Featured as one of Borders' "Original Voices" for July 2007

"Coolly written and composed as intricately and artfully as a Chinese box.... The result is eerie, hypnotic and not without humor, like latter-day Camus filtered through a cinematic sensibility."

—Los Angeles Times

"Tantalizing."

—Publishers Weekly

"Stylish, inventive.... Noir with a piquant exotic twist."

—Kirkus

"Must be read. Mesmerizing."

—Booklist

"A powerful and disturbing read."

—The Complete Review

"A unique flavor to good old-fashioned nihilism. Think of it as Korean noir."

—Los Angeles Times

"Kim's first novel...explores, with a delicate but morbid sensibility, the alienating effects of life in the late 20th century."

—Entertainment Weekly

"This stylish novel...is anything but predictable."

—The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey,
The Post-Dispatch of St. Louis,
The Dallas Morning-News

"There's a certain dark brilliance in the writing."

—So Misguided

"[A] hauntingly beautiful little novel."

—MaudNewton.com

"Tense, elemental, tangy.... This is a real find."

—Han Ong, Author of Fixer Chao

"The anonymous protagonist had us hooked from the beginning. The writing is also often spectacular, reminding us of the sparse but beautiful prose of Haruki Murakami."

—Time Out Chicago

"We are finally (after eleven years) given access to a work which is widely considered a representative of the 'postmodern' turn in Korean fiction."

—Asia Pacific Arts Online Magazine