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hilaryreadsbooks's review
3.0
(cw: ableist language)
I knew I had to pick up Crystal Hana Kim’s IF YOU LEAVE ME after hearing Joseph Han mention its importance in modern Korean American literature. After the northern invasion, sixteen-year-old Haemi Lee chooses stable, wealthier Jisoo over the boy she loves. But she is unable to forget her regrets, even as she becomes a wife and a mother. We are drawn into the torment of self-sacrifice in the face of Korea’s civil war—as well as the undue burden that usually falls on mothers, daughters, and sisters. Haemi is left behind: by men, by love, by her children, by her family, and soon, by her own mind.
If you leave me. The book’s title can be read as a threat or a plea or even an open question. But never is it a demand—and how can it ever be, when it is uttered from the voice of women, who are punished in this book for being direct, for being “seductresses,” for being “loose”? We are reminded that love can never be just love. We are reminded that the indescribable and sometimes unforgivable things mothers and fathers do have a root in something we sometimes do not understand.
However, it was hard to ignore the undercurrent of ableism woven into the book’s plot. Never quite the focus, disability and its perception of being “unwhole” and “weak” still plays a crucial part in many of Kim’s characterizations. While it may have been a depiction of the times or of a culture I do not necessarily understand (i.e. perception of male ablebodiedness as being able to fight in the war), I wished that this ableism had been addressed more than it had, especially since three of our main characters could be identified as disabled (one an amputee, one living with chronic tuberculosis, and one mentally ill).
I knew I had to pick up Crystal Hana Kim’s IF YOU LEAVE ME after hearing Joseph Han mention its importance in modern Korean American literature. After the northern invasion, sixteen-year-old Haemi Lee chooses stable, wealthier Jisoo over the boy she loves. But she is unable to forget her regrets, even as she becomes a wife and a mother. We are drawn into the torment of self-sacrifice in the face of Korea’s civil war—as well as the undue burden that usually falls on mothers, daughters, and sisters. Haemi is left behind: by men, by love, by her children, by her family, and soon, by her own mind.
If you leave me. The book’s title can be read as a threat or a plea or even an open question. But never is it a demand—and how can it ever be, when it is uttered from the voice of women, who are punished in this book for being direct, for being “seductresses,” for being “loose”? We are reminded that love can never be just love. We are reminded that the indescribable and sometimes unforgivable things mothers and fathers do have a root in something we sometimes do not understand.
However, it was hard to ignore the undercurrent of ableism woven into the book’s plot. Never quite the focus, disability and its perception of being “unwhole” and “weak” still plays a crucial part in many of Kim’s characterizations. While it may have been a depiction of the times or of a culture I do not necessarily understand (i.e. perception of male ablebodiedness as being able to fight in the war), I wished that this ableism had been addressed more than it had, especially since three of our main characters could be identified as disabled (one an amputee, one living with chronic tuberculosis, and one mentally ill).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Emotional abuse, Death, War, Addiction, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Suicide, and Toxic relationship
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