Your Neighbour's Table is a quiet novel about family, and the ever growing issue of a declining population. It's told through the lives of four women, each with their own problems,but which all seem to centre around them being women. It's a claustrophobic read at times, very closed in and centered around this apartment block. The women feel isolated yet also stangely united as they all share the same problems. I do think it was a little shirt to try and convey the meesage the author was going for. The characters feel under developed as the reader doesn't get to spend long with them before moving on. I would have liked to have seen more backstory to try and flesh out thr thoughts and feelings of these characters.

A thought provoking but ultimately shirt read that I'm not sure will leave much of an impression.

A couple moved into an apartment built by the government, which will be filled with other families, as they are "forced" to live communally while raising their children together. The promise of the place was too good to be thrown aside, you simply need to have three children (this is due to the birth rate in Korea that is relatively low) so here they are, four families trying to coexist in this new place they call home.
I find the discussion revolving motherhood intriguing and I get this sense of foreboding throughout the book, though I have to say it lacked of something to make it outstanding.

A provocative, poetic tale with beautiful storytelling that paints an uncomfortably real picture of the pressures of womanhood, motherhood and the misogyny woven into the fabric of our society.

In a bizarre social experiment that offers a better life in return for having more children, we’re left to think about what we’d do - could we be pushed to allow such control over us if they promised enough? What would it take for us to agree to something like this? And what more would happen if we start. What are we willing to compromise for an acceptable life? But ultimately, it’s a story about modern life and the stress we can find in trying to do what’s expected of us.

As we move through the story, words like 'community' start to lose their meaning and become sinister - full of expectation and pressure instead of warmth and support. It balances this promise of a perfect community with the impossibility of a modern capitalist world.

We hear from four women living with their husbands and children in the commune - settling in, creating relationship, dealing with their own marriages and problems as we move from odd domestic scene to another. Everything seems to normal but just slightly off and it keeps you fully on edge the whole time in a quiet, simmering kind of intensity - one that leaves you feeling slightly anticlimactic when you first close the book but then suddenly all fits into place.

I'm missing something from this book. It seemed to be missing a plot for a good portion of the story, instead making social commentary with its characters with little to attach us to the characters. The writing is brilliant and brings up some important points about womanhood and being a mother but as a novel, there is very little here.

Rather confusingly published as 'Apartment Women' in the US (why do publishers do this?), this is an interesting social novel about family, social expectations and motherhood. Welcome to the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, where residents are expected to have at least a certain number of children during their time there, and where community can be equally overpowering and supportive. I came to this without really knowing what to expect, and whilst it certainly is an interesting novel about society and motherhood, it just didn't fully engage. The characters felt a little too distant, so I couldn't actually really get involved in their stories. Worthy and interesting, but a little flat for me. Was it the translation? Maybe. I just can't put my finger on why this just didn't connect.

Somewhere between 3 and 3.5 stars.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

Your Neighbors Table is a story about 4 families, who take up the offer to move into a government funded apartment complex on the condition that they have 3 children to boost the countries population.

There were some really interesting themes in here, particularly around the reasons why people choose not to have children, or to only have one, the economic pressures of society and communal living. However, for me this book didn't work. I found it very difficult to connect with the characters, and I think that is because there were 4 women, their families and a very small number of pages. I also found that it came accross as reasons why women aren't good at child rearing any more, which I think was the opposite of the authors intent, but still felt like a dig at modern women.

I also found the ending very unsatisafactory, it felt like no issues raised were ever dealt with (which perhaps mirrors life), and so the abrupt conclusion left me feeling like there was too much left unsaid and unexplored.

Your Neighbours Table is a novel that could also be read as a social commentary on the low birth rate condition in South Korea, and the complex relationships of a community and family. The story follows Yojin and her family as they move into a communal living space established by the government to tackle the low birth rates in South Korea, where they are able to live on the condition she has two more children. However, the focus strays away from Yojin as Gu often switches between the multiple families that live within this communal building in order to develop the narrative further.

Gu has created very raw and real characters within this communal space, which is a highlight of the novel. All of the families are faced with their own challenges, including expectations of motherhood and loss of independence ‘despite all your maternal love and inner strength, you’d still find yourself marooned from time to time, and you had no choice but to continue on until your last breath’, and ‘despite the fact that having children had derailed their lives and shunted their individuality and desire to the periphery’, strikingly capturing the strain of motherhood, and the need to maintain a façade for everyone else.

