A heavy, enthralling debut. When it began, I thought it may just be a novel about a wartime love triangle. But really, this book is about Haemi and women's roles in life in general and during a specific point in time and place (1950s-60s Korea). The narration switches between Haemi and the other people in her life, and we get a sense of Haemi's inner life and how distorted it is by others or misinterpreted. It's an emotional novel as a woman, and as a mother. There were moments I nearly trembled with anger at the callousness of the men, at the patriarchal expectations of society. The culminating event made me cry, the final coda made me hold my heart.

I feel like I'm certainly learning a lot about Korean history this year through fiction having read Pachinko and The Orphan Master's Son earlier this year.

4.5/5