I found that I didn't like this book much. It felt like it was a little bit about nothing.
I think it's an interesting idea that didn't quite hit the mark for me.

I enjoyed this book, but I think the marketing really misled me - it's definitely not a thriller, and is more an exploration of gender and marriage in modern Korea. It's a connected set of storylines around an intriguing premise: spouses for hire. As the stories interlock, it explores a plethora of social issues, which left me genuinely unsure where things would end up (in a good way). I'd recommend this but not as a thriller.

What happened to me with this book is that many times I wondered what I was reading. That thing about it being a 'thriller' could be, but it's not well done, and it's a shame because it was a VERY interesting point in this novel. And I think it was pretty wasted.

The Trunk has several interesting points, but I feel like none of them were developed properly. I felt like everything was halfway done. The messages and reflections on feminism, marriage, sexuality, society in general... everything was left halfway. Nothing closed and everything was left in the air. He jumped from one thing to another, came and went, and in the end you felt like you didn't quite understand what you were reading.

There is going to be an adaptation starring Gong Yoo and Seo Hyun-jin (two great actors) and I think it would be a VERY interesting series/movie because they could close and express much better the ideas (very interesting, by the way) that we can read here but that They don't show themselves well.

The ending felt rushed, unclear, and left me with little pleasure. Many things were left open, few things really had the weight that I felt they should have. And yet, I think it is a novel that is interesting. That's why I'm very sad that I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Thank you very much Random House UK for the ARC I read on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, I like learning more about different cultures to mine and the "feminist satire" was very appealing. Sadly though, I found it really difficult to get into or care very much about what was happening. Having read the author's notes at the back about the translators, I feel awful saying this, but I was a bit put off by the stilted conversations and lack of nuance.
I noticed that it is going to be a netflix production and will definitely watch it as maybe, for me, it will work better visually.
Thank you to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Even though not as strong as most Anglophone readers would have expected or liked in terms of its feminist radicalism, I thought it had a brilliant and interesting premise which did very well support and carry a great narrative - enough to make me want to read the original/KR text. In other words, I can't say I'm a fan of the translation work - to me, felt a bit scattered, disjointed and a bit lacking in elegance in terms of style and structure. To put simply, not enough for me to like it properly - I'd go as far as to say that it disrupted my flow and enjoyment of reading on and off. Although slightly irrelevant, I do wish the film adaptation will amplify the qualities of the narrative and text - like for instance : 'Kim Ji Young, Born 1982'. It would be a shame and a waste otherwise. Regardless of all of the above, I look forward to more English translation of Kim's books.

Decided to DNF this as at 60% I just don't feel that it's really going anywhere interesting. It's definitely not a thriller, but more an exploration of relationships, gender and societal expectations in Korea. It's an interesting concept but I'm already 60% of the way through and there's no tension or central thrust to the story. I would perhaps have liked this more if I hadn't been expecting a thriller.

The Trunk was an interesting look at a dystopian Korea in which the protagonist, Noh Inji, is essentially a wife for hire through a high-class agency. This alone was enough to intrigue me. There is a certain matter-of-factness to the narration which made it clear that Inji is fairly detached when it comes to her job and seemingly finds it quite easy to follow the somewhat impersonal and patriarchal rules set out by the agency.

Outside of her work life, Inji also allows us insight into her personal relationships and how an abrupt end to a past friendship may have led her to crave a life free of the bonds of love. At the same time, it seems that her work has heavily influenced this choice as it doesn't exactly set the best example for loving relationships.

There were enough nuggets of new information sprinkled throughout the novel to keep me hooked, the pace wasn't that of a fast-paced thriller but was nonetheless gripping. Ryeo-ryeong (and the translation team) did a great job of showing that despite Inji's insistence that she was emotionally closed off she did in fact have a soft side and strong moral values.

I am looking forward to watching the series and hope to read more by this author in future!

I was pleasantly surprised with this book! I went into it knowing about the adaptation and thought it best to create my own opinion of the book first before seeing what the excellent Korean entertainment industry did with it.

I liked the distance you felt between the self and the story. But I liked how suspense was created through this distance. The female lead helped create this atmosphere with their concerns and attitudes towards the male lead and their situation clawing at survival throughout the story.

