The novel follows Hwa, who lives on rigs (of some sort--truthfully the setting itself was confusing for me) now owned by the Lynch corporation. She's a body guard for the legalized and unionized prostitutes who work there. When Lynch officially moves in, she's hired as bodyguard/trainer for Lynch's son and heir, Joel. But then many of her old prostitute friends are dying, and someone's after Joel, and also she's feeling all squishy for Daniel, her boss at Lynch.
As may already be apparent, somehow the novel never came together for me. First, there's Hwa herself, who had too many past traumas for any of them to feel real. She has a large (port-wine-type?) stain over her body, and thus is "ugly" in a society where most people are medically augmented. Her mother, a famous singer/prostitute, hates her and didn't want to have her. Her idolized older brother died in a rig accident several years back. Oh, and she also has a weird seizure disorder! But all of these traumas weave in and out without a clear trajectory or purpose, and I couldn't even really see what her mother, brother, and seizures had to do with the book.
Then there's the love interest, Daniel, whom I was supposed to swoon for but instead hated on the spot. Because he is: the most perfect man alive. The most caring, most thoughtful, most in-tune, most whatever idealized romantic figure you can imagine. Never angry, mean, or selfish. Totally in love with Hwa. But why? I couldn't understand how their relationship developed--he was just suddenly completely committed. Also, he has some weird backstory--he only has 10 years of memory because Lynch sort of "recreated" him after some accident (?). But apparently that doesn't really matter because we never learn about his past.
And let's not forget the serial murders of Hwa's prostitute friends, described in graphic, grisly detail. Apparently they couldn't just be killed--they had to be butchered in Saw 16 fashion. For no reason! I mean, at the end we're given a reason why they were killed, but no reason why it needed to be so grotesque.
Truthfully, I felt like I was in a fog most of the novel, always feeling like I was missing some key point/characterization. But even once everything was "revealed" in the end, and I had no further plot-comprehension questions, I still felt lost.
In the end, it's probably the characterization that most did Company Town in for me. An over-loaded hodgepodge protagonist and Ken-doll love interest just aren't my thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment