The Vegetarian: Book Review

Today. We will be reviewing The Vegetarian by Han Kang and translated by Deborah Smith, a Korean novel that falls under many fiction categories. Keep reading to find out what we thought of this book and if you should read it too!

The Vegetarian Summary

Yeong-hye is a a graphic designer and married to Mr. Cheong who one day stops eating meat. She throws all of the meat in the refrigerator out, angering her husband in the process. In the coming days, Yeong-hye eats only vegetarian food and sleeps as little as possible.

Her husband doesn’t understand why her wife has become a vegetarian suddenly and is angry at her for ruining his simple life. An after-work dinner with his coworker leads Mr. Cheong infuriated with his wife as they learn of her vegetarian preference. 

Mr. Cheong decides to call Yeong-hye’s relatives, including her mother and her older sister In-hye. They all gather at In-hye’s house and everyone tries to get Yeong-hye to give up being a vegetarian and eat meat again. 

Yeong-hye’s father, a Vietnam veteran, takes things to his own hands and what ensues is chaos and leads the family toward a dark tunnel. Yeong-hye’s diet starts haunting all of their lives and leads to a turn of events that nobody expected.

Commentary

The Vegetarian was first released in 2007 and is based on the 1997 short story “The Fruit of My Woman”, also by Kang. Many people in South Korea thought the novel was “very extreme and bizarre” at the time. 

The novel has three parts and the second part of the novel “Mongolian Mark” went on to win the prestigious Yi Sang Literary Prize. In 2016, the novel was translated in English by Deborah Lee and released in January 2015 in the U.K and in February 2016 in the U.S.

It got a much better reception by the international audience and received critical acclaim which led to it winning the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. TIME also added the novel to its list of the best books of 2016. 

In 2024, the novel won the Nobel Prize in Literature, making Han Kang the first South Korean author to win the award. After reading this novel, I can say that the award was well deserved. This is a powerful novel and Kang’s storytelling will make you shiver with each chapter. 

Having read over 50 books so far this year, I can say that this is one of the best, if not the best work of literature that I have read. Kang says a lot and you have to read in between the lines to grasp at what the novel is about. The novel will have different reactions from everyone but you can’t deny the feelings the novel invokes.

Conclusion

I had to step out and go for a walk after finishing this book and very few books have had that effect on me. Even days after I have finished reading it, I can’t stop thinking about it and I know that I missed a lot of stuff and will definitely reading this book in the future. Happy reading!

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