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.

This was an unsettling slow burn which put certain problems facing Korean society under the spotlight, including sexism, the cost of living/housing shortages and gender roles, particularly motherhood. I really enjoyed the tense atmosphere that gradually builds towards the reveal of the families’ fates as well as the exploration of why each family chose to move to the supposedly utopian communal living complex, and why this failed to solve their problems. I did, however, find myself getting confused by the multiple points of view and the different characters, sometimes having to flick back to remember who was who. Despite this, it was an enjoyable read that I’d recommend to anyone looking for a slow burn thriller which medidates on social, and particularly gender based, tensions.

Thanks to Headline and NetGalley for an advanced copy. This book follows the complexities of families and community living. It’s a slow burn but that only adds to the over arching theme of female expectations and the sexism mothers in Korea tend to face.

Your Neighbour's Table is a slightly unsettling tale of community living, which seems like a really alluring concept - and when done well I'm sure does share burdens - but in this story explores its miscommunications. The novel follows multiple characters within the complex, their intentions and their shortcomings. I wish it had been a little darker in tone, particularly with Siyul, a young child, being left to look after other children just because she is slightly older than the toddlers, which is a storyline that could've been taken to a real extreme. Overall, the characters were self-aware and cognizant enough to leave the situations before there were any absolute disasters, so it doesn't quite milk the moments of drama.

I am a huge Korean literature lover so obviously this one with this premise was perfect for me. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. The multiple POVs are confusing as there are no chapters and the characters fell flat for me. I do appreciate the message the author wants to send but I don't know if it's their writing style or the translation alongside the execution that didn't work out for me. I also appreciate the different types of neighbours.

This novel was thoroughly engaging throughout its entirety.

I adored the concept of seeing the same group of people but being provided with different angles through each of their respective perspectives. I think it gives the reader a unique access into different lives and opinions. However, I also think that as a literary device in this context, it is an incredibly clever way of creating a somewhat claustrophobic and inescapable atmosphere. In this sense I found it reminded me of Max Porter’s Lanny, novel in which different characters thoughts and varying literary form are employed in order to create the oppressive and tight sense of an English village. Overall, I thought it was masterfully done in Your Neighbour’s Table.

I have not read widely in Korean Literature, but am keen to explore more global literature and texts in translation. While I cannot compare the translation to the original due to lacking language proficiency, I do think that the translator did an incredible job with maintaining the narrative focus, while also providing a certain different perspective and world view. A world view that can only really be achieved by attempting to see things through the words of another language. What metaphors, what similes, what thoughts that are new to me can I gain an understanding of?

This book really made me reflect on and contemplate what it actually means to be a part of a community, whatever form that takes, in the 21st century. It made me question what it means to live alongside each other, and of course, what is it, if anything, that we owe to each other.

Not all of the characters were very likeable, but the author has written in a way such that despite this and maybe even because of it, the novel remains compelling and engaging.

Many thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for the free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book follows numerous families as they move into a communal housing project set up by the government to increase the falling birth rate.

While the premise of this book excited me, it ultimately ended up falling flat. The plot itself felt weak as we failed to delve into any of the stories with any real depth. Additionally, there were no chapters. It would often change POV without telling you whose POV we were now reading from, which was confusing. This is made harder by the fact that you’re introduced to so many characters all at once.

The story itself wasn’t to my taste as I don’t personally enjoy reading about entirely useless men and extremely judgemental people.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I appreciate the message Gu Byeong-mo seeks to share through Your Neighbour's Table. The novella focuses on the experience of four women in a communal housing development. Byeong-mo touches upon the pressures of being a working mother, while your work is not taken as seriously as a man's, the pressures and expectations around childcare and bearing children, and domestic fractures, all within apartments with thin walls. There was potential for Your Neighbour's Table, with the table itself, being a microcosm for society - its norms, expectations, standards and the consequences of transgression. For some, it may still read this way.

But I fear the characters were one-dimensional and the narrative itself was cut awfully short. The resolution was lacklustre and disappointing. Akin in many ways to the same feeling one gets when they find out it 'was all a dream'. This didn't feel clever. It felt as if the storytelling swiftly stagnated and remained underdeveloped, after a rushed beginning. In all, a shame, as this novella certainly held potential.

Thank you Netgalley & Headline for the eARC.

Your Neighbor's Table follow several different families who have just moved into a new communal building that is subsidised by the government on the basis the couples have more children or pay a penalty in the future. The book heavily draws on issues faced within Korean society today the drop in birth rates, the cultural expectations of gender roles and motherhood, and how those who deviate are 'shunned' and 'blamed' as at fault: be that a woman who opts to work flexibly from home or the one who has to go out to work because her husband is still seeking a pipedream job.

Given recent news stories that have broken regarding South Korea in recent weeks (and honestly the global move towards the manosphere) this feels like an incredibly relevant read...

My thanks to the publisher for my free digital ARC! I read The Old Woman with the Knife by this author in 2022, and this book is a complete departure from that one - though I found both very enjoyable! Your Neighbour’s Table is a quieter novel, in which we follow a few different families who are living in a new communal building subsidised by the government. Couples who live there must have at least one child already, and sign a contract promising to try for more or else pay back their rent. It’s a nifty little way of creating a microcosm of Korean society to explore things like work, motherhood and gender roles. It’s a bit of a mix between The School for Good Mothers and Kim Jiyoung, 1984. Any mother who doesn’t fall into line with the cultural expectations of her peers is practically shunned. I particularly felt for one mother, an illustrator who works from home, who battled the injustice of expecting to be a full time caregiver while working a full time job, because she happens to be able to work from home. This book is full of little instances that make your blood boil at the unfairness of it all.

