Apartment Women

I requested Apartment Women (U.S. publication day December 3, 2024) by Gu Byeong-Mo, translated by Chi-Young Kim, from NetGalley because I really enjoyed her The Old Woman With the Knife, about an aging assassin for a shadowy agency. Unfortunately, Apartment Women was missing much of the intrigue, suspense, and action that drew me in while reading The Old Woman With the Knife.

Set in South Korea, Apartment Women was more of a “slice of life” novel that followed a group of characters–four couples who have moved into a new housing complex, with the caveat that each couple must agree to have three children in order to remain living there. Each couple has different circumstances as far as family wealth or lack of it, and in some couples both parents work outside the home and in others only one does, and in one family the wife works instead of the husband. But the idea behind the complex is that it is intended that the community will join together to raise the children.

Much in the way that life proceeds while caring for children, life happens, with the children having disagreements and the parents trying to do what they need to do as far as work, whether at home or away from the home. The author does illustrate how child-rearing is still the domain of women, who are also subject to sexual harassment if they venture out of the home to work.

It felt almost unfinished, though, because there was not really any explanation or resolution about the point of the commitment to having three children, but that fact was a vague sinister feeling in the background.

There was a single, casual anti-fat comment made by one character, but it was otherwise weight neutral. I would recommend it if you want to learn more about life in modern South Korea, but expect a quiet, more character-driven read.