Your Letter by Hyeon A Cho – Quick Review

It’s almost as if you can hear a splash of water as the first panel of ‘Your Letter’ by Hyeon A Cho comes into view. The protagonist, a teen student called Sori Lee is soaked through her uniform, drops dripping from her hair, shirt, skirt, all off it against a stark white background, that only makes the image more vivid. The text says ‘it was just an ordinary day’. Simple use of irony. Works well enough.

Plot overview – Sori Lee changes school after she stands up to bullies who were bothering a classmate; instead of being lauded for her bravery, she only gets alienated by all. On the first day of her new school, Sori finds a letter plastered under the desk, it says ‘hello, welcome to our school.This letter was written to introduce you to this place’. The letter has a map of the school, details of all her new classmates and instructions to find the next letter. So the story is a treasure-hunt/mystery of sort, with the protagonist finding new letters and making a few new friends along the way.

Hyeon A Cho tackles the issues of bullying, isolation, childhood anxieties and the importance of friendship in a beautiful manner in this webtoon. The simple manga-style artwork, where characters turn into chibi-like creatures during exaggerated moods was entertaining and super adorable. Except for the a few flashbacks in between, the linear story-telling that’s almost like a treasure-hunt, with Sori Lee looking for a series of letters, keeps readers intrigued till the ending. Each little flashback only enriches the narrative.

‘Your Letter’ makes one nostalgic about the lost art of writing letters, and just how precious they can be, when penned by a dear friend. Hyeon A Cho uses a lot of solid pastel hues that give the story a warm glow, like a comfortable blanket wrapping you around in a cold-lazy winter morning. It’s a poignant tale of teens, with very little interference by older/parental characters, so there’s an unadulterated charm to the whole comic series.

A new reader friend had recommended this webtoon to me, and I would recommend it to you to dear reader. It’s a 5/5 from me.

Link to the free webtoon – Your Letter