Book review : Pretty Lies

Mira is haunted by the death of her mother and her specially abled sibling — a grief that does not soften with time but instead quietly hardens into something far more dangerous. She holds Jiwon, Yuchan’s mother, responsible for it all. One woman’s cruelty, her careless words aimed at a mother who deserved none of it, becomes the fault line into which everything else collapses. Mira’s thirst for vengeance is not loud or dramatic — it is patient, deliberate, and that makes it all the more chilling. The steps she takes are drastic, yes, but Bak writes them with enough interiority that you almost understand how a girl gets there.

Almost.
Almost..

Pretty Lies is structured as journal entries and letter confessions — an intimate format that suits the story uncomfortably well. Each character steps forward with their own version of the truth, their own guilt, their own reckoning with a crime whose ripple effect bleeds quietly into families who never even knew they were connected. Sulmi Bak does not give you a clean narrative — she gives you fragments, perspectives, and the slow, unsettling work of piecing together what actually happened and who is truly responsible.

A fair warning, though, this book is not for the faint-hearted. There is a vivid, deeply disturbing account of animal cruelty that will make you want to put the book down. The sheer cold audacity of the killer, preying on the voiceless and innocent, is genuinely difficult to sit with. However, somehow, you will not be able to skip it. That is exactly the kind of writer Sulmi Bak is — she makes you stay inside the discomfort until you understand why it was necessary.

What’s the first book of 2026 for you?

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