However I did get the sense that I didn’t really know where it was going to go. For readers who have experienced distrust within relationships or domestic situations I would suggest giving this one a miss. The suspense and emptiness in some of the situations are rather uncomfortable on purpose but excellently crafted to do this on purpose. The show may adapt this in a more romantic sense but the underlying story is supposed to centre on how this is a job, not an actual relationship for the female lead.

Well crafted and an interesting read.(3.5stars)

This novel, translated from the Korean, is listed as a feminist thriller. I struggled with the idea of it being a thriller, but even so, the story itself was enthralling. Our main character Inji is a Field Wife at NM, an elite division of Wedding and Life. The clients can contract a 'wife' for a year and so Inji becomes a wife for a year at a time for whoever has signed the contract. A sort of rent-a-wife. For the clients, it works as they have either had marriages fail in the past, or they do not want to enter into a long-time commitment. For Inji, it gets her away from her mother and frees her from making attachment. It gives her a sort of freedom to push her body and boundaries in whichever direction she wants. Therefore when her last 'husband' want to renew for the contract for a further year, her initial reaction is to say no as she prefers to reset each time. However, she does say yes and starts a further year's 'marriage' to her previous husband. He is never named. He is a music producer and is sort of anonymous - we don't learn that much about him but we see him as someone driven by his impulses, acting out the porn that he gets Inji to watch with him. Inji does become more empathetic towards him, but what we see is how she lives in this 'marriage' and maintains her distance. But she also becomes the victim of a stalker who keeps turning up with food and the action taken by Wedding and Life when she reports him, shows a very different side to the company. Through the novel we learn of inji's past, her relationships with her friends and how her experiences over the past years are encouraging her to take stock of her life. This is a novel that covers so many topics - prostitution, trafficking, slavery, and love and marriage. I believe that this is now being turned into a Netflix series so that may be one to check out. A enthralling read even if I wouldn't class it as a thriller.

I read an eARC of this book on NetGalley so thank you to the author and publisher.

Wow this book was wild! It was such a strange reading experience. It was almost mundane slice of life at times but it was so gripping and impossible to put down! This is a year in the life of a woman who works as a wife for hire. She works for an agency that provides contracted wives for people for whom traditional marriage wouldn’t quite work. During this year she finds her relationships changing, often being challenged. She has a year of discovery, facing up to truths about her past and historical friendships. Learning things she didn’t know before that changes how she feels about people in her life. We see this creeping into her thoughts and making her question her life and her job. A frightening experience with a stalker and learning secrets about the company she works for has her question everything.

People in this book are so multi-faceted. No-one is purely good or bad, people are selfish then kind, affectionate then cold. You can never be sure what the characters will do or what direction they are headed. It is absolutely fascinating.

This book was so interesting, it was intense, powerful and a great read.

I was expecting something different for sure. An actually mystery thriller. This was not it.

This book was a social commentary about life and marriage, from the point of view of Inji's, the mc. I requested this book because I was intrigued by the Field Spouses thing. However, the storytelling of the book is just not for me. It's rather slow too. I did think some parts were repetitive, then again it's following the mc, and her going through her days.

Having gone in thinking that this book is a thriller, I thought the characters were all rather strange. But now I think it might be just the way Inji had talked about them all.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book at 70%, as it really bored me.

Thank you to the publisher (Random House UK, Transworld) and NetGalley for providing me this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC!

Although marketed as a thriller, I would definitely put this more towards the literary fiction category. I enjoyed this book, but I did struggle to connect with the characters and because I was expecting more of a thriller, I found it to fall a bit flat overall.

The Trunk is the first Korean title by Kim Ryeo-Ryeong, translated from Korean to English by Paik Yonjae, Aditi Dubey and Adam Zulawnik. It has recently gained popularity after a series adaptation, starring Seon Hyun-li and Gong Yu, was announced to be released by Netflix in the autumn of 2024. I honestly had no idea this translation was coming out in the upcoming month, so I read the summary and was directly hooked by just that little paragraph. I was also intrigued by the title, which clearly didn't seem to have any relation with that blurb. So, I wanted to know more, and NetGalley and Doubleday UK (a division of Penguin Random House UK) gave me this opportunity.