The women’s perspectives are prioritised, with a feminist undertone, Your Neighbours Table references the harassment young Korean women face during their working years ‘she’d worked so many part-time and temp jobs from a young age and had been touched inappropriately at all of them’, but also their view of men when at home: ‘don’t think of a man as a human being. Think of him as an animal that understands what to do only when you order him to do it, every single time … even I think that a man is like a child or a dog.’

As with a lot of Korean and Japanese literary fiction, there are no major plot points or dynamic storylines, it is an exploration into human behaviour and development. It is reasonably paced and as more time is spent with each character, the reader becomes more engaged and curious about how these characters will change. Furthermore, Gu manages to keep the reader guessing as to how the diverse relationships are going to intercept. One trigger warning would be that there is a case of domestic violence that escalates to physical harm, though, this is not a significant or lengthy storyline.

There is an imbalance of character development, with several of the couples being developed with more attention than others, which as a novel that leans more towards character than story, is a short-fall for Gu, especially when the ‘family’ that is lacking in the word count has an interesting dynamic which I personally would have liked to read more about.

If you like a character-driven feminist novel that is influenced by current social problems, then Your Neighbours Table is a good one to pursue.

This novel is a slow-paced exploration of neighbours in a new government-supported housing project that aims to encourage reproduction - -
families who want to access this cheaper type of housing are encouraged to have three children if they get accepted for the housing project - which seems awfully intrusive and shows a very unhealthy level of government involvement in family planning. This narrative links in with the issue of the declining birth rate in South Korea, something that many industrial nations experience but is in Korea specifically is also linked with the country's deep-seated issues with patriarchal systems, the oppression of women, lack of free access to childcare and social support systems, financial pressures on young families, mental health struggles especially among women, sexual harassment issues and traditionalist family models. In the novel even a young 6-year-old girl is seen to have to take on childcaring duties which she's never signed up for, more so than her stay-at-home father who should actually be the one responsible for child care but has made weaponised incompetence his daily bread. The story is told from several of the neighbour women's perspectives and shows their struggles and how they cope with the daily frustrations they encounter. It was maddening but in a subtly crafted fashion. There are plenty of Korean novels which explore the role of women in society, such as Cho Nam-joo's "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982", Kang Hwa-gil's "Another Person" or Han Kang's "The Vegetarian" - some weave these themes in subtly while others are rage-bait, but in their own ways they all show the exhaustion, depression and rage of Korean women and the unfulfillment many find in heterosexual relationships in a patriarchal society. I liked the understated way in which this novel approached these topics. However, it's a little too slow-paced and could have used a smidgeon more plot development, and the ending came rather rushed.

Sadly ,I've had to do a soft dnf for now and come back to the book in the future. I think the writing was very good. Based on what I've read so far I would still recommend this to people I know would love this type of story.

'Your Neighbour's Table' is a short and unsettling novel about a communal facility that was set up by the government to help families.
It's told from multiple points of view and it explores many issues South Korea is dealing with today - low birth rate, the pressure and expectations of motherhood, and patriarchy.
It's a slow burn, but I enjoyed that.
Thanks to the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a very gentle, easy book to read, so many messages within.
It was very sweet, very quiet, but powerful.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This short novel - Your Neighbour's Table, or Apartment Women as I have seen it called as well, was really good, although unsettling. It was not as dystopian as I had imagined from the blurb at the back - it focuses on 4 couples who have moved to a nice new building in the middle of nowhere, and are living communally, sharing childcare, with a state-subsidized accommodation if they commit to having at least two more children.

There's the couple that loves to rule everything and just knows better than everyone else, and walks around giving advice to others about how to live their lives; there's the freelance illustrator trying to keep up with her deadlines and trying to preserve her time to work from home, a job no one takes seriously; there's the mum working in a pharmacy while her husband stays at home... They were all different but all seemed trapped by motherhood and by the expectations of them, and the atmosphere of the book felt suffocating.

I really enjoyed it, and I liked the translation, it felt very smooth. It was a subtle enough book in its feminist message, and I will keep thinking about it.

