Truth be told, when I finished reading this book, I wondered, is it me? Did I not get what I was reading? Was I just in the wrong mood to read this book? 

LEMON by KWON YEO-SUN opens with the interrogation of a murder suspect. A young girl is dead and the media have called the incident “High School Beauty Murder”. There are two main suspects, one a rich kid and the other a part-time delivery driver. But neither are charged. 

But soon the book moves onto three women who knew the victim, Kim Hae-On, and how they’ve been affected by the murder as the years go by. 

The chapters jump from one point of view to another, and different years. It’s confusing. I struggled with this book and its disjointed narrative. It doesn’t help that the book doesn’t make it obvious whose perspective each chapter is being told from. The chapters in the form of a phone conversation in particular threw me off. 

Maybe it’s just me as LEMON has plenty of 4 and 5 star ratings on Goodreads, as well as raves by critics. It just didn’t work for me.