A Novel
by Dolki Min
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2023
176 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
Squid Game meets The Left Hand of Darkness meets Under the Skin in this radical literary sensation from South Korea about an alien's hunt for food that transforms into an existential crisis about what it means to be human.
After crashing their spacecraft in the middle of nowhere, a shapeshifting alien finds themself stranded on an unfamiliar planet and disabled by Earth's gravity. To survive, they will need to practice walking. And what better way than to hunt for food? As they discover, humans are delicious.
Intelligent, clever, and adaptable, the alien shifts their gender, appearance, and conduct to suit a prey's sexual preference, then attacks at the pivotal moment of their encounter. They use a variety of hunting tools, including a popular dating app, to target the juiciest prey and carry a backpack filled with torturous instruments and cleaning equipment. But the alien's existence begins to unravel one night when they fail to kill their latest meal.
Thrust into an ill-fated chase across the city, the alien is confronted with the psychological and physical tolls their experience on Earth has taken. Questioning what they must do to sustain their own survival, they begin to understand why humans also fight to live. But their hunger is insatiable, and the alien once again targets a new prey, not knowing what awaits....
Dolki Min's haunting debut novel is part psychological thriller, part searing critique of the social structures that marginalize those who are different—the disabled, queer, and nonconformist. Walking Practice uncovers humanity in who we consider to be alien, and illuminates how alienation can shape the human experience.
Walking Practice features 21 black-and-white line drawings throughout.
Translated from the Korean by Victoria Caudle
"An alien arrives on Earth, hungry for love. The narrator of Min's dark satire is a shape-shifting alien who crash-landed here 15 years ago. In that time, it's sampled all sorts of sustenance on our planet, but only human flesh truly satisfies. So it uses dating apps (username: Hunting4luv) to quell its cravings for sex and sustenance....Entertaining and surprising....A slim, sui generis allegory on romance and its discontents." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Abstract illustrations by Min hint at the narrator's private bodily state, and clever changes in the formatting indicate whether the narrator is in their natural or human form. Though the prose is sometimes stilted, the narrator's earnest struggles with loneliness feel genuine." - Publishers Weekly
"Surreal, compelling, and utterly unique." - Buzzfeed
"Walking Practice explores the burden of gender expectations, the struggle of having a flesh prison body, having to feed yourself and wanting to be loved, and even the awkwardness of dealing with other people on the subway. But what really makes this story sing is the uniqueness of the narrator's voice—both compelling and witty....It is moving and funny, critical and crass. This one is for anyone who is made to feel like an alien in their own body." - Tor.com
"Elegantly written and deceptively humorous, Dolki Min's bombastic debut novel, Walking Practice, is a haunting examination of survival, gender, and the complexity of the human experience. A tremendous literary achievement." - Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes
"Walking Practice is an unforgettable survival story of an alien trying to survive as a human on a hostile planet. This unique and imaginative, weird and delicate sci-fi is a considerate exploration of our social structures: the gender conventions, queerness, and discrimination against the weak. A radical, darkly funny, spine-tingling story, perfect for fans of Matt Haig's The Humans and Michel Faber's Under the Skin." - J.M. Lee, bestselling author of Broken Summer
This information about Walking Practice was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dolki Min is an artist and writer based in South Korea. Walking Practice is their first novel.
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