Best of the Best Book Club: “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang

The Coronado Public Library’s Best of the Best Book Club meets regularly on the fourth Wednesday of each month to discuss books that have won major awards. Receive reminder emails about our meeting by registering below. Registration is not required.

For our January meeting, we will discuss the 2016 Booker Prize winner The Vegetarian by Han Kang, who recently made history by becoming the first Korean and the first Asian Nobel laureate in literature.

Place this title on hold via our online catalog, or check out the e-book through the CloudLibrary app.

About The Vegetarian

Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself.

Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.