Almond

About

Yunjae was born with alexithymia — a condition that makes it nearly impossible to feel fear, anger, or empathy. His mother and grandmother built his world with color-coded Post-it notes: when to smile, when to say thank you, when to laugh. Then, on his sixteenth birthday, a random act of violence destroys everything, and Yunjae is alone for the first time — a boy who cannot feel grief, surrounded by a world that expects him to. When a troubled teenager named Gon arrives at his school, Yunjae discovers that connection doesn't require feeling the same things — it requires showing up anyway. Sohn Won-pyung writes neurodivergence without sentimentality, letting Yunjae's flatness become its own kind of emotional register. Almond is a novel about the difference between not feeling and not caring — and the vast, quiet territory between them.