Reviews

This story can be described as a coming of age story of a young boy in 1970’s South Korea. The author of this book draws on his experiences growing up in Korea during this time. I will admit this book was hard for me to read as it describes many events that took place during the turbulent times in Korea. There are some chapters from the perspective of the main characters uncle who lived through the Korean War. The author does not shy away from revealing the atrocities of war. There were also some graphic depictions of animal cruelty. These subject matters made it hard for me to read the book in a short amount of time. That being said, it takes a lot for a book to impact me as emotionally as this book did. This books outlines how the families lives were impacted by the presence of war in their lifetimes. The main character wants to help his family members who are haunted by the war but he does not know how.

As someone who grew up with grandparents who grew up in the Netherlands and who experienced the horrors of World War Two, I believe that generational trauma is a real thing. By including multiple generations in this book, the reader was able to see how each person was impacted by the war. I really appreciated the author creating a story from his life experiences and bringing awareness to the events that happened during the Korean War as well.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reading copy.

katemariea514's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

marisapurcell's review

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

literatelizard's review against another edition

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2.0

A rambling and incoherent plot. Unnecessary graphic violence against animals. The insight into the time period itself as a Korean-American living on Army posts in South Korea was interesting, but not enough to redeem the book as a whole.

sci_mom's review against another edition

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3.0

I received this book through a Goodreads Giveaway. It has taken me over two months to finish this book. The writing itself is good, but I just wasn't connecting with the story even though I wanted to love it. In several parts, I felt like I must be reading book two in a series or had missed a prologue; it lacked the glue needed to make the pieces fit together in a more cohesive whole. Overall, I would say it is okay, not great, but others love it, so maybe I am just not the right audience.

alanathehangry's review against another edition

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Thanks to Goodreads giveaway for the Kindle copy of this book.

Not for me.

I really struggled to finish this, as can be seen with how long it took me. There were so many times where I wanted to DNF it, but I plowed on.

This book was too dark and gritty for me. But not in a good way (dark and gritty can be fantastic). For me, there was just way too much detail in every single action. Every moment was hyper-detailed in a way where it felt like the author was just writing a journal for himself.

Also, I just couldn't handle that whole dog fighting scene. But that's totally on me.

Besides the negatives, it was absolutely eye-opening to learn about the American military impact on Korea and post-war impacts as well. That was probably my favorite part. I learned a lot.

hsteinh's review

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3.25

intriguing overall but overly descriptive and took about 85% of the book to get into it

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