This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster. 
One of the monsters is me.
 
Yunjae was born with a brain condition called alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and grandmother provide him with a safe and con- tent life. 
On Christmas Eve—Yunjae’s sixteenth birthday—everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world, leaving him on his own. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until troubled teenager Gon arrives at his school, and the two develop a surprising bond.
 
As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people—including a girl at school—something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life at risk, Yunjae will have the chance to step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become the hero of his own story.
 
 
Sohn Won-pyung is a film director, screenwriter, and novelist living in South Korea. She earned a BA in social studies and philosophy at Sogang University and film directing at the Korean Academy of Film Arts. She has won several prizes, including the Film Review Award of the 6th Cine21, and the Science Fantasy Writers’ Award for her movie script. She also wrote and directed a number of short films and made her feature film directorial debut with Intruder. She made her literary debut in 2016 with Almond, her first full-length novel, which won the Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction. Released the following year, Counterattacks at Thirty received the Jeju 4.3 Peace Literary Prize and the 2022 Japanese Booksellers' Award.