Your Neighbour's Table
By Gu Byeong-mo

Translated from the Korean, this is a slim novel centred around a communal living pilot scheme, featuring four couples, parents of young children, who hope that by combining their child minding abilities and resources they will have extra freedom to pursue life and career opportunities and some extra disposable income.

Themes of community, parenthood, balancing work and early childhood, differing opinions on parenting style, and the claustrophobia of enforced proximity are all explored, albeit it in a polite and surface level way.

It's an easy read and it's interesting to read about modern Korean life, but it is a little pedestrian for my taste.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an EGalley for review purposes.

I went into this galley barely knowing a thing about the plot or premise, having requested it solely for the cover. And it ended up being a really great, interrogative novel. Your Neighbour’s Table is a story about community and the cultural expectations of motherhood. Four women (and their families) move into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, just on the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea. Here, they’ll take part in a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate, which has been falling at a rate of knots. Like her neighbours, our protagonist Yojin has agreed to live in this experimental communal space and have at least two more children over the next 10 years.

Community, a dream for parents, right? It takes a village, we’ve all heard.

However, as the last family to move in, Yojin almost immediately begins to feel uneasy about the enforced community spirit. Her concerns only deepen as the communal childcare begins, and the other parents begin to entangle their lives.There’s some really brilliant threads being woven here: a social commentary on tribalism, fertility, motherhood, parenthood, community, and on gender roles. The women soon begin to shrink into themselves, downplaying their responsibilities and workload and the challenges of being women with jobs and careers. As Yojin reveals her worries, the other families press on with their ambitions for a future communal living space outside of the initiative, a sort of premade utopia.

An illuminating and ambitious novel, Your Neighbour’s Table taps into the everyday minutiae of motherhood, baring to all the unspoken labours that women take on both inside and out of parenthood. I had a small issue with the translation style and the chapter-less structure, but thoroughly enjoyed this nonetheless.

Your Neighbour's Table is the second novel written by Gu Byeong-Mo and translated by Kim Chi-Young. Almost three years after the release of The Old Woman with the Knife, the duo comes back with a successful collaboration.

Your Neighbour's Table re-imagines a somewhat utopic society or idealistic system, where an apartment complex, the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, was built only to serve nuclear families with at least one child. Going through the tough and selective process of getting a flat, the families can move in only if they sign the agreement to have three children in the ten following years unless they want to pay back the government's generosity in cash. Readers enter this mini-system on the outskirts of Seoul with Yojin and her family, who have recently been granted a vacant flat here. But as things unfold, relationships develop, and issues arise, readers wonder if there's a way to live a peaceful life where every expectation is fulfilled.

Let's start with a fact: I haven't read The Old Woman with the Knife yet. It sounded tremendous when I read the blurb, back when the novel was released, but I haven't picked up this first translation yet. So when I saw the opportunity of pushing myself to dive into Gu's mastermind, I jumped on board! And I haven't looked back: it was the best reading decision I have made in a long time.

Every character represents a social narrative and situation proper to different social classes and behaviours. Yojin is a hard-working woman, ready to do anything for her family, even if it means missing out on beautiful moments with her daughter, Siyul. Her husband is delusional and pitiful about his career as a screenwriter and is unphased by the fact of spending a huge amount of money earned by his wife. (Yes, I pitied him.) Yojin's imposed every decision while she is making such big sacrifices while keeping her head high up above the water.

Meanwhile, Hyonae is clinging to her dreams and passion for children-illustrated books. She is a freelance mom, splitting her time between her job at home and her role as a mother. I found her touching, despite her flaws, because of her incessant endeavour to allow herself both to have a career and a family, something which Korean society thrives to imply that it is impossible. Indeed, the other mothers, like Gyowon and Darim, represent the housewives per excellence and deal with children all day long.

Following their daily lives, readers are given glimpses of what it is like to become a mother in South Korea: social pressure from in-laws and the government, who take every measure to increase the birth rate and ensure the future generations of Korea. Gu illustrates with mastery the various experiences of women, emphasising how they are perceived as breeding machines or sexual objects to be bought with expensive exclusive perfumes. She also laid out very well how society minimises the impact of pregnancy on mental health, the difficulties of child-rearing, and the still patriarchal views that pervade Korean people's minds.