Inji is a field wife at NM, a division of Wedding&Life, an agency which allows their clients to hire agents and spend one year in a marriage contract together. For her, it is her escape, a way to stay out of her mom's way and live without attachments. When a previous husband asks to renew their marriage for another year, Inji is annoyed; she usually avoids such a situation, preferring to restart from zero, with no traces of her previous marriage contract. Then her life gets complicated: this uptight and sticky person, Om Tae-song, keeps bringing her tteok cakes and annoying her. Yet, getting these little threads of life entangled, Inji might just end up confronted with her very truth, and all the things she buried deep behind in her past.

I honestly REALLY enjoyed this novel; each chapter has a new hook to keep you 100% involved in the story. I have to say that, at first, I was a bit lost because I'd read the series's synopsis before reading the blurb, and the two are so distinct from each other that I thought the timing of the storyline was a bit off. But now that I have re-read the blurb, I do think that the line is perfect and keeps you with a clear structure to the very end. The plot is nothing special, but mixed with a lot of complicated connections to the other characters, sex, and a dark atmosphere overshadowing the whole story, Kim succeeded in creating something unique. It reminded me a lot about the vibes of Park Chan-Wook's Decision To Leave (2022). So if you liked this movie, make sure to pick this book up at your local bookstore.

Inji is such a special female lead that you want to know more about her. I think she has a very modern perspective on love insofar as she realises its implications and comes to flee a life like her mother had—being stuck at home and pretending not to be sick when she was. She wants freedom, the possibility to be versatile in her body and her life, to push her boundaries further whenever she feels like it, while also being able to stop people from getting her to do things she doesn't want. At the same time, however, she is really empathetic with her husband and with Om Tae-Song, whom she despises.
Her husband is quite a caricature of patriarchy and what it means to be a man in Korea (and the world, really): he is driven by his (sexual) impulses, uses her as an object to fulfil them while watching porn together, and is an isolated person with a very close circle of friends (whom he enjoys manipulating). In her marriage with him, Inji demonstrates what it's like to navigate such a relationship while striving to remain herself, not to be crushed by a partner.
With Om Tae-Song, we experience men's obsessive tendency to overreact to women; I thought his character was interesting because, although he surely wasn't perfect, his deeds were at first well-intended; he simply wanted someone to love and who loved him in return, someone to offer gifts to, to share moments with. But his determination to do so reveals him as a psychopath. What I found really interesting is this overturn of the so-called "sex appeal". While he tries to seduce Inji, his efforts become a threat to her. Perhaps he felt endangered by patriarchy, and so that's why he pushed things too far? I don't know, but he made me think a lot about men's general efforts to approach women.

The story in itself, as I wrote already, was keeping me on edge; I think that's also due to the variety of themes that were brought up. Kim made a deep dive into social issues still pervading Korea today: LGBTQIA+ rights and perceptions by society, unemployment, financial and social-class gaps that are increasingly growing in the country, the rise of abandoned children, prostitution, etc. The list wouldn't be exhaustive enough, really, but we get the sense of spiralling down to more and more issues because of a systemic imbalance. I'll let you have a read to explore these thematic more thoroughly. The intricacies between all the narratives were so well tackled that, in the end, the full portrait of Korean society was rich and well rendered. It felt like a well-rounded plot, which I greatly appreciated.

For all those reasons, I will without a doubt recommend this book to my readers. I'm sure those who like to expand their knowledge about Korean society will find it riveting, and it will be very nice for them to access the novel after (or before) watching the series.

Thank you Netgalley and Doubleday UK for allowing me to read an advanced copy of The Trunk!

Noh Inji, 30 years old and five marriages deep, has never been in love. She works for Wedding & Life’s secretive NM division, which rents out spouses to wealthy clients for temporary, no-strings-attached marriages. Inji's roles involve a wedding, sex, and housework—tailored exactly to the client's desires, with no emotional baggage or legal complications.

Despite pressure from her neighbour, best friend, and a failed blind date to find real love, Inji remains uninterested.

That is, until one of her former husbands, a powerful music producer, requests her back. As Inji delves deeper into this reunion, she uncovers dark secrets about NM’s management and her past, exposing a dangerous, sinister world beneath the surface.

Thank you so much to the author - Kim Ryeo-Ryeong and Doubleday for sending me a finished copy!

http://thesecretbookreview.co.uk

I am sooooo sorry but this just was not my thing and i DNF at 25% Just didnt like any character and the plot did not grab me

The Trunk is an interesting concept that shows Noh Inji working as a field wife at an exclusive matchmaking company named Wedding & Life.

At Wedding & Life Inji takes on a new assignment which sees her matched up with a former husband who happens to be part of the elite clientele.

