Tucked away in the corner of a neighborhood in Dosan, South Korea, is the Plant Shop. Shop owner Yoohee has started anew, and her meticulously grown foliage thrives under her tender care. To both her customers and herself, Plant Shop is a refuge, where petunias and marigolds bloom and the air itself is like an elixir of peace. As men begin to disappear…will anyone ever suspect the Plant Lady?
The novel’s structure is simple but effective: Almost every chapter introduces a new woman who is trying to escape or outwit a man who is making her life hell, and who seeks refuge among the greenery at Yoohee’s Plant Shop, where she either listens to or simply senses their troubles. Soon Yoohee is murdering these men with shovels or shears or poisonous fruits, and fertilizing her plants with their remains ... There is a gleeful quality to some of Yoohee’s murders, such as the 'Fargo'-esque feeding of a man into a woodcutting machine ... Ripe for a sequel, Plant Lady offers a twisted kind of escapism, and healing: an immersive world where women take down men, without conscience or consequence — a fecund fantasy of feminist revenge.
Every character is stock cardboard; every description is a flat soufflé of tired cliches and idioms; every one of the plot’s minimal twists is both illogical and thoroughly telegraphed. It’s not just fans of Little Shop of Horrors who’ll be bored by page 70 ... Either Minyoung Kang has written a trite, boring, and obvious little fable of spades-and-pruning-shears-against-the-patriarchy, or her translator has taken a book that is somehow original against considerable odds and turned it into such a thing.
Kang offers a suspenseful and satisfying tale centered on a Dexter-like character who seeks to free women from abusive and controlling relationships using vigilante justice and plant protection as her moral guides. While passages can be highly descriptive and even gory at times, readers will likely be intrigued by the novel’s focus on Yoohee’s introspective nature and preference for plants over people ... Interwoven with botanical insights and offering much for book groups to discuss, this book will be of interest to fans of suspenseful stories.
