Review of Counterattacks at Thirty by Won-pyung Sohn

*Counterattacks at Thirty* by Won-pyung Sohn, translated by Sean Lin Halbert (2025). Published by HarperVia.

If you’re new here, welcome! This is my blog, which is where I often do reviews of television, books, and movies that have come across my way. I worked as a film critic for almost three years at an online outlet, and I also am a professionally published author and writer in the literary world. I like using this website as a digital diary and archive, as well as to keep my criticism skills sharp.

One of the core focuses of my blog has always been Korean literature. This has been an interest of mine ever since I studied abroad in South Korea as a high schooler on a prestigious government scholarship. I was very passionate about Korea then, but then lost interest for a few years as I focused on other regions in my studies.

Then, in graduate school, I fell right back into it. I didn’t intend for it to be this way, but I fell hard into Korea studies and specialized my master’s degree and completed an interdisciplinary master’s thesis on Korean women’s literature in the colonial and postcolonial periods. It truly was a labor of love, and it renewed my love for Korean literature, especially written by women.

I read a lot of contemporary Korean fiction in translation because of this. My first exposure to Won-pyung Sohn’s work was when I read Almond a few years back, and I remember when my review for it was the only post on this site that actually got any sort of traffic at all.

Now, I received an advance copy of Sohn’s latest book in translation, Counterattacks at Thirty. I planned to procrastinate on reading this because of the sheer amount of life events going on at the time, but when I started reading the first ten pages, I somehow cleared the entire book in two days.

I’ve scheduled this review to go live the day it publishes in the American market, but I was so excited to finish this in December 2024. Much love to the publisher, NetGalley, and the author and translator for the book.

Let’s get into the review!

A normal female office worker slowly becomes more disillusioned with her life and the world around her, leading to some radical decisions.

Our main character in this novel is Jihye, who is just another Jihye in a sea of Jihyes. It seems that everyone her age is named that, and just like everyone around her, our protagonist has been doomed to a life of mediocrity. She works at an office for an academy, which is brimming with some tension.

Her supervisor clearly is a woman who fought tooth and nail to the top, but now has no compassion for anyone below her and constantly has to remind everyone about her position and how she earned what she has. Jihye can’t stand the office she works at, and things don’t help later on when her old classmate that she doesn’t like, also named Jihye, shows up and starts terribly teaching there.

In the mean time, things are about to change for Jihye when another intern her age arrives. Named Gyuok, he’s about to shake up the foundations of everything she worked to maintain peace at this office, while also questioning some of her romantic sensibilities as well.

While Jihye is someone who is more complacent and watches everything go by in front of her, Gyuok is willing to make action happen here. Eventually Gyuok is going to recruit other member sin the office in attempts to get back at those who’ve wronged others.

At first their pranks are more petty and vandalism related, but slowly they ramp up over the course of the novel. I found that this aspect of the novel to be pretty interesting when it comes to how the reflect the characters’ inner turmoil, especially for Jihye. Even when she’s doing this she seems to be in the backseat at her own life.

A lot of the novel could be summarized in those plot points above. I don’t want to give direct spoilers as to how this goes down in this review, as I think the beauty of this novel is watching it all unfold in real time.

I thought that the romantic subplot in this novel was a bit bizarre though, although it explains a bit about our main character and her need to break free of the routine.

Overall Thoughts

I liked reading this. It isn’t my favorite Korean novel by far, but I had a good time reading this one. I’m glad I was able to receive this advance copy, but I don’t know if I’ll be returning to it any time soon.

The writing flows pretty smoothly, but I could see how this one might polarize readers. For example, if you’re coming in expecting a book like Almond, that’s not what you’re going to get. This is a completely different book than what Sohn put out earlier, which was fine by me.

There are more subtle and nuanced critiques of South Korean culture and society tucked into this though, and you’re going to miss them if you’re not paying attention or know what to look for.

If you’re interested, go and pick this up. I see it already kind of getting trashed on Goodreads, and I don’t think it deserves a low rating. Ignore the online reviews and form your own opinion if you’re basing not reading it off of those ratings.

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