Almond

Description

Yunjae has alexithymia, which makes fear, anger, and other emotions difficult for him to recognize or experience. His mother and grandmother protect him from a bewildering world above the used bookstore they call home, teaching him scripts for situations other people navigate instinctively. A violent event on his sixteenth birthday shatters that shelter and leaves him alone. Yunjae retreats into silence, but his encounter with Gon, a volatile and wounded classmate, develops into an unlikely bond that tests both boys’ assumptions about feeling and cruelty. As friendship and a new connection at school draw Yunjae outward, this coming-of-age novel examines whether empathy is an instinct, a choice, or a capacity built through attention to others.

Themes