When you’re drowning in your emotions, it might seem nice to just be free of them, but the reality of such an existence is more complicated.
Title: Almond
Author: Won-Pyung Sohn
Translator: Sandy Joosun Lee
Narrator: Greg Chun
ISBN: 978-0062961372
Publisher: HarperVia Audio
Publication date: 2020
Genre(s): Contemporary, sick lit
Available format(s): Print, audio. I reviewed the audio version.
Reading level/interest level: Grades 7-12, according to TeachingBooks
Summary: The almond-shaped amygdalae in Yunjae’s brain are smaller than is typical, so he struggles to feel strong emotions like fear, anger, or even happiness.
Though he gets by with plenty of love and guidance at home, he finds himself isolated at school, where he struggles to understand others’ social cues or read their emotions with empathy.
In a tragic and random act of violence, Yunjae loses both his mom and his grandmother at once, and struggles to cope with this enormous loss alone without having the tools to feel or express emotion. In contrast to Yunjae’s restrained nature, a new kid (and bully) at school, Gon, nearly explodes with emotion in his intense interactions with Yunjae. Eventually, the two begin to develop an unlikely friendship and learn to understand the other’s experience.
About the author: Won-Pyung Sohn (she/her) is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, and novelist. She has won several prizes for her scripts and short films, as well as a Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction for Almond, which was her literary debut (HarperCollins, n.d.).
Critical review: By her own admission, Sohn has never met anyone who, like Yunjae, has smaller amygdalae. Sohn wrote this story while pregnant, wondering what might happen if her child were unable to feel or express emotion (Slocum, 2020). However, as it’s a real condition, I am disappointed that Sohn did not take the opportunity to speak with real people and have her story informed by substantive research. The story was a fine one about an unlikely friendship, but the moral of the story – to simply empathize with others – seemed too simplistic and uncomplicated by the reality of living with alexithymia.
Greg Chun's narration as Yunjae sounded appropriately emotionless, but his impressions of women, namely Yunjae's mom and his love interest, were less appreciated.
Related programming ideas: Almond was famously popularized by members of the K-pop band BTS who were spotted reading it, so a passive program pitting different celebrities’ book tastes against each other and asking teens to vote could be fun. The YouTuber Jack Edwards makes video content in a similar vein, reading and reviewing all of the books a celebrity has happened to mention as their favorite(s) in interviews.
Brief booktalk: When you’re drowning in your emotions, it might seem nice to just be free of them, but the reality of such an existence is more complicated. Yunjae would know – he can’t feel emotions the way most people do. And it takes a tragic event and an unexpected friendship for him to even begin to understand them.
Potential challenges: There is a fair amount of (in my opinion) gratuitous violence in this book caused by Gon at his most extreme as well as the man who murdered Yunjae’s mom and grandmother. If this book were to be challenged, I would guess that it would be due to such violence.
Reason for inclusion: Even though I am cautious about reading it myself, I do think “sick lit,” or books about characters living with various serious illnesses and disorders, have a place in the collection because of an existing history of teens enjoying the genre (e.g., The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven).
References:
HarperCollins. (n.d.). Won-pyung Sohn. https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/won-pyung-sohn-20202124632520#:~:text=Sohn%20Won%2Dpyung%20is%20a,Korean%20Academy%20of%20Film%20Arts.
Slocum, D. (2020, August 1). Korean author’s misfit boys teach us about emotion. Authorlink. https://authorlink.com/interview/korean-authors-misfit-boys-teach-us-about-emotion/
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