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maddiechristine15's review
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
this broke my heart over and over again
lostcupofstars's review against another edition
3.0
This had such a promising start but I felt it really lost its momentum after the first two stories.
Shoko’s Smile and Xin Chao, Xin Chao were easily my favourites and the two I remember. I’ve already forgotten all the others.
Shoko’s Smile and Xin Chao, Xin Chao were easily my favourites and the two I remember. I’ve already forgotten all the others.
greedylovesreading's review
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
heartlinear's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
initially gave 4.5 stars for some reason and then immediately changed it to 5 because i wish i could read this collection for the first time again
km_kmssi's review
4.0
⁀➴ Shoko's Smile
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
|Shoko's Smile- 4.5/5
•Shoko once told me that standing on the shore made her feel like she was standing on the outskirts of the world.
•I judged them for chasing money and security instead of figuring out their true ambitions. A life like theirs seemed pointless. What I only cared about at the time was meaning, and I comforted myself in thinking that by following my dream, I was living a meaningful life. But I was scared.
•I spent longer hours at home alone. Oftentimes I wanted to see no one, and didn’t bother visiting or calling Mom and Grandpa. While distancing myself from the few people who loved me, I thought my films would portray some deep layer of the human psyche. Little did I know then how lonely this arrogance of mine made them feel.
•He was the one who’d raised me and carried me on his back while Mom went out to work. It was under his care that my flesh and bones grew and my blood flowed. I felt that I owed Grandpa a debt in spite of the people who said filial piety was just an ideology. I had done nothing for him, material or immaterial. Maybe that was why I strove harder to turn my back on him.
•That headstrong and impulsive, yet softhearted, strange man. My strange grandpa. That mess of a man. I gripped the umbrella Grandpa had held over me, watching his back until he disappeared.
•Grandpa was someone who was always there. Whatever happened, he would be there because that’s just what he did. All I was interested in was improving my situation and settling down so I could hold my head up.
•Grandpa mustered a painful smile. “If I’d told you, would you have come more often?” I hugged Grandpa’s head tightly in lieu of an answer. The top of his head smelled of oily hair. Grandpa stayed sixty- five more nights and passed away.
•Never had I been more awake than I was during those sixty- five days.
•“He boasted you were a carbon copy of him. When we started exchanging letters again, you won’t guess how proud he was of you. He also wrote about attending a film festival that screened your movie.”
Xin Chao, Xin Chao- 4/5
•At the very least, I should’ve been a friend that lent her an ear from time to time. I should’ve let her into my life at least a little. Not because she was my mother, but because she had been a lonely person for so long. I know now that determination or effort is not necessarily repaid in happiness. The fact that Mom couldn’t be happy with us didn’t imply a lack of responsibility for her life or negligence over herself.
•Xin chào, xin chào. We say the words over and over again. As if we have forgotten every other word.
|Sister, My Little Soonae -4/5
|Hanji and Youngju 4.5/5
•That fear had driven me since childhood and raised me into an adult who didn’t look so precarious on the outside. It had urged me not to be me, to never stop evolving into a better person. If I didn’t change, if I didn’t improve, I would be erased from this world. Yet I chose to stay there.
•I told them not to look and to just go forward. But they kept looking back. You know something, though? Even as they were looking back, they went forward. Slowly they walked into the prairie with their backs turned to us.”
•“Memory is a talent. You were born with it,” my grandma told me when I was young. “But it’s a painful one. So, try to make yourself a little less sensitive. Be extra cautious with happy memories, my dear. Happy memories seem like jewels when in fact they’re burning charcoal. You’ll hurt yourself if you hold on to them, so let go and dust off your hands. Child, they are no gift.”
•“I don’t care how badly you treat me. There’s no way in the world I could hate you. I’m fine meeting like this, I just want to stay in the same space as you. When I think about how I won’t see you here in a week, I tear up even while I walk. I guess I won’t be able to talk to you like this anymore. Hanji, please don’t walk out of my life like this.”
•Just like the many lives that had once stayed here and left.
|A Song from Afar 4/5
•“Soeun. The thing about children is, they believe and accept everything an adult says. They live with those words for the rest of their lives. You are nothing. You are nothing, my father would tell me. You’re a useless brat. A big, useless brat. I didn’t want to be seen, but my body kept developing. I walked around with a slouch hoping that hunching my shoulders would make me look a bit smaller, but it was no use. I wanted to disappear. That’s why when a Russian man proposed to me, I married him and came here like a runaway. I couldn’t leave him even when he treated me with contempt or swore at me for no reason. I must’ve thought he’d done me the huge favor of marrying me when I was nothing.” A bitter smile crossed Julia’s face.
•Because to live a long life was to see your loved ones go before you and get left behind for a long time, to suffer that ordeal then once again stand up and eat and walk your path alone.
|Michaela 3.5/5
|The Secret 4.5/5
•“By the time you grow up, whether yer a man or woman won’t matter no more. If someone tells you you can’t ’cause yer a woman, brush it off as ignorant nonsense an’ laugh in their face. You can be anyone an’ you can do anythin’. In yer generation, a person who has their heart in the right place will always be well off, man or woman.”
