Counterattacks at Thirty

LoveReading Says

Coming-of-age angst at thirty, office malaise, social inequity, little protests that bring big joy, and the transformative power of newfound friends — Sohn Won-pyung’s Counterattacks at Thirty is contemporary fiction at its most brilliantly funny. I fell for the writing and zeitgeisty story hook, line and sinker.

Jihye is an ordinary woman who bears the irritations and inequities of her admin job in silence, declaring herself to be the kind of person “who had no moral obligation to improve workplace conditions. I wasn’t going to stick my neck out for something that wouldn’t benefit me”.

But the arrival of Gyuok, a new fellow intern in Jihye’s office, changes all that. With a keen eye for injustice, his utterings send ripples through the unlikely group of friends that form in a ukulele class. “The powerful minority are always confident”, he announces. “And the weak majority think that they can’t change anything”.

Unlike Jihye, who absolutely doesn’t want to rock any boat, Gyouk wants to start a revolution. A playful revolution of small-scale pranks that upset the status quo, and he persuades Jihye and their ukulele class comrades to join him, with their “counterattacks” straddling “the line between acceptable and unacceptable risk”.

Little by little, Jihye undergoes a change, realising “You can change things by simply speaking your mind rather than remaining quiet”. She becomes the kind of person who won’t let folks get away with wrong-doings. The kind of person who seizes the chance to “be someone different”. Moreover, through her newfound unity with new friends, she finds a way to “chase away the cold loneliness” that’s been haunting her. 

Joanne Owen

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