This book is described as a thriller but it didn't really give me the vibes of one, it did however have a lot of social commentary.

I really liked the characters of Inji and Granny but I didn't really feel like a lot happened in the book and personally I felt the second half of the book was a bit disconnected to the first.

Thank you to Netgalley for the arc.

If I'm honest, 100% in and I still don't understand why this is called 'The Trunk' (is there a translation issue somewhere)? However, that's pretty much my only issue (although I also wouldn't call this a thriller).

Set in an alternate (although not unrealistic) Seoul, Inji works at a company that provides men and women short-term marriages (without the divorce, commitment etc). Unfortunately, whilst this may be useful to some, and seems good in theory, it ends up being incredibly exploititive - especially for the female workers.

The book also covers themes of: stalking and violence against women, anti-LGBT (incl biphobia and anti lesbian) sentiment, abuse of power from older men and the unfortunate women who contribute to this, and religious/charity corruption - all of which are real issues in South Korea. Whilst this wasn't what I anticipated, I would highly recommend and am looking forward to watching the Netflix series.

"For us, love was only permitted within the constraints of a contract and a fixed term. Accidents happened when you mistakenly assumed that you were somehow special. To our clients, we were all the same."

Inji Noh has been working as a 'Field Wife' for a secretive and exclusive matcmaking agency for the rich and wealthy, called 'Weddings & Life'. The company provides its clients with a professional, fixed term marriage service and by the end of the contract the marriage is dissolved without any fuss. Having worked there for over six years, Inji has already been married 5 times. Whilst repeated requests for the same 'Field Wife/Husband' are rare, her last ex-husband, a rich music producer, has requested her again. Soon, Inji finds herself in a lucrative position of unraveling some dark secrets about her own past and the dangers of her company.

One of my biggest frustrations is when the blurb doesn't match the contents of the book. 'The Trunk' is definitely not a thriller, but more of a dystopian piece with social commentary on marriage, mental health, and sexuality. The story seemed to build towards a suspenseful conclusion, and I was holding my breath for a dramatic, gory twist, but the ending felt rushed and left me a bit confused. It lacked the impact I was anticipating, and while there were moments of intrigue, the ending felt underwhelming.

The concept of a professional marriage service for the elite was a very interesting plot device—one that I wished the author had explored further. I enjoyed learning about the darker, almost clinical side of the business; those parts were gripping and had great potential. However, this intriguing aspect was soon pushed aside in favor of character arcs that didn’t develop as much as I had hoped.

Inji is a character full of cynicism, anger, and disappointment about where her life is headed, but her emotions never quite tapped into the deeper sense of female rage and drive for change that I expected. Many of her interactions with other characters—her mother, her "husband," Kim, and the Director—had a lot of potential to turn into something more dynamic or intense, but they fizzled out, leaving the relationships feeling somewhat flat. Even the big confession that was meant to be impactful came across as a bit forced.

I think the biggest issue was the translation, where much of the nuance seemed to be lost. At times, it felt disjointed, and I was often confused about who was speaking or whether events were happening in the past or present. This disrupted the flow and affected my overall enjoyment, making it hard to stay engaged. Unfortunately, I struggled to keep going, so I can't rate this higher than a 2.

Not so much of a thriller in my estimation, but more into general fiction. Nonetheless it's an intriguing read with a great primary female lead. Interesting to see this novel translate to screen. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

The Trunk by Kim Ryeo-ryeong, known for her incisive social commentary, delves into South Korea's elite matchmaking industry. Translated into English for the first time, the novel centers on Noh Inji, a 30-year-old employee of a clandestine marriage service. Here, wealthy clients hire "field spouses" for temporary marriages. Having participated in several such marriages, Inji has remained emotionally detached, until a former "husband," a music producer, requests a second contract, leading to unexpected revelations about both Inji and the company.

The novel explores themes of societal expectations, the commodification of love, and the emptiness behind the pursuit of perfection. Through Inji's story, Kim critiques traditional gender roles and the pressures placed on individuals within South Korea’s upper-class circles. The narrative, laced with dark humor and tension, invites readers to question the value of love and personal choice in a world where even marriage is transactional.

With a sharp, engaging style, The Trunk offers a fresh and unsettling perspective on modern relationships and conformity, making it a compelling read for fans of novels like Convenience Store Woman or Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.