Review: The One: The Tale of a Lost Romantic in Seoul

The One: The Tale of a Lost Romantic in Seoul by Steve Justice

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Love it!. Insightful. Intriguing. An absolute MUST READ. Would definitely recommend!.

In the beginning, it has the narrator spout what he did. Like having a conversation (something I took quite a liking to) with a third party outsider with no personal interest in the matter, but nonetheless a story to be told.

This particular story pulled me in not because of the fact that it was a student/teacher complex, but that it was of a completely different perspective. The persona of the narrator is probably more common then we think, but we never really get to hear from this side of things, especially the teacher's point of view.

I know I haven't. I have literally never read anything like this before.
How the narrator mentions the other people in his life obviously explains how much of a constant they are in his life and of there importance to him.
In his wife's case, lack thereof, for she is not given the credit of importance, but rather the credit of inconvenience, the old ball and chain as the narrator so eloquently puts it.


The only person he considered a friend would be Adam, but that does not last.

When his student, Hana Kim, makes her presence known, the shock the narrator felt was sure enough to give him whiplash. His infatuation with her soon became an obsession. His life was so uneventful before that most thing he started to do post-Hana, even the smallest gesture I felt chills up my back every time he got the courage to do something out of the ordinary. 


What had actually stood out to me was that he only wanted somebody to love, and be loved.
He was certainly missing that in his childhood. The only other time was with his first love, Jess.

When he confides in Adam about everything, the reaction Adam has finally dawns on me as to why he is his bravado, wild, and single self. He mentioned before what he yearned for, although the narrator didn't pay much attention to it.
My solution was to switch their places in life, and they would be right at home. They envied one another, and my guess would be that if they had grown up in the other's shoes, they would turn out exactly the way that seemed fitting for them. But things didn't work that way.


Everything the narrator said I either ate up or made me think, agreed with or agreed to disagree. This was something refreshing to me to read, and I loved every bit of the author's outstanding writing.


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