I will recommend this book to my readers as I think it delivers a social message that goes beyond the literary imagination: it is a real dissection piece of female labour, perhaps also indirect modern slavery by extension, and Gu successfully turns it into an important literary piece of feminist activism to read today.

This was a fascinating book which explored motherhood, female labour, and the issues that people face when working towards a better life. There was so much interesting commentary about the expectations thrust upon mothers versus fathers, and how parental roles can appear so rigid. Your Neighbour’s Table explores four different families, featuring heavily on the women in this apartment block, and the dynamics within households. Each woman has her own ideas of what it means to be a mother, what the ‘ideal parent’ should be like, and each one faces her own difficulties in navigating this lifestyle.
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The relationships between the women (and the families in general) is so powerful, and I like that we see how generational expectations seep in. Yojin is the sole provider in her family, and the way she reacts to the program is the one I related to the most. She never quite allowed herself to embrace it, which meant she was one of the first to notice the flaws in this scheme, as well as what it was teaching the younger generations.
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The final chapter is especially interesting - the narration style changes ever so slightly and it allows us to see more aggressively what this program was trying to encourage. To put it in vague terms to avoid spoilers: it really allows us to see the women in the intended light - a fantastic commentary on the parental expectations and the change in identities.
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Whilst I enjoyed the book, however, I did feel as though there was something missing. There were things that didn’t add up, all of which made me unable to understand the reasoning for going into that program. Moreover, the lack of interaction with the outside world meant that we couldn’t see any opinions about this program aside from those who were inside it. Alongside this, tensions jumped quite rapidly, so it did make the book somewhat stilted and fractured in certain ways.
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Altogether, this book has some very strong ideas and has fantastic socio-political commentary on gender roles and family planning. I think I enjoy it more in hindsight than when I was reading it, but I still think there’s something slightly lacking for me.

I enjoyed this intimate look at the lives of close neighbours and how their interactions shaped not only the relationships between neighbours but also in each couple.

The individual's attitudes toward the idea of forming a sort of commune was a great representation of a compromise that didn't actually suit anyone particularly well and definitely added to the tension between the families.

Having so many characters whose views and feelings were given equal space meant that any reader would be able to find a character they identify with and yet also learn about other points of view.

I would definitely read more from Gu Byeong-Mo.

I enjoy reading books about different cultures, and, having read about concerns regarding the decrease in the South Korean population, was interested in reading this one.
Unfortunately I found it really difficult to get into - a lot of characters were introduced early on and I felt that by the end they still remained rather 2 dimensional, and the sudden changes of POV were hard to follow.
I'm not sure if it was the translation, but I also found the style quite stilted.
Thank you to netgalley and Headline for an advance copy of this book

An interesting little book about a social experiment based on communal living that highlighted the mental load women carry in family units, and the weaponised incompetence of men (amongst other things).

I liked it, but found the ending quite abrupt. I enjoyed the criticism of gender roles and inequality, I just wanted a bit more from it.

Thank you to Headline and NetGalley for the ARC :)

For those who have been keeping up with world news they may know about the current fertility crisis effecting South Korea with not enough children being born to keep up the population which for future generations will become a huge issue in terms of the economy, etc. As one of my special interests is motherhood and how it relates to identity this issue does pose a massive question for me personally and it's not about how this issue is going to be fixed, but it's about the why of the situation. Why do women not want children?

Gu Byeong-Mo set this novella in a brand new government community project designed to help families grow and thus grow the dwindling population by providing affordable housing. The only catch is that all families who reside in the community must have at least three children within ten years. Sounds simple. Not really.

In theory this community is meant to work as a way to help support families, however it becomes glaringly obvious that the underlying issues relating to the the men in this book all displaying some kind of weaponised incompetence when it comes to issues such as money and child rearing. Most of the women living in this communal space are dealing with their own personal issue relating to either their marriage, children or careers and yet are still held to a totally different standard then the men.

So much felt kind of normalised in the narrative like the fighting issue which resulted in a domestic incident, the parentification of young girls and the expectation that young girls should always accept the apologies of men, and the way that as a women their comes a certain alienation from self when it comes to our own bodies and how men interact with them. There was so much happening, both subtle and obvious within the pages which was a plus and a negative for me.

On one side good because it really was highlighting so many issues, but on the other hand made the women in this story feel one dimensional at times.