Snowglobe

 

Snowglobe / Soyoung Park
trans. from the Korean by Joungmin Lee Comfort
New York : Delacorte Press, 2024, c2020.
372 p.

This YA dystopia is set in a future Korea after climate disaster has reduced most of the world to constant sub-zero weather. We’re talking -50 on an ongoing basis. Chobahm lives in a small settlement with her mother, twin brother and grandma. Now that she is finished school, she works at the local plant – nearly everyone in every settlement spends their days generating electricity on a human hamster wheel. Other jobs are few and far between - some postal clerks, some train engineers but not much else.

 To keep people satisfied with their cold and meager lives, 24 hour-a-day reality tv is streamed from Snowglobe. That's a glittering city enclosed by a dome, with a temperate climate thanks to geothermal vents -- all run by one powerful family. Everyone in Snowglobe is either an actor or director, with actor’s full lives continually televised. Chobahm’s dream is to move to Snowglobe and become a director someday.

But Chobahm has a startling likeness to Goh Haeri, the star of her favourite show. And when Haeri disappears, her Director appears with a life-changing offer – Chobahm can accompany Director Cho to Snowglobe and take on Haeri’s role, with nobody else knowing there has been a change. But dreams can harbour dark sides, and Chobahm quickly finds out that Snowglobe is not as idyllic as she’d believed. Skewering reality tv, surveillance capitalism, and corrupt governing bodies, this fast paced novel is full of dramatic plotlines and strong characters. It ends with a cliffhanger – book two of the Snowglobe duology is due out next spring. I found it engaging, quick moving and creative. Very plot driven but with some fun characters to follow as well.