3.5 The premise of this was intriguing - I love a good robot tale! The robot sections were great but the book was let down by its lack of focus, simplistic writing, and inconsistent pacing.

What worked for me:
👍 Everything about C-27/Coli
👍 Representation and insight into the experience of our character, Eunhye, who uses a wheelchair
👍 Yeonjae, Jisu, and Eunhye were interesting characters. I particularly like the relationship between Yeonjae and Jisu. I loved hearing about Yeonjae’s interest and skill working with the robots!
👍 The translation was solid: I’ve read a few translations from Kim Chi-young and like their work
👍 Social and animal justice themes!
👍 The cover is beautiful

What I wasn’t so keen on:
👎 Pacing is wonky: the story is very slow overall; we’re introduced to the urgently-paced robot/horse thread early so some of the side character chapters (mom, vet) with their slow, repetitive content, felt frustratingly slow and superfluous
👎 The storytelling was dry and simplistic told with simplistic language made this feel like something geared toward kids (I felt the swearing was there simply to stop this being a kids/YA book)
👎 Ham-fisted personal development messages that lacked subtlety and finesse (another reason this felt like a younger read)
👎 I loathed how Bogyeong’s only “purpose for staying alive” after a serious injury was a man
👎 Some of the characters actions don’t make sense: Bokhui recognizes and abhors the gross exploitation of the horses yet assaults a reporter who she thinks is doing an exposé on that very matter, to… protect a corporation? 🙃 Why does Yeonjae approach her former manager to make the horse bet?

There’s a good story here. I wish Cheon had focused more on the robot/racetrack story rather than zooming in to such a macro level with the Kim/Woo family. I’m not entirely sure this works as an adult novel due to the simplicity and slightly twee style.