The Books I Read in May 2025
May was an unbelievably memorable month in my personal and reading lives. After planning our big trip of 2025 for months, my boyfriend and I got engaged in Japan! It was the most magical day and I can’t thank you all enough for your heartwarming messages. In hindsight, then, I am really pleased that I chose South Korean and Japanese authors for my May TBR as it now forms a lovely reading time capsule of our travels. With two 16-hour flights and plenty of Shinkansen and regular trains to contend with, I packed many books and read many books. Let’s get to the mini reviews.
Find me on Goodreads and StoryGraph to see what I’m reading and reviewing in real-time.
May reads
- Hunger: A Novella and Stories by Lan Samantha Chang
- Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (reread)
- The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
- People Pleaser by Catriona Stewart
- Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee Hye
- A Song for Wildcats by Caitlin Galway
In review
Hunger: A Novella and Stories by Lan Samantha Chang
Rating: 3.5/5
I can’t remember how I came across Hunger: A Novella and Stories now, but I vaguely remember adding it to my The Storygraph TBR digital list and then immediately hunting out a copy online. The cover, its blurb… everything sung out to me, not least for its promise of stories from an East Asian immigrant perspective. I’m sure you’ve noticed this theme from my reading! I am a woman obsessed with understanding my own heritage and trying to validate my fragmented experiences. And, after my read, I felt really quite changed by it.
The novella tackles the Asian-American immigrant experience, exploring anti-Asian racism, motherhood and parenthood, and internalising disappointment. In just over 100 pages, the author perfectly captures an exquisite heartbreak, loss and struggle. The supporting short stories are just as haunting and wrought with human emotion and our hearts’ capacity, and each focuses on a different immigrant struggle, from language to finance, identity to parenthood. One to bring you back to your humanity (and just look at the incredible cover!).
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum, trans. Shanna Tan
Rating: 4/5
The week ahead of our trip to Seoul and Busan was the perfect time to dip into this translated Korean healing fiction novel. I found a copy in the Little Free Library that I run, and it instantly came home with me. Yeongju is living an ordinary ‘successful’ life in Seoul: she graduated university, married a respectable man and snagged a professional career. Burned out in her thirties, she abandons her successful life to follow her dream of opening a bookshop. Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop is a quiet, slow-paced read with little plot, following a small roster of café-goers and runners as they quietly and slowly learn what living means to them. I completely adored this book and it found me at the perfect time. I too was burned out from my day job and everyday mundane, and this book eased me into our trip perfectly.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (reread)
Rating: 4/5
After spotting my friend Epsita considering reading Never Let Me Go this month, we decided to set up a buddy read to read it together. It’s been more than 10 years since I read it and the reread did not disappoint. Never Let Me Go is more than literary fiction, it is a heady mix of naïveté, nostalgia, romance and defiance in the face of tragedy. We follow our narrator, Kathy, as she reflects on her youth at Hailsham, an English boarding school with a difference. Its students are well-supported and trained in art, sports and literature, yet they’re not allowed to contact or integrate with the outside world. As Kathy and her friends, Ruth and Tommy, leave the school, they begin to understand their tragic reality. I really, really love the quiet, eerie melancholy and nostalgia that soaks every page of this story. Completely remarkable, even 20 years after its publication.
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Thanks Vintage Books and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy!
Rating: 4.5/5
Easily one of the best books I’ve read this year, The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic story about chosen family and beautiful friendship. On a late summer evening, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in East Gladness, Connecticut, intending to jump, when he’s stopped by the voice of a woman coming from across the river. It’s the voice of Grazina, an elderly widow with dementia, and she convinces him not to jump. The Emperor of Gladness cycles through their year together as they develop a life-bonding relationship. Beautifully human and wistfully poetic at every turn, Vuong has created a tender ode to the love and loneliness of everyday American life. The characters are excellent and wonderfully brought to life, and I found myself wondering what each was up to, long after turning the final page. (I’d originally rated this 4.5 stars, but I’ve bumped it to the full 5-star rating after penning my thoughts.)
People Pleaser by Catriona Stewart
Thanks Penguin and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy!
Rating: 3/5
As a self-confessed Love Island fan (here and there, I’ve missed a few seasons recently!), I was very excited to see People Pleaser on my monthly NetGalley browse. Touted a page-turning mystery thriller with a reality TV setting, I knew it’d be perfect fodder for my flight this summer. And I was right! While People Pleaser will not be reinventing the wheel, it was a perfectly serviceable read that was pacey, full of characters to detest, and a reality TV backdrop that makes it relatable and comedic.
Maggie Lathrop is found murdered in an LA warehouse, a few years after winning LoveShack and becoming an overnight Internet sensation and wealthy influencer. Her death sparks a parasocial outpouring of grief and triggers endless armchair detectives – who would want to kill America’s sweetheart?
The story is told in alternating timelines: one reality and the other during reality TV episodes. This gives it a great pace and keeps you turning the pages, despite being a touch long. I couldn’t say this is elite literature, but it’ll make a fun poolside read this summer.
Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee Hye, trans. Shanna Tan
Thanks Vintage and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy!
Rating: 4/5
Soyangri Book Kitchen is another translated Korean healing fiction novel and one that I was very happy to win an eARC of on NetGalley. Set in a quaint village outside of the bustling capital city of Seoul, the book-filled Soyangri Book Kitchen is a book-stay haven owned by Yoojin, a woman desperate to leave her busy lifestyle behind. Through the book-stay, we meet seven individuals at crossroads in their lives, including a K-pop idol, a lawyer and a music director.
Once again, this book doesn’t reinvent the wheel and even I must admit I’ve been burned out by this genre before. But I completely loved the sentimentality behind this book, especially since I read it on my train to Busan, whipping past such small South Korean villages. The translation was great and it’s imbued with tidbits of South Korean culture as well as the kindness of other people when you may need it the most.
A Song for Wildcats by Caitlin Galway
Thanks Rare Machines and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy!
Rating: 3.5 stars
This collection of five short stories from Caitlin Galway was an impressive read on my flight home from East Asia. I feel like I really struggle to review and rate collections like these, so stay with me here! Galway’s lyrical and ethereally evocative writing shines through on every page of this book. You’re enveloped in lush prose or dunked into messy grief and trauma, and it sticks with you. For that reason, I found it difficult to move from story to story. Unfortunately, this also meant that I found it hard to parse between stories. For me, Wisp and The Lyrebird’s Bell worked better for me than the others and perhaps that’s because I’d finally gotten to grips with Galway’s style? I’d also recommend giving the content warnings a quick search before reading.