The translation was clear and concise, though the style overall was not the most exciting. I really enjoyed the ending, it was sort of like a ‘where are they now?’ but slightly more ominous.

I really liked this look into a very different society. The story is very well told and I enjoyed it very much.

Thank you to NetGalley and Headline for the ARC

A fascinating and explorative novel. It's sort of a dystopian community where the condition for moving into these apartments are giving birth to at least to more children. This gives the novel an opportunity to explore sexism and the expectations of mothers in Korea. I found it fascination and infuriation at times how mothers are treated. What's expected of them. The book explored social expectations and problems in a great and interesting matter.

Your Neighbour's Table by Gu Byeong-mo is a delicately disquieting story of community expectations of motherhood. Set in the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, it is technically speculative fiction, but any world-building falls to the background; the novel's strength is that the community housing reads as a totally plausible contemporary government project, rooted in today's concerns about gender roles, family, motherhood, work, and cultural expectations.

As a condition of moving into the communal apartment, the parents must agree to produce two more children over the next ten years - the government-funded project having been created to tackle Korea's low birth rate. In exchange, the parents theoretically stand to benefit from pooled resources and childcare. Of course, the reality is that the neighbours have different life circumstances and not all tasks can be divided equally. While there is no discussion of any fatherly requirement to participate in the childcare division, the mothers are under pressure from each other, and from their husbands, to contribute exactly equally and do their 'fair share' of labour. With each mother having a different background, such as being self-employed, working from home, being unemployed, Your Neighbour's Table offers intelligent commentary not only on gender roles, but on how these play out under capitalism, through the lens of a socialist government project.

While some readers may be disappointed by the world-building being mostly on the periphery of the story, their subtlety opens a focal space for the very real issues and allows the book to be read as contemporary fiction, not as dystopia. A quietly unsettling book. 3.5

A very interesting story. It was not what I expected. However, is was an enjoyable read and concept. At points it was a little slow but this is not unusual with translated novels. The characters faced many challenges and it was an incite to what live could be like for many people. I have not read the previous novel by the author but I will definitely look for it now.

I had such a visceral reaction while reading Your Neighbour’s Table. The story focuses of a communal living group, and the different families that live in this community. We get a POV from each ‘family’ so to speak and experience a slice of their life, their thoughts, feeling and response to this communal living situation.

There was so much that I thought was so realistically written, that I could not help but empathise with the characters and topics that I think were brilliantly showcased:
-Gender Roles
-Weaponised Incompetence
-Sexism
-Marital Affairs
-Expectations of New Mothers/Mothers

Some of the moments that stood out to me, were where the fathers response when asked by the mother if he understood what it meant to watch the kids was “if you don’t write down instructions… how would I know what to do?”, and it just goes to show how widely it’s understood that men weaponise their incompetence. Similarly, the six-year old daughter being expected by the father to help out and look after younger kids and in his opinion the mother being upset over this was an over reaction.

It was so easy to become invested in the characters and want them to overcome the issues they were struggling with but it was also so easy to dislike some of the characters. Overall, it was a quick read, that I think if you like slice of life, social commentary and realistic characters, you’ll like this.

Thank you to Headline, NetGalley and Gu Byeong-Mo for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Gu Byeong-Mo is a severely underrated Korean author. Her The Old Woman with the Knife is an excellently crafted satire which managed to pack an emotional punch and deliver a tense and exciting narrative, two things satirical books are not very well known for. When I saw a chance to get a copy of her newly translated book, I immediately leapt at it.

The novel delivered. We follow several families moving into a social engineering subsidised apartment block project. The blurb makes it sound like one of those Squid Game style tense dystopia's, but the novel is much more interested in the relationships between the four sets of families, than in any sort of a wider state-control narrative. This is not to say that the novel is divorced from its social context - if anything, it is a little bit too didactic in approaching it. We explore the limitations put on women by Korean society (although many of these, such as weaponised incompetence of men in domestic scenarios, sounded very familiar to me as a non-Korean woman). The novel does a great job showing how these limitations are perpetuated by both men (socially and structurally) and women keen to socially police other women. It is quite an understated novel of manners. The nuances of the story are conveyed through descriptions of social interactions between the characters, from the 'is it/isn't it' harassment from a male neighbour cloaked in plausible deniability to the more straightforward comments from mothers and mothers in law. I was very happy for the characters who found it in them to stand up to their specific circumstances.

The whole communal living element did not play into the story as much as I thought it would. The narrative focuses on 'communal' child-rearing in particular, on what neighbours and people in communities might be expected to contribute (or be judged for 'not pulling their weight'). This type of arrangement is often presented as the humane and supportive way forward in progressive/lefty political circles, which often focus on the community-building element. However, both the premise of the book and the way the narrative unfolded felt far more dystopian to me, as much as I tend to agree with most 'progressive politics'. I wonder if there is more space for discussing the dichotomy between autonomy and community in a more productive, rather than plain depressing, way.

If you liked Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, you will like this. 4.5 from me, rounded up to 5, given how abysmal the average rating for this book is.

Thank you NetGalley and Wildfire for the electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An excellent novel that’s extremely thought provoking and introspective, leading to many discussions about the roles of women in society and what happens if you do not fulfil those expectations. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and highly recommend it.

rounding up to 3.5

the story follows neighbours in an apartment complex in south korea.

the writing is very simplistic and i did find it hard to follow along with the characters at times, as there was a few to remember.

the story touches on parenthood and marriage whilst dealing with the working class life, outside of seoul.

i enjoyed the overall message of the book but the translation fell flat to me, at times.