3 and 4 stars for the two sci - fi reads. I hope English readers keep getting works by Shim.

I just couldn’t get into this one. The writing felt very childish and the concepts were just not interesting to me.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to this book.

Thank God it's Friday is a collection of 4 short stories that actually really work together! I'm not a huge fan of short stories but this one caught me eye since it was supossed to be a mix of scifi and fantasy, and yes indeed it was and man I liked it. Maybe it was just what I needed but I devoured this collection.

A Meeting on the Gyeongui-Jugang Station is the first story and probably the best one, about a train station that captures people inside because of the delays of the trains.
Thank God it's Friday is the second story and it the most scifi of them all, where our protagonist only lives from friday to friday, not being conscience the rest of the week, another one that I really love
The Liberator of Myth and The Greatest Domestic Animal Known to Man are set on the same world (if we can call it that) and they are about experimentation with dragons I MEAN IS SO COOL..

So I'll say it again, this collection is now one of my favorites which is a rare occurance.

Excellent short stories that will find an audience in lovers of K-dramas and the ever-expanding field of Korean scifi. The title story follows a man who suddenly only experiences Fridays, losing the rest of the week to some kind of trance. A train station filled with the souls of those waiting for public transit that never arrives and some mandatory kimchi making populate other stories. Shim tends to over explain the endings of his stories, but they are still fun and interesting.

Not bad. This is a decent collection of stories. There is a decent variety even though there are aren't a lot of stories. I hope Shim keeps writing.

Thanks very much for the free review copy!

3.5

Thank God Its Friday is a quick and easy read containing four short stories grounded in magical realism. The first story - my favourite - depicts a subway station where passengers are left in limbo, waiting for a train they can never catch. The second is almost time travel, but more accurately a depiction of the 40-hour work week and how Fridays are only relieving because of the expectation of the weekend. The third and fourth are about dragons, science, and the advancement of humanity, and I'm obsessed with reading from an ancient dragon's perspective.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I've never been one to sit down and read a short story collection, but I might have to change that about myself because I was able to read an entire bite-sized story on my lunch break, and each one had a really strong concept from the get-go. As a translation, I was worried about the common sacrifice of quality for accuracy, but I think the strong narrative voice really helped out there.

The latter three stories all felt like there was more to say, in my opinion. I think that's my main critique with the book: each one could've been extended by 2,000, 5,000 words and I would've enjoyed it. I would like to know more about the human consciousness project; about Hyun's life after the events of the story, just as I want to know more about Ayvalik, and the obstacles Dracona and So-hyun face after leaving civilisation. There always felt like there was a bigger story surrounding the one we were told, and I'd love to see those parts.

Finally, I liked the worlds Neoul Shim built in a magical realism Korea, and the way the writing has a knack for seeming rather plain and straight-facing some incredibly fantastical lines. I really appreciate NetGalley, Safehouse Inc., Hongik Kim and Neoul Shim for letting me read this for free and writing an honest review about my experience with the book.

I really enjoyed the first two scifi stories. They definitely took a turn when the scifi elements were revealed. I didn't care much for the last two stories, which were more fantasy inspired. Though mice with dragon DNA is an interesting concept.

This book is cut into four short stories, each with a unique take on common issues, as well as fun elements of space and time, fantastical creatures, and much more going on behind the scenes that I want to know about. This was a quick fun read!


A Meeting on the Gyeongui-Jungang Line – 4 stars (my favorite of the four!)

During this story, a man is warned by his friend (who recently left his 4-year career as a developer at a mid-sized IT company to open a bookstore, which pays less and is more hours, yet is more enjoyable for his friend) to not take the Gyeongui-Jungang Line.

Disregarding his friend’s advice, as most curious narrators do, our MC goes directly to the line where he makes a gruesome discovery: souls are physically bound to the line given trains being delayed. He meets zombie-like figures who have waited more than weeks for trains that have never came and have enough negative energy amongst them that simple internet cannot work on the sides of this line.

He meets a woman (who appears full of life, unlike the others) who explains that the people waiting for the line weren’t soulless at first.

“While waiting for the train that wouldn’t come, their souls, life force, and even their intellect had slowly drained away…The issue is with the sunk cost…It goes like this. When you’ve waited for ten minutes, you think it should arrive in another five. When you’ve waited an hour, you think it should be here soon. When you’ve waited a day…you get the picture. And looking at the timetable makes you think it really will come. Before they realize it, their feet are bound.”

When a train does show up and people attempt to climb aboard, our MC finds he is the only one who can enter the train because

“If you wait too long on the Gyeongui-Jungang Line, you become bound to the station. Your soul is fettered, and you can never leave. They’re neither living nor dead, and they’ll be stuck in this limbo forever…This would have happened to you [MC], too, if you’d stayed long enough.”

