DubaiReader

I listened to this for a book group, but I should have been more careful with the choice as I've never been a fan of courtroom drama. I was caught up in my enthusiasm for a book that had great reviews and centred around a South Korean family, but the courtroom part bored me.

The narrative revolved around a group of families who are trying a super-high oxygen treatment that was supposed to be effective for numerous cases, including autism, infertility and Cerebral Palsy. Unfortunately disaster strikes and a year later one of the mothers is brought to court accused of causing the death of one child and one mother in the oxygen 'submarine'.
The owners of the Magic Submarine are a South Korean couple and their teenage daughter. They have moved to America from Seoul and hope this treatment will provide for their family in their new home.

There were some interesting characters and good discussion on the traumas of having disabled children. Unfortunately, what spoiled this book for me was that not a single character seemed to be able to tell the truth and getting to the bottom of the story therefore just meant the author had to put us through endless false trails in order to get to the honest last few chapters. This was coupled with the inevitable repetition caused by courtroom dramas and I was left counting the minutes to the end.

It did not surprise me to hear that the author was a lawyer. Interestingly, like Mary, she was also an immigrant from S.Korea as a teenager, with no knowledge of English. That part would have been much more interesting to me as the centre for a narrative.

Well read by Jennifer Lim, although it sounded as if she started out with a cold.
2.5 stars, rounded up because I'm feeling kind.