The Impossible Fairytale

In The Impossible Fairy Tale, Han Yujoo tells the unsettling story of two twelve-year-old girls in a South Korean classroom: Mia, who has everything, and a quiet, nameless girl known only as “the Child,” who goes unnoticed by others. Their school environment, ruled by small cruelties and harsh power struggles, becomes even darker when the Child starts writing strange, threatening notes in her classmates’ notebooks, leading to an unexpected act of violence.

Halfway through, the story takes a surprising turn, shifting into a layered, metafictional narrative where the author steps into the story, confronting the characters and the consequences of what has been written. This experimental novel explores the blurry lines between reality and fiction, the violence hidden within everyday life, and the unsettling power of stories themselves.