Im Waiting for You, Kim Boyoung
Im Waiting for You, Kim Boyoung
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I'm Waiting for You
And Other Stories

Author: Kim Bo-young

Narrator: Greg Chun, Jackie Chung, Vico Ortiz

Unabridged: 10 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 04/06/2021


Synopsis

“Her fiction is a breath-taking piece of a cinematic art itself. Reminiscent of the world we experienced in Matrix, Inception, and Dark City, still it leads us to this entirely original structure, which is a ground-breaking, mystic literary and cinematic experience. Indeed, powerful and graceful.”—Bong Joon-ho, Oscar-winning director of ParasiteIn this mind-expanding work of speculative fiction, available in English for the first time, one of South Korea’s most treasured writers explores the driving forces of humanity—love, hope, creation, destruction, and the very meaning of existence—in two pairs of thematically interconnected stories.

Two worlds, four stories, infinite possibilities In “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” an engaged couple coordinate their separate missions to distant corners of the galaxy to ensure—through relativity—they can arrive back on Earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle. But small incidents wreak havoc on space and time, driving their wedding date further away. As centuries on Earth pass and the land and climate change, one thing is constant: the desire of the lovers to be together. In two separate yet linked stories, Kim Bo-Young cleverly demonstrate the idea love that is timeless and hope springs eternal, despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and the deepest despair.In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike beings for which everything on Earth—from the richest woman to a speck of dirt—is an extension of their will. When one of the creations questions the righteousness of this arrangement, it is deemed a perversion—a disease—that must be excised and cured. Yet the Prophet Naban, whose “child” is rebelling, isn’t sure the rebellion is bad. What if that which is considered criminal is instead the natural order—and those who condemn it corrupt? Exploring the dichotomy between the philosophical and the corporeal, Kim ponders the fate of free-will, as she considers the most basic of questions: who am I?

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jenny on October 28, 2020

The first story was very good. The second was complicated but worth it. The third was perfect. I read this during the seventh month of quarantine in this, the year of the plague, and one line in the author's notes stuck with me: "What a comforting thought that we are on the same gigantic spaceship,......more

Goodreads review by Gabby on March 20, 2022

This one is hard to rate because I LOVED the first short story, and then I DNF’ed the second short story, and the last one I thought was good. The first short story is beautiful and heartbreaking and I love getting to know the back story for why it was written in the first place. But ugh that second......more

Goodreads review by BJ on January 28, 2023

This book is only pretending to be a story collection. Really, it’s more of a novella sandwich. Or call it scrambled novel with two slices buttered toast. This particular arrangement may have been the work of the books’ two translators, rather than the author. In any case, as stories, these are stro......more

Goodreads review by WhiskeyintheJar on May 02, 2021

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I'm Waiting For You and other stories, is a translated collection of four science fiction short stories that explore what it means to be human. The collection has......more

Goodreads review by Thomas on August 21, 2023

Ugh, I just didn’t get this one. I found the stories about the separated lovers melodramatic and vague – to me, it felt like reading about two disembodied souls speaking to one another, without us as readers getting a firmer sense of their environment or the context and history of their relationship......more