"This witty, soul-warming story sees a bunch of unlikely prankster rebels tackle close-to-home moral injustices in cleverly comic style "
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, and special mention must be made of translator, Sean Lin Halbertand, as a result of rendering the writing so brilliantly — this novel is nothing but gripping, fluid and fresh.
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.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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From the bestselling author of ALMOND, The Devil Wears Prada meets The Office in this witty, humane, and ultimately transformative story of a group of young workers who rebel against the status quo.
Jihye is an ordinary woman who has never been extraordinary. In her administrative job at the Academy, she silently tolerates office politics and the absurdities of Korean bureaucracy. Forever only one misplaced email away from career catastrophe, she effectively becomes a master of the silent eye-roll and the tactical coffee run. But all her efforts to endure her superiors and the semi-hostile work environment they create are upended when a new intern, Gyuok Lee, arrives.
Like a pacifist version of V in V for Vendetta, Gyuok recruits a trio of office allies to carry out plans for minor revenge. Together, these four "rebels" commit tiny protests against those in more powerful positions through spraying graffiti, throwing eggs, and writing anonymous exposés. But as their attacks increase, the initial joy they felt at the release becomes something more and Jihye and the others will discover the beauty of friendship and the extraordinary power of unity against adversity.
Counterattacks at Thirty features in the following genres: Star Books, Fiction in translation, General Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Narrative theme: Coming of age
Counterattacks at Thirty is available in Paperback, Hardback
Counterattacks at Thirty was written by Sohn Won-pyung and published by HarperVia an imprint of HarperCollins
Counterattacks at Thirty has 416 pages
£9.89
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