Do not expect this to be a murder mystery but rather a portrayal of grief and trauma through time. Despite its short length, the novel is filled with social critiques of contemporary Korea, highlighting the inequality, corruption and sexism issues. 

 

The writing is quite plain for my taste and I feel that the characters were not developed thoroughly. Many of the phrases and descriptions seem a bit cliché and antiquated. 

A whodunnit told from the perspective of three women some sort of proximity to the deceased. 
Wow! I didn't expect to enjoy this so much. Pitched like a thriller, most reviews said to expect more of a literary novella rather than a crime novel. However, Kwon balanced genres like an expert. It's still a murder mystery

there are subtle hints throughout the book to know who the murderer is and what someone does for revenge

but it's also an experimental form. 
Before reading, I didn't know the novel was narrated by three different people. I enjoyed getting to know the three perspectives and trying to figure out who each person was. I wish it was longer, there were some societal and cultural elements that could have been fleshed out with more words, but I enjoyed the small amount of time I had with Da-on and others. 
I guessed who the culprits were but I'm not one hundred percent on it. I'd love to discuss with someone else. 

Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy of this through a giveaway, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I thought that this was a very interesting thriller and I liked that it was told from three different female perspectives. This book mainly focuses on the trauma, grief and the way that Hae-on's death affected those closest to her and round her rather than the murder itself. Which I thought was really interesting as a lot of thriller mysteries focus on the crime and figuring out who did. This story is told over seventeen years, from 2002 to 2019, and nearly all of it is about what happens after Hae-on's murder. 
 
This book doesn't actually tell you who killed Hae-on, even though there are multiple suspects, and I did feel a little dissatisfied by this. Because I was hoping that Da-on, Hae-on's younger sister, would figure it out and revealed it by the end.

I do think that the most likely person was Taerim; as she was jealous of Hae-on being with Shin Jeongjun (her high school boyfriend that she later marries) the day she was killed. Also she is the only one that isn't investigated for an alibi because Han Manu doesn't tell the police that she's with him and was the one to actually see Hae-on in Shin Jeonjun's car. And by the time he does the detective doesn't believe him. Both boys have alibis for where they were whereas we don't hear about where Taerim went after getting off of Han Manu's scooter. I think she's the most likely one to have killed Hae-on but it could have easily been someone else.

 

I thought that this story was very well written, the plot and characters were all very fleshed out despite this being a novella. And each of the narrators had distinct voices. I did find the parts told by Yun Taerim to be a bit strange. As they are all one-side of conversations she has with a doctor, as she is mentally  very unwell, years later but she is still very affected by what happened to Hae-on and often refers to her (not by name) when talking about her now husband Shin Jeongjun, who was one of the original suspects and possibly the last person to see Hae-on alive. Also the three of them are unreliable narrators with chunks missing in each of their narratives keeping elements of the story hidden away from the reader. But I found that as I read the book I was able to piece together different pieces of evidence and information from each of them to come to my own conclusion for who I thought had killed Hae-on. 

I thought that this was a well written, thought provoking, and clever story. I just wish that the murder had been revealed or that there had been more closure by the end of the story as it's left very open ended with few things resolved or revealed. 

Lemon is a book that explores just how life and death affect people using the untimely death of a beautiful school girl as its model.

The novella follows the before and after of the death of Kim Hae-on. A beautiful girl whose killer is still free almost 20 years later. Da-on, Hae-on's younger sister goes through a drastic transformation as she tries to come to terms with her grief.

This novellas strongest aspect is that it is not who the killer is the drives this story but rather what this tragedy has done to the people around her and the lasting impacts of it. The small revelations that are littered throughout make this portrait of grief more chilling and upsetting than the average thriller.

The characters themselves are complicated especially considering you only see them briefly in these 200 pages. You get the expression life moves on with them and their hardships only become harder with this death that encircles all of them. The characters seemed normal and overwhelmingly human.

Perhaps what I didn't like is that this book does not give you complete closure, the characters aren't necessarily reliable narrators and while I often enjoy that, here it creates confusion on the actual events. 

Despite this, that's not what this book is about at all, it's not a simple thriller about a murdered girl, it is so much more than that and I greatly enjoyed this journey. I would definitely recommend this.