BookBrowse Reviews Snowglobe by Soyoung Park, Joungmin Lee Comfort

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A YA thriller set in a future ice age where only a special few celebrities get to live in the warmth, and nothing is what it seems.

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The world has become a frozen wasteland and sixteen-year-old Jeon Chobahm's only relief from the bitter cold comes in the form of her favorite reality show, Goh Around, which focuses on the daily life of star Goh Haeri and her family. Haeri, like all of the reality show stars and the directors who make the shows, lives in the warmth of Snowglobe, the only community with both wealth and warmth in the climate-ravaged world of this thriller by award-winning Korean author Soyoung Park, newly available in English translation.

Chobahm has always borne an uncanny resemblance to star Haeri, to the point where even her own grandmother cannot always tell that Chobahm is not the one on screen when the show is playing. She dreams of moving to Snowglobe to become a director and make the shows that are the only entertainment for the people living outside its bubble, instead of working in the power plants to produce electricity along with everyone else she knows. Her opportunity comes through tragedy: when Haeri dies, a top director comes to Chobahm's house and asks her to secretly take her place so that the reality show can continue.

But the deal she makes with the director is a dark one. From the moment she leaves her home she realizes that this opportunity might not be what it seems and that the costs of failure to keep up the deception will be very high, and paid not only by her but her family. The world of comfort inside the dome of Snowglobe may shut out the frigid temperatures and icy winds, but life as an actor is fraught with new dangers, and Chobahm soon learns that very little about this reality is real at all. As she uncovers dark secrets at the heart of both Haeri's family and the world inside the dome, where people are only guaranteed its amenities for as long as they are useful, Chobahm has to make difficult choices about what to do with her knowledge. Does she keep these secrets and the lifestyle they guarantee, or use what she has discovered to challenge the powerful people manipulating the lives of many, and change the world she lives in?

In Snowglobe, Park presents a fascinating dystopian setting that taps into today's climate anxieties, and also imagines the kind of society that might grow out of contemporary celebrity culture, fandom, and the demands of reality entertainment. It asks us to interrogate what happens to the celebrities, the people who fans demand put their whole lives on display, and who lose all privacy just because they are famous. It also makes readers question just what exactly is real in reality television, challenging its audience in the best ways, through a haunting world where nothing, and no one, is what they seem to be.

Chobahm is a complex and endearing character that will captivate readers' attention with her empathy, curiosity, ambition, and enduring spirit. The cast is rounded out by the people who help her navigate her new world and its dangerous games, demonstrating the importance of building connections and offering trust in times of adversity, rather than seeking individual safety or success. This climate dystopia YA thriller will leave readers completely hooked, and anxious for the second book in the planned duology, eager to see what happens next to Chobahm and the rest of the inhabitants of Snowglobe.

This review first ran in the March 6, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.