Goong 9

So Hee Park – Yen Press – 2010 – 26+ volumes
this is an omnibus containing vols 9-10

Okay, so maybe you just have to read this series in big chunks to appreciate it. The romance moves so slowly, and Chae-Kyung is so unhappy, it can be agonizing to read in one-volume pieces spread out over months. But when you read several volumes back-to-back, you can appreciate that things are just moving slowly, and that Chae-Kyung does still have some power to make her own decisions.

The big issue right now, of course, is Chae-Kyung’s divorce, and how to go about it. She thinks the easiest way is to announce that she wants it on a national interview. But Shin has been softening, almost learning how to act human, and her genuine love for him makes it difficult to wish for this. She’s still unhappy, of course, and Shin’s still a jerk much of the time. But you can see the cracks in his robot jerk mask when you read a big chunk of the story. He is a jerk, don’t get me wrong, and he really should be treating Chae-Kyung better. But he doesn’t know how, since he’s been kept at arm’s length his whole life, and he’s learning slowly. He is getting better.

There are lots of nice domestic scenes in this volume, the type of thing that Chae-Kyung has wanted all along. Shin allows her to impulsively jump out of a motorcade to go to her favorite donut shop. They eat bowls of ramen together, late at night, at her parent’s house. And in one really amazingly adorable scene, Chae-Kyung takes Shin out on a date. They’re not dressed up, so nobody recognizes them, and Shin sees what it’s like to be a regular person. It’s a shame there’s still so much drama going on, and that neither of them are happy, because it’s stuff like this that make me really appreciate the whole gimmick of “Chae-Kyung doesn’t know how to live at the palace since she’s a regular girl, but Shin doesn’t know how to live outside the palace” thing.

And… there’s plenty of drama, still. The arson attempt is blamed on Shin, still, and the media gets ahold of it. Shin and Chae-Kyung finally move to their own palace, but the public sees this as an attempt to flee, or that they were expelled from the main palace out of shame. Hyo-Rin threatens to reveal that Shin proposed to her, and that his marriage to Chae-Kyung is a sham. Shin discovers love letters between the King and Yul’s mother. Yul is still trying to make passes at Chae-Kyung (which Shin, to his credit, is getting better at not throwing a fit over), but he’s now got a greedy fiancee of his own who’s bent on becoming queen… conveniently fitting his mother’s plans for him. And Chae-Kyung’s grandfather is dying. I don’t know what else could happen. Doesn’t that cover all the bases?

Oh wait, that’s right, maybe Shin will get deposed? There’s always a risk of that. Maybe Shin or Chae-Kyung will get hit by a car. That’s about the only other thing that would put it over the edge.

The drama is getting pretty ridiculous, but it’s balanced now by the more interesting and steadily developing relationship between Shin and Chae-Kyung. I do genuinely enjoy that part of it.

And again, not enough can be said about So Hee Park’s sense of humor. She loves humiliating her characters. This series desperately needs a little levity, and some of these characters really do deserve humiliation. It is usually Chae-Kyung who experiences nosebleeds at the worse possible times, but sometimes Shin gets his too, and he so sorely deserves it (my favorite scene in this volume is where he goes on at length about his dream “ordinary” life, and Chae-Kyung observes that the only thing he knows about normal life is what he sees on TV).

And then there’s Eunuch Kong. I don’t even know anymore. He’s funny, but sometimes… he develops what I’m just going to call Patty and Selma syndrome. I’ll note that I love it desperately, and leave it at that.

I’ve got two more volumes of this to read… really, four volumes, since now they’re published in omnibuses. I love this treatment for the series, because it really does read better in big chunks. But I’m back on board. This is some ridiculously addictive romantic drama.