Not going to bury the lead here: this is a fantastic novel, and a perfect example of the importance of translated fiction because, wow would anyone who can't read Korean have missed out on a great story.

Is 'The Disaster Tourist' some new literary masterpiece? No. The writing is very functional and unfrilly, though never clunky or awkward. There weren't really any lines that had me reaching for a pen to underline them for their insight or beauty, but strung together they create a nicely layered and fresh plot with an enigmatic protagonist.

This isn't a novel for readers looking for a tight character study; this is definitely a plot-driven story, but it's so interesting in its twists and turns and premise that it would definitely fit nicely on a shelf next to Jeff van der Meer's 'Annihilation', Paul La Farge's 'The Night Ocean,' and Karen Russell's 'Swamplandia!'

Just like those aforementioned genre-bending works, 'The Disaster Tourist' doesn't go terribly far out of its way to hide its message: this is a critique of the tourism industry (disaster tourism specifically), and its inherently creepy, exploitative nature. This is apparent from basically page one, but that doesn't make following Yona's descent into the dark pit at the center of the plot any less page-turning.

Each twist truly feels like a bend in a winding staircase coiling ever more tightly as we reach a surprising climax and its poignant aftermath.

Beneath the surface (though not too deep), we can also see some truly dreary commentary on corporate and call centre culture that I honestly found almost more depressing than the commentary on tourism.

'The Disaster Tourist' is deeply cynical, and even the reader isn't free from author Yun Ko-eun's scathing implication of our compliancy in this industry. The meta-commentary is very much: 'you, reader, probably also watch disaster films that are 'based on a true story' and/or would go or have gone on 'disaster tours' yourself if you were interested in this book; maybe you should have a little think on that.'

I take (small) issue with this type of 'gotcha' message that I've also seen creeping into true crime documentaries. I think it was "Don't Fuck with Cats" (a documentary chronicling the crimes and capture of a killer who claimed to kill in order to obtain infamy) that had one of the interviewees say to the camera at the end something along the lines of: 'here's a guy who wanted to be famous so badly that he was willing to become a murderer in order to be immortalized, and here you, the viewer, are giving him what he wanted. Curious.' Something something imp of the perverse, rubbernecking is bad, actually, something something.

I dunno. It always feels a tad hollow to suddenly be 'touché’d by someone profiting off of the thing they claim you should be ashamed to want to read/watch.

But that's just my own little quibble, and in this novel it isn't blatant enough to make me roll my eyes, but enough for me to notice it was there.

There's a claim in the blurb that this novel has a 'fierce feminist sensibility.' I don't know if the person who wrote that read the same book I did, but I wouldn't probably say that 'feminist' would be on my top 5 'things this novel is about' list, so if that's something you go into this waiting for (or dreading) you're going to keep waiting and then you'll be finishing and closing the book and still waiting.

I don't really understand the need to slap the label of 'feminist' onto everything written by female authors writing complex female protagonists; like, sure, you could do a feminist reading of this text, but that doesn’t make the novel about that. Just my small aside here.

One of the most memorable English lit courses I took at uni had a central question as its premise that I think about when I read a book like this one: can genre fiction be literary? Ultimately, our professor seemed to guide us the answer: 'who cares? Good books come in all flavors and only snobs think the classification of 'literary' as separate from 'genre' is important or even possible.'

This definitely strikes me as true of "The Disaster Tourist," a novel that could be nicely dissected and analyzed by those (myself included) that can't resist, but equally enjoyed by readers who just want to kick back with a thriller on the beach (or perhaps the bus taking them to Hiroshima or Pripyat or a former concentration camp).

Give it a read!