The Black Orb is a mix of mystery and shock horror, a sick and twisted story with an irredeemably monstrous main character, this book gives off Junji Ito meets Tender is the Flesh dystopian splatterpunk vibes. 

The opening of The Black Orb is almost reminiscent of a Junji Ito story with our main character, Jeong-Su, desperately attempting to reconnect with his family after a mysterious black orb begins consuming people throughout the city of Seoul. As the book progresses, we begin to get into the dystopian horror of a world not unlike The Purge - looting, murder, sexual assaults, an everything goes mentality where humanity seems truly lost.

Jeong-Su is no sparkling golden boy protagonist in this story either, incredibly homophobic and down right vicious at times, I couldn't really root for his survival. He was a terrible person and I think that was the hardest part of reading this book - if I had gone in knowing a bit more about where this story was headed I could have prepared myself but reading it and learning more about Jeong-Su as the story progressed was bittersweet. 

Overall, The Black Orb is a provocative novel with a dense commentary on what would happen in a dystopian situation where government, laws, common decency, and reason go out the window. It was dark, brutal, and downright hard to get through at times but if that's your cup of tea then you could really enjoy it!