"Snowglobe 2" by Soyoung Park

Snowglobe 2 (May 6, 2025) by Soyoung Park.

   Joungmin Lee Comfort, translator.

<This is the sequel novel in a duology.>

<Alert: Potential spoilers if one hasn’t read the first book.>

The girl she watched faithfully on TV is interchangeable. Jeon Chobahm knows this, for she’s filled the shoes of Goh Haeri. The director who created the family is imprisoned, but problems are not over for Chobahm and the other Haeri clones (Shin Shinae, Myung Somyung and Bae Serin). Snowglobe is starting to crack under the weight of its exposed lies, but the Yibonn Media Group is even more corrupt. They’ll do anything and eliminate anyone to keep their power and hide the secret of the domed city’s trademark warmth. Chobahm has unwittingly witnessed this dark, devious truth, and now there’s footage of her committing a murder that she definitely didn’t commit. Her other Haeri counterparts are accounted for during that timeframe, and the footage can’t be doctored, so who’s the Haeri who committed the crime? Yi Bonwhe is the one who has the knowledge to help, for he’s none other than the disgraced Yibonn heir. He may not be the ruthless heir his mom and grandmother expect him to be, but he’s been complicit and feels the weight of his family’s awful truths. Things are heating up in this frozen world.

            There is no utopia in this dystopian world. Chobahm and the other inhabitants of Snowglobe are enduring purposeful blackouts (there’s a Disaster Meter), extreme weather (it’s frozen outside the dome) and human-caused environmental disasters of the creative type (e.g. popcorn snow or a blizzard of bubbles), which can still prove deadly. Chobahm is no perfect heroine. She’s strong, intelligent and brave, but she can be rash, falsely believe that only she can solve a problem and put her trust in the wrong person. The writing isn’t heavy, but the story is complex. How does entertainment distort reality when an actor is actually committing murders? How do you expose a group’s lies without getting yourself killed? This duology’s layers make for a memorable saga.

            Book 1: Snowglobe

"Snowglobe" by Soyoung Park

Snowglobe (Feb. 27, 2024) by Soyoung Park.
   Joungmin Lee Comfort, translator.

<This is the first novel in a duology.>

Enter a world of endless winter, where the average temperature is -50˚F. Jeon Chobahm lives in a meager dwelling with her “older” twin brother, Ongi, their mom and their grandma, who’s experiencing more memory loss. The twins and their mom all work at the power plant, which produces electricity for their sector and, primarily, Snowglobe. Snowglobe exists under a vast dome. It’s a place where the temperature is climate-controlled, and most all of the residents are actors, their unscripted-but-edited lives broadcast 24/7 to the frozen wasteland outside of Snowglobe’s protected dome. (The only place where there aren’t cameras is the Yibonn family estate. Young Master Yi Bonwhe is the heir. His personal assistant is Yu Junguhn.) Snowglobe residents have all the luxurious things: fame, fortune, warmth. Chobahm dreams of becoming a director, but so far, she’s only received rejections to her applications. Her favorite Snowglobe show is The Goh Haeri Show, and she looks strikingly like the show’s star and Snowglobe’s most famous resident, Goh Haeri. On the night that Chobahm risks her life to get Jo Miryu to the clinic, she meets Cha Seol. Director Cha is a hugely successful director, the person she most admires “in the entire universe,” and she’s proposed that Chobahm become Haeri. Haeri’s committed suicide, but the show must go on. Chobahm now has a dream life inside Snowglobe, but at what cost to her identity? Because Director Cha tells her she isn’t Chobahm anymore; she’s Haeri.
        The climate-ravaged world sets the stage in this YA dystopia. Snowglobe looks like a dream, but the reality is a lie. What is the truth, even? This novel explores personal identity, surveillance and ethics through a main character lens whose ambitions, anger, questions and compassion read realistically. This page-turner transports readers to a complex world with a dark underbelly and societal inequality. It’s bleak, but not without truth and hope, though it’ll take digging to find. I look forward to the sequel in the Snowglobe duology.