Green Frog by Gina Chung | ARC review

Greetings folks,

Thank you to Pan Macmillian for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley. This is my honest review, featuring quotes from the ARC.

“How arrogant and foolish I had been, to think that I could outrun myself.”

Synopsis

Here are fifteen pitch-perfect stories about women trying to make their own way: featuring daughters, divorcees, fox demons, a praying mantis, and . . . green frogs.

A young girl reconnects with her Korean grandmother; an artist considers her connection to the Korean folktale of the green frog; a praying mantis living in a beautiful home overlooking the park finds the New York dating scene leaves her hungering for more; a fox demon seeks revenge for her murdered sister, only for her loyalties to be torn; AI brings a grieving mother’s daughter back to life; at a spa in the mountains, a recently divorced woman has a ghostly encounter; and a recipe book instructs the reader on ‘how to eat your own heart’.

From the writer of Sea Change, this collection of fifteen offbeat, scintillating stories influenced by Korean fairy tales and contemporary ennui, shines a light on womanhood in all of its human (and other) forms.

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Length: 240 pages

Genre: short stories, literature, fantasy (adult)

Pub Date: 6th June 2024 (UK) / 12th March 2024 (US)

Publisher: Pan Macmillan (UK) / Penguin Random House (US)

My Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

“A mother should know better than to shatter into fragments when that child tells her she hates her. A mother should be able to track and chart the changing patterns of her daughter’s mind and, even if she doesn’t understand them, love them anyway. A mother should know to be better than her own fears and rages.”

I used to avoid short stories. Believing them too short to earn my investment, but short stories have some of the best writing ever. I’m always excited to experience their magic now. Their strong focus and direction create poignant pieces of literature that don’t need hours to change you, they succeed in a matter of minutes. The stories offer emotional intelligence, transformation and perceptive awareness. As Zadie Smith said “You become a different writer when you approach a short story. When things are not always having to represent other things, you find real human beings begin to cautiously appear on your pages.” I can confidently say Green Frog by Gina Chung is a short story collection that makes you believe in this magic.

“You are both alarmed by and resentful of the passage of time, the years that have come and gone without making you into a better, more successful person, a kinder, more forgiving daughter.”

A collection of fifteen stories that throw you into different scenarios. From stories imbued with magical realism to push the boundaries of grief and childhood trauma, to hearts breaking in varying ways to their blind audiences. Each story offers something different, so you can’t predict what the next story will include. I enjoyed this variety of story-telling. It made for a memorable collection, especially through the pointed use of fantasy that conveyed emotions in unique ways. Ways that succeeded in expressing the hard-to-express; this book did not ignore conflicting natures or the unexplainable for ease. I liked how it got me thinking as a reader too. If these things were possible, what would I do? Books that leave you with these thoughts are always hard to forget for the right reasons. 

“If a man sees you in your fox form, he will try to kill you thinking only of his livestock or his family. But if you appear to him as a lovely woman, he will forget all about his livestock, his wife, and even his children.”

Whilst all the stories were different, the emotional thought was evident in each one. Chung expressed situations of high emotion, such as divorce, death or dignity. They were stories of finding your place amidst these changes in life or rather because of them. Due to this nature, you can presume a lot of the weighty emotions that would follow, but Chung went one step further. She was able to explore small details in the characters’ past and think about how what once happened would make them react in a specific way to the present moment. It was this level of thoughtfulness that made me invest in characters. I grabbed the tender details of their life and thought deeply about the personal meaning that lay in the words.

“it was not your job to hold their anger, to receive it like a kiss”

Each story had a clear-cut lesson at the end of it. Once again, it gave you something to take away from the story. To not just see a reflection within the words, but a meaning to hold close. What I really enjoyed was how the morals weren’t necessarily written as stories of success, but stories of realisations. I noticed how the stories often featured characters of stillness, or worse, stagnation. The moral was not forced, but a dawning moment achieved throughout the course of the story. There is, of course, success in reflection but these short stories highlighter the confusing nature of life and the strength needed to realise the change best for you, then the strength to go after that change.

“I’d forgotten how good it feels to be hungry, and to have that hunger satisfied.”

The writing was easy and to achieve that ease is no small feat, especially with the thoughtful nature of this book. The style suited the subject matter, not one to over-embellish but touching all the same. The writing makes small details noticeable because they are placed with care into the story. Sometimes by saying less, you mean more. Readers pick up on this and it serves the emotional journeys beautifully. I saved many quotes from this book and every time I read them, I fall in love with them a little more. The painful truths and insightful moments as Chung takes intimate notice of what it means to be alive and dreadfully human. An intriguing read for literary fiction fans.

“I am here, I remind myself. And maybe it’s time I did something about it.”

About The Author

Gina Chung is a Korean American writer from New Jersey currently living in New York City. She is the author of the novel SEA CHANGE, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a 2023 B&N Discover Pick, and a New York Times Most Anticipated Book, and the forthcoming short story collection GREEN FROG. A recipient of the Pushcart Prize, she is a 2021-2022 Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow and holds an MFA in fiction from the New School. 

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