•Not that she didn’t fear death, but staying alive was just as scary and, in that sense, no different from dying.
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
|Shoko's Smile- 4.5/5
•Shoko once told me that standing on the shore made her feel like she was standing on the outskirts of the world.
•I judged them for chasing money and security instead of figuring out their true ambitions. A life like theirs seemed pointless. What I only cared about at the time was meaning, and I comforted myself in thinking that by following my dream, I was living a meaningful life. But I was scared.
•I spent longer hours at home alone. Oftentimes I wanted to see no one, and didn’t bother visiting or calling Mom and Grandpa. While distancing myself from the few people who loved me, I thought my films would portray some deep layer of the human psyche. Little did I know then how lonely this arrogance of mine made them feel.
•He was the one who’d raised me and carried me on his back while Mom went out to work. It was under his care that my flesh and bones grew and my blood flowed. I felt that I owed Grandpa a debt in spite of the people who said filial piety was just an ideology. I had done nothing for him, material or immaterial. Maybe that was why I strove harder to turn my back on him.
•That headstrong and impulsive, yet softhearted, strange man. My strange grandpa. That mess of a man. I gripped the umbrella Grandpa had held over me, watching his back until he disappeared.
•Grandpa was someone who was always there. Whatever happened, he would be there because that’s just what he did. All I was interested in was improving my situation and settling down so I could hold my head up.
•Grandpa mustered a painful smile. “If I’d told you, would you have come more often?” I hugged Grandpa’s head tightly in lieu of an answer. The top of his head smelled of oily hair. Grandpa stayed sixty- five more nights and passed away.
•Never had I been more awake than I was during those sixty- five days.
•“He boasted you were a carbon copy of him. When we started exchanging letters again, you won’t guess how proud he was of you. He also wrote about attending a film festival that screened your movie.”
Xin Chao, Xin Chao- 4/5
•At the very least, I should’ve been a friend that lent her an ear from time to time. I should’ve let her into my life at least a little. Not because she was my mother, but because she had been a lonely person for so long. I know now that determination or effort is not necessarily repaid in happiness. The fact that Mom couldn’t be happy with us didn’t imply a lack of responsibility for her life or negligence over herself.
•Xin chào, xin chào. We say the words over and over again. As if we have forgotten every other word.
|Sister, My Little Soonae -4/5
|Hanji and Youngju 4.5/5
•That fear had driven me since childhood and raised me into an adult who didn’t look so precarious on the outside. It had urged me not to be me, to never stop evolving into a better person. If I didn’t change, if I didn’t improve, I would be erased from this world. Yet I chose to stay there.
•I told them not to look and to just go forward. But they kept looking back. You know something, though? Even as they were looking back, they went forward. Slowly they walked into the prairie with their backs turned to us.”
•“Memory is a talent. You were born with it,” my grandma told me when I was young. “But it’s a painful one. So, try to make yourself a little less sensitive. Be extra cautious with happy memories, my dear. Happy memories seem like jewels when in fact they’re burning charcoal. You’ll hurt yourself if you hold on to them, so let go and dust off your hands. Child, they are no gift.”
•“I don’t care how badly you treat me. There’s no way in the world I could hate you. I’m fine meeting like this, I just want to stay in the same space as you. When I think about how I won’t see you here in a week, I tear up even while I walk. I guess I won’t be able to talk to you like this anymore. Hanji, please don’t walk out of my life like this.”
•Just like the many lives that had once stayed here and left.
|A Song from Afar 4/5
•“Soeun. The thing about children is, they believe and accept everything an adult says. They live with those words for the rest of their lives. You are nothing. You are nothing, my father would tell me. You’re a useless brat. A big, useless brat. I didn’t want to be seen, but my body kept developing. I walked around with a slouch hoping that hunching my shoulders would make me look a bit smaller, but it was no use. I wanted to disappear. That’s why when a Russian man proposed to me, I married him and came here like a runaway. I couldn’t leave him even when he treated me with contempt or swore at me for no reason. I must’ve thought he’d done me the huge favor of marrying me when I was nothing.” A bitter smile crossed Julia’s face.
•Because to live a long life was to see your loved ones go before you and get left behind for a long time, to suffer that ordeal then once again stand up and eat and walk your path alone.
|Michaela 3.5/5
|The Secret 4.5/5
•“By the time you grow up, whether yer a man or woman won’t matter no more. If someone tells you you can’t ’cause yer a woman, brush it off as ignorant nonsense an’ laugh in their face. You can be anyone an’ you can do anythin’. In yer generation, a person who has their heart in the right place will always be well off, man or woman.”
•Not that she didn’t fear death, but staying alive was just as scary and, in that sense, no different from dying.
tomoonarmy's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
mayann's review
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
krystalgaia's review
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
This book is a collection of stories about people drifting apart. While I generally enjoy this type of story, the author fell short in execution.
Would still like to read her future works tho!
Would still like to read her future works tho!