While reading this, I couldn’t help but compare this to corporate life. I felt the author was really setting the scene with our MC’s friend having left his corporate job for less pay, more hours, and more happiness. From a lot of people I’ve talked to who left my accounting firm, this tends to be the case for them as well.

Furthermore, when he arrives at the line, he meets people who are milling about, not really living, only originally staying because of a sunk cost, and now no longer able to leave. This is the corporate world to a T!

I did like the end of this story where our MC wrote about the problems of the line and slowly changes started getting made. Another allegory for we must speak up in order to enact change?

I loved all of the feelings this book gave me and how it forced me to think beyond just the words on the page. It was well-written and very enjoyable.


Thank God It’s Friday – 3 stars

Without giving away too much, this story centers around another male MC, Hyun Kim, who works as a member of the Civil Complaints Team, providing records that people could get from a machine. The job seems very similar to how work at the DMV is described.

Our MC’s favorite day of the week is Friday, for he has the weekend to look forward to. Our MC feels as though he zombies through his week to get to the weekend, really only living between the hours of Friday at 6pm to Sunday at 6pm. As relatable as that may be to some, that’s about where the normalcy ends.

In this story, our MC has some time-fuckery going on where he ONLY lives on Fridays. But this is no typical Groundhog Day situation: it is not the same Friday. Each Friday that he goes to sleep, he wakes up one week later to live another Friday, over and over again. His production at work goes up during this time, but he also becomes more violent.

I loved how the author was able to mess around with the constructs of time but keep everything else really grounded in reality. His ability to have the body doing one thing (going on throughout the week) while the brain was only conscious on Fridays, was very interesting to me. The science behind this was fun! Again, I won’t waste your time on this one, but tons of allegories for corporate life / depression!

My biggest complaint on this story was I felt it wasn’t finished. There were some pretty heavy information drops that would be interesting to see flushed out, so if there is a continued series here that I am not aware of, I want to know about it!


The Liberator of Myth – 4 stars

Our FMC, So-hyun is an average person. Average student, average employee, average magic-wielder, you name it, she’s average. She just happened to major in two very different things in college, that a new corporation in town needed: Magical Engineering and Biology.

Celltrin, a biotechnology firm, got their hands on “draconic germ cells that could be developed into any type of dragon tissue…Draconic germ cells, however, were not something that current-day biology could handle. It required an understanding of magic…They were looking for double majors, namely in magical engineering and biology.”

So-hyun began her work with mice that had grafts of dragon tissue to try to cultivate the scales the company sought. Fortunately for us, this is a much more interesting story than that of moral conditions around lab mice.

One day, after arriving home, she notices a mouse stowed away in her backpack, one covered with dragon scales. So-hyun comes to realize the mouse can blink and materialize in another part of the room, otherwise known as Conveyance magic or teleportation.

So-hyun decides to keep and hide the mouse, naming her Dracona. The mouse grows and grows, developing more magically every day. The weird part: So-hyun’s magical abilities slowly grow from average to A+ while she lives with Dracona.

There are definitely sad, shocking, and happy moments to this story, but the overall theme surrounds So-hyun being able to fly under the radar and get away with a bunch of stuff because she was average and no one gave her the time of day. Both her and Dracona morph into something completely new and rare. I love a good underdog story!


The Greatest Domestic Animal Known to Man – 3 stars

This story is one of competing dragons who engage in a fight to the death, but end up unconscious and then manipulated by Celltrin, the same company from the third story. A meek man is assigned to be responsible for getting one of the dragons, Iskenderun, on board with allowing Celltrin to use her blood in exchange for showing her what modern civilization can offer her.

In order to subdue her in an area until they can repair her torn wing and “help” her get revenge on the opposing dragon Ayvalik, they give her many modern luxuries such as endless amounts of internet and television. Unfortunately, this causes her to become bloated with information, as well as dissatisfied. She all but develops lethargy from sitting and watching television in her nest for years. Even when she tries to escape and thinks herself still tougher than humans, the sad reality is she has become domesticated to humans.

I liked the different dragons having different magical powers, as well as the backstories around them. It felt very mythological and exciting. I also liked the financial side to this. A dragon that invests in the stock market? That’s hilarious.

Overall, I felt very sad while reading this one. It just came across as cruel to me, which I believe was the intended purpose.

I also felt this story wasn’t finished. We need to know what happened to Ayvalik! I want to know if most of these stories are connected somehow, as it seems bits and pieces from some fit into others!

Are there more, Neoul Shim??? I want more!!! I want a collection of works that ties everything together and wraps everything in a sci-fi, fantasy bow!

Special thank you to NetGalley, Hongik Kim / Safehouse, Inc., and Neoul Shim for the opportunity to read this book for free. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review.

3.5 wonderfully weird stars!