#Bookvent My Top Reads of 2018 #Day 7

Day seven in my series showcasing my top reads of 2018, following the innovative idea of #bookvent from Jen Lucas of Jen Med’s Book Reviews.

My seventh choice in this countdown to Christmas is a different kind of book in a style that I am not accustomed to and that only helped to make it gripping and utterly compelling.

There’s a lot to think about in this sad and sometimes horribly humorous story, but I could not put it down until I knew the whole desperate story.

When Yu-jin wakes up covered in blood, and finds the body of his mother downstairs, he decides to hide the evidence and pursue the killer himself.

Then young women start disappearing in his South Korean town. Who is he hunting? And why does the answer take him back to his brother and father who lost their lives many years ago.

The Good Son is inspired by a true story.

This is a book a bit like an Escher drawing, the longer you look into it, the more depth and fascination you get from it until it slowly draws you into the difficult world of Yu-Jin, a 25 year old man who struggles against the constraints of his medication which he is taking to prevent epileptic fits.

Yu-Jin’s mother has tried to be a good mother to her son; to protect him from the worst of his condition, but in doing so, she has condemned him to a life of medication which stops him from feeling like himself.  He describes this as a suffocating existence where he is subject to restrictions that make it impossible for him to truly live his life.

There’s a lot to think about in this sad and sometimes horribly humorous story, but I could not put it down until I knew the whole desperate story.

You can read